The Baptist Case for Baptizing (Believing) Children

A Friendly Consideration on Prudential Practice

Time for a little in-house-discussion with my fellow Baptists.

This essay is a Baptist case for baptizing believing children, rather than prolonging delay until young adulthood. I would like to make the increasingly unpopular case for esteeming childhood piety in the form of baptizing believing children into church membership. Every word here is crucial. I do not here imply that Baptists who only baptize young adults fail to esteem childhood piety de facto. I’m assuming that, for the sake of argument, my fellow Baptists on the other side of this issue do esteem childhood piety, in principle. But I want to make the prudential case for esteeming such piety in a specific way: in the form of baptizing believing children into membership.

Now, before going another step forward, I’ll need to ask that our pedobaptist friends in the back keep the snickering and the sidebar conversations to a minimum. And yes, I am especially looking at you Presbyterians, whose theology of infant baptism is, in my estimation, the most well-thought-out version of pedobaptism on offer. We should readily acknowledge that every theological tradition comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. With unflattering popular baptistic phrases like “vipers in diapers,” it should come as no surprise that my own tradition often comes with the disadvantage of an accidental ethos of suspicion towards childhood piety. That word accidental is important. By stressing its accidental character, I mean to say that while nothing in our theology demands it (i.e., it is not essential), often Baptists earn reputation for neglecting the discipleship of our young on account of a pessimistic view towards childhood piety.

It is true that many of us Baptists look over at your presbyterian churches furtively from time to time, secretly envious of the theological tidiness that makes you guys so good at catechesis and family discipleship. We, Baptists, don’t have to be shy about the fact that your presbyterian tradition, with your theology on baptism and the covenant, comes with the advantage of a pre-loaded rationale for vibrant family discipleship. Many of you take full advantage of that traditional benefit, and we salute you for doing so. Having said all that, I also must hasten to add that your tradition comes with the distinct disadvantage of being wrong about baptism and the covenant. So, there’s that. No, I will not be taking questions at this time.

“A Baptist of Baptists”

So, fellow Baptists, shall we have this little chat? I suppose it is not inappropriate to give some of my own bona fides so there’s trust on all sides. Is this, after all, a truly “in-house-discussion?” Yes, it is. I am no presbyterian operative, regardless of how many nice things I can (and will) say about those baby-sprinkling Christians we love.

If Paul can say he was a Hebrew of Hebrews (Phil 3:5), I assume it’s appropriate for me to identify myself as a Baptist of Baptists: baptized as a believer in college (after a questionable “baptism” at age 5 that ran afoul the abuses I’ll describe below), fully convinced of the congregational argument that Christ’s Church—expressed in local assemblies—has been entrusted with His keys to bind and loose on earth that which is bound and loosed in heaven (Matt 18:18), and that they exercise that God-given authority with church membership and all that it entails (i.e., baptism, partaking in the Lord’s Supper, and church discipline).

If it is appropriate to make such a self-designation, I would even say that I am a decidedly 9Marks kind of Baptist! Repeatedly, I have gone to bat—and on the record, too—for the Regulative Principle of Worship and congregational singing. You are reading the words of a Baptist who was (modestly) responsible for helping to lead the congregation he pastored from being an elder-ruled church to being an elder-led congregationalist church, effectively teaching the church to take authority away from her body of elders. In other words, you will find no sympathies for shallow conceptions of church membership from me. With my 9Marks insider friends, I champion a thick, robust, meaningful church membership and a tight relationship between (a) baptism, (b) church membership, (c) access to the Lord’s Supper, and (d) covenantal obligations to “one another” one another (Rom 12:10, 16; 1 Cor 13:12; Gal 6:2; Col 3:13).

This is not, in other words, a diatribe against serious Baptists. This is a friendly point of gentle pushback from a serious Baptist who sympathizes with his more strident congregational friends, even if he ultimately disagrees on the issue of the age for baptism. After all, we agree on almost everything—our orthodoxy (and, in a sense, even our orthopraxy) is the same. We agree, for example, that no one is born into the family of God by virtue of their parents’ pedigree but are only born again into the family of God by the Holy Spirit’s ministry. Christ’s Church has sons and daughters, but no grandchildren. We agree, what’s more, that baptism ought to be correlated essentially with church membership and regular access to the Lord’s Supper. If Baptism is the “front door” of the house of a local church, and the final step of church discipline (excommunication) is the back door of the same house, Communion is the “table fellowship” that makes the house a home. This means that baptism should not be administered to anyone who is not prepared to enter covenant membership. We agree, further, that baptism’s nonnegotiable prerequisite is a “credible procession of faith,” such that the church baptizing the individual might be able to confidently say: “We affirm this person’s profession of faith! According to our best judgment, we believe the Spirit has bound them in heaven and has baptized them into Christ, and we, therefore, as the institution that has been so authorized, gladly bind them on earth and baptize them into this local body.”

Good Reasons to Wait

Have I yet endeared myself to my “interlocutors?” Not yet? Then let me attempt to strengthen my case by appearing to weaken it. I gladly grant that the impulse to delay baptism of children (say, from a Christ-professing 6-year-old or 10-year-old or even 12-year-old) often arises from necessary and laudable concerns. The danger, for example, of prematurely baptizing a false convert can scarcely be exaggerated. No church that is full of unregenerate church members is the better for it, regardless of how old those members are. This practice can even be harmful for the young person being baptized. I cannot count how many membership-interviews I have conducted as a pastor wherein incoming members agonized over whether they were ever truly baptized as believers, since their church hastily issued this rite in an irresponsible manner when they were very young.

