"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)
In one of those conversations that takes legs of its own, I was chatting with a man at the weekend, and the subject of baptism, and being born again came up. (Conversation used to be so much easier when it was all beer and fast bikes.) He had joined a quite outgoing sort of church, but occasionally felt a bit left out. Every now and again, an adult would come forward to be baptised, and they would give a testimony of their life so far. Some of these testimonies could be quite revealing, but they would build towards a point where they encountered God, turned away from whatever wrongs they had committed and through their baptism cleansed of all previous sin.
Now the two of us were in agreement that to stand up in front of a bunch of complete strangers, and spill out your life story takes guts, and we thought anyone in that position was taking a very brave step. But he said to me that he occasionally felt a bit uncomfortable, because he never had that sort of moment. He had never known of a time where he wasn't a believer, and while his faith may have had stronger or weaker moments, it was always with him. I'm glad he brought it up, because I've felt the same way. Does an adult baptism with a testimony of someones life make those baptised as infants feel uncomfortable? How do we avoid this discomfort? How do we get adults to identify with their baptism as a child?
And what of those who believe in re-baptism? Does this weaken the baptismal message? I know this isn't a CofS thing, but there are those for whom re-baptism is a valid idea.
And that's about as much though as I'm giving that for just now. I've just finished my essay on Mark's portrayal of the Twelve. Now I'm moving onto my Sacramental Theology essay on "Why do we baptise children?" I suppose the first thing to ascertain is who "we" are, because if I asked that question amongst some groups, the answer would be "we do not."
Plenty to think about. I may come back to this post in a few weeks.
I know how you fee, I always felt I didn't have a " testimony" as I'd grown up in church, hadn't been a wild teen etc. then I went through a tough tough time and God brought me back in an amazing and powerful way. That's mt testimony now and people who know me and knew me see the difference. This was years ago but truly profound and a total turn around. So God moves in our lives and uses different situations, great God of diversity thankfully. As to your Mark essay I've just started a Bible Study on Mark at my Probationary placement and I'm specifically observing the sacraments ( and that seems to be the defining Wordsworth far "observing")
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