Sunday, July 29, 2012

The in-group

I’m going to propose a modest little argument for infant baptism. Mind you, I don’t think there’s much riding on this issue one way or the other.

The usual arguments for and against infant baptism are theological. Mine is sociological. Let’s begin with some illustrations.

When I’m born, I’m born into a community. I have an individual identity, but I also have a social or familial identity. I have a built-in set of relationships. I’m born into a family. I’m related to my parents. I’m related to my siblings, if I have any. I’m related to aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents.

By “relation” I don’t mean a blood relation, per se. After all, some of my relatives are in-laws.

Rather, there’s a sense in which I belong to that social unit. I’m a member of that nuclear family or extended family. And there’s nothing I did to achieve that status. Rather, that’s an ascribed status.

Likewise, if I’m born to rich parents, that puts me in a differential social class than if I’m born to poor parents. And I did nothing to merit or demerit that social status. It’s a role I’m born into by virtue of second parties I’m related to.

Or take nationality. I was born in America to American parents. That automatically made me an American citizen. The United States claims me. I have certain rights and responsibilities as an American, in contrast to rights and responsibilities I’d have as an Italian or Scotsman or Frenchman.

Suppose your parents belong to a church. They belong to a religious community. If you’re born to your parents, you are thereby born into their religious community. Because they belong to that religious community, and you belong to your parents (“belong” in the sense of being a family member), you belong to that community. You acquire their preexisting social attachments. Their affiliation becomes your affiliation via your affiliation to them.

Infant baptism is a public acknowledgement that you’re a member of that religious community by virtue of your relationship to your parents, and their relationship to the religious community. It carries over. (This would also be true if your parents joined a church.) You are born into whatever in-group your parents belong to.

You’re not treated as an outsider. It’s not like you just walked in off the street.

To take another illustration, when I was a young kid, the principal of the school where my father taught held a summer picnic on school grounds for the faculty. But, of course, attendance wasn’t restricted to faculty. Spouses and children of faculty members were both allowed and expected to come. They were part of the in-group. Although they weren’t employed by the school, they were treated differently than a stranger who simply walked onto the campus to crash the party. The man on the street wasn’t invited to the picnic.

By the same token, it’s possible to lose your ascriptive membership. In principle, I could renounce my American citizenship. I could apply for citizenship in another country. That would be analogous to apostasy. Or I could be convicted of treason and deported. That would be analogous to excommunication.

Ascriptive membership is different from communicant membership. That’s not transmissible. Communicant membership requires a credible profession of faith. Kinship doesn’t cut it.

12 comments:

  1. The only problem I have with this argument is that from my understanding it doesn't account for the symbolism that the NT gives to baptism. I don't see ascriptive membership in the NT, I see dying with Christ and being raised with him in faith as the basis, symbol and reason for baptism. Am I missing something?

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    1. We need to distinguish what baptism signifies in itself from what it signifies in relation to the baptized. The theological symbolism of baptism doesn't mean or presume that every baptized individual exemplifies what baptism signifies.

      There were tares among the wheat in the NT church. In Acts, Ananias and Saphira would have been baptized church members, but they fail to embody what baptism signifies. Same thing with Simon Magus. Same thing with the heretical schismatics in 1 Jn 2:19. It's clear from several NT letters that NT churches were a "mixed multitude" of wheat and tares. True believers, nominal believers, and closet apostates.

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    2. "I see dying with Christ and being raised with him in faith as the basis, symbol and reason for baptism."

      Romans 4 points to circumcision as a "sign and seal of righteousness by faith." Yet we agree that such a seal was appropriately applied to infants? Infants were circumcised by human hands before they could make any claim to "circumcision of the heart." (Deut 10:16;Jer 4:4)

      When baptists read Rom 6 and Col 2, they assume water baptism is in view (and i think the same is true for Roman Catholics and others who teach baptismal regeneration). The thing is that the rest of the bible seems fairly clear on salvation by faith alone. Abraham was saved by faith alone before he received the OT symbol of faith (Rom 4 again). Do you really believe that we are no longer saved by faith alone but must also receive water baptism to be united to Christ and at that point justified, having our sins washed away?

      I'd have to agree with Steve that baptism is a symbol of salvation by faith (just as circumcision was) but does not correspond one-to-one with salvation by faith (just as circumcision didn't.) Not every member of the NT church (even a baptist church) is really a Christian any more than all OT Israel was "true Israel."

      I'm open to switching sides on this one but right now it looks like there is more continuation from the OT in the NT than there is a break with the OT, so I would expect that God still deals with households and infants are still to be included in the visible covenant community unless they prove otherwise.

      -charles

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  2. First time on the blog. Usually spend my time over at PhoenixPreacher.net and CalvaryChapelAbuse.com but looking to spend some time elsewhere. Jason Stellman and some others said what a-holes you are...so I felt like this was the place for me LOL. I read the "rules": "Unlike some Christian blogs, Triablogue allows and welcomes your comments. Unlike some Christian blogs, we also have a very lenient policy on commenters." Lenient, yikes. That rest of that thing read like the disclaimer to the "infallible, inerrant, perfect Scripture" disclaimer of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

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    1. There's nothing wrong with the Chicago Statement. Everyone comes to the Bible with certain expectations, be it liberals or conservatives. The Chicago Statement is correcting false expectations regarding the nature of inerrancy.

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  3. Although Steve came to us as a humble Presbytillar, I know that he will one day emerge a wondrous Bapterfly! :D

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  4. Speaking as a former Roman Catholic, infant baptism has always seemed to me at best superfluous, at worst as a source of false hope.

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    1. Infant baptism isn't all of a kind, though. Presbyterians affirm infant baptism, but they deny baptismal regeneration.

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    2. True. Some of my favorite writers like Michael Horton and Kim Riddlebarger believe in it and have explained it very well, as has Steve in his post. I just don't really get it myself. Maybe it's just a reaction against my Catholic past.

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  5. @Peter

    Steve mentioned Ananias and Saphira, Simon Magus and the heretical schismatics in 1John 2:19. I could also throw in the guy shacked up with his stepmom in 1Cor5 whom Paul urges the Corinthians to expel from membership.

    All of these were likely baptized as adults. Is adult baptism a more sure hope? Then why was the apostle Peter so mean to Simon Magus after he professed belief and was baptized in Acts 8?

    Seems like our only real hope is repeatedly returning to Christ in faith, and not in water baptism at all (as water can only remove dirt from the body. 1Pet3:21).

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    1. @chalee

      I agree. Good point about adult baptism providing false hope as well. That certainly is true. I do tend to think, though, that adult baptism, if done with real faith in Christ, has a deep spiritual meaning which infant baptism can never have. But then, as I've never been a Presbyterian or Lutheran, maybe my understanding is incomplete.

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  6. "I have certain rights and responsibilities as an American, in contrast to rights and responsibilities I’d have as an Italian or Scotsman or Frenchman."

    There's no true Scotsman.

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