Further, my own position is not strengthened by my judgment that the vast majority of churches that baptize children do it in such unhealthy ways: wherein baptism is severed from church membership and Christian discipleship, and the congregation has little to no part to play in discerning if such a child’s profession of faith is, in fact, credible. In other words, most baptistic churches that baptize children would find the above arguments for meaningful church membership (those very arguments that are so familiar to 9Marks admirers) positively mystifying. They very often lack meaningful church membership, in other words. I think it’s safe to even say that the practice of baptizing children upon their profession of faith is a historical novelty (a dangerous point to grant for an apologist for the Great Tradition such as myself!). The historic majority report of Baptist churches speaks clearly and unambiguously about baptizing adults, but knows little to nothing of children baptizands. Indeed, even more can be said for this understandable hesitation to baptize children.

Let me summarize the strongest arguments (in my estimation, that is) for delaying baptism until young adulthood:

1. Delaying baptism is the historic Baptist practice.

2. Delaying baptism seems to be the practice of the early Church, which often insisted on a lengthy process (up to two years) of catechesis before administering baptism.

3. Delaying baptism is a safeguard against prematurely giving the signs and seals of the New Covenant to individuals who are not, in fact, “bound in heaven.” And this is important because of:

a. the danger of giving false assurance to an unbeliever,

b. the danger of bringing a false convert into covenant membership, and

c. the danger of preparing the person in the best-case scenario (i.e., the young child who is a true believer) for a future of doubt and uncertainty as to whether his or her baptism was legitimate.

4. Delaying baptism well-accounts for the whole local church’s responsibility in baptism: they need to have relative confidence in the credibility of the baptizand’s profession of faith, and the younger the profession the less confident they can ostensibly be.

5. Delaying baptism is safe. What is the harm in waiting? In other words, the dangers of premature administration of baptism outweigh the dangers of delayed baptism.

Now, I think these points all conspire together to make a really strong case for opposing my position. Indeed, with the exception of reasons #4 and #5 (which I will respond to momentarily), the force for delaying baptism for professing children from these arguments is almost irresistible. My push-back does not consist in my minimizing these important concerns. In fact, to those churches who have given children-baptisms a bad name, I would positively urge to get their houses in order. It should terrify a church to administer the sign and seal of New Covenant membership to someone who is not, in fact, a partaker of the covenant. Hastiness and thoughtlessness on this issue has the potential to impoverish a local church, not to mention the individual being baptized, in numerous ways.

And Yet…

Recall all the things we who stand on opposite sides of this question agree on: we agree (a) that prerequisite baptism is a credible profession of faith, (b) that baptism ought to be tied to church membership and its activities and responsibilities (i.e., church discipline and access to the Lord’s Table), and (c) that this is a rite given not to individuals, nor to parents, nor to pastors, but rather to the whole local church. We can add to this list of agreements, I think, that (d) God can and does sovereignly regenerate the hearts of some children, and (e) that what constitutes as “a credible profession of faith” must take into account the individual circumstances of the confessor (i.e., a child’s articulation of saving faith will look different than an adult’s, just as a mentally impaired person’s profession of faith will sound different from the seminary graduate’s). So, the difference between our respective positions is not one of theology or even practice, per se, but rather on the prudential judgment of timing.

My burden is not to diminish concern about the dangers of baptizing children, but rather to raise concerns about delay. On the one hand, I don’t begrudge pastors and churches who fear the prospect of premature baptism, I only wish they would feel the force of its opposite danger: saying no to the Holy Spirit’s “yes.” In other words, the prospect of a true believer going (potentially) years without the ordinary means of grace of baptism and communion and the covenant commitments of body-life should be heart-breaking. And this is where I wish to reexamine reason #5 above.

Dangers of Delay

Even if pastors and churches decide to take a different prudential route than the one I advocate for here, I would at least insist they wrestle with the potential cost of delaying baptism for too long. There are at least three potential costs that demand our attention.

The danger of depriving Spirit-baptized believers of the ordinary means of grace.

Baptism, regular access to the Lord’s Table, and the body-life activity of church membership (i.e., the “one anothers” in the context of covenant membership, and the exercise of the keys to the kingdom) are ordinary means of grace that our Lord uses to build up the church. As such, they are crucial for the spiritual growth of Christians. This is a point we rightly emphasize in response to those Christians who might be tempted to avoid them. “These are not optional,” we respond, “they are the means by which Christ sustains you and carries you into the Promised Land. You need these means of grace.” The Christian life is hard enough as it is. We would be foolish to deprive ourselves of the very means Christ intends to use to sustain us in the present pilgrimage.

The scenario in which someone comes to Christ by faith and is deprived of these means of grace despite his or her desire to receive them is a heart-breaking prospect. We rightly grieve this in the case of persecuted believers imprisoned for their faith, or for those sick and infirm and unable to gather with the saints in holy assembly. And yet, is this not the burden we inflict on believers by withholding these ordinary means of grace on account of their age?

The danger of tempting a low view of baptism, communion, and church membership.

This is a counterintuitive potential cost. After all, those who insist on delaying baptism do so because they ostensibly wish to preserve a high view of these rites, and don’t wish to dilute them by way of indiscriminate practice. But think about what prolonged delay communicates to the young believer: might it not suggest that the ordinary means of grace are nonessential? The seven-year-old believer who is kept from the baptismal waters is expected to grow in the faith for potentially up to a decade without the Lord’s Supper or meaningful church membership. Is he not thereby led to believe that the Lord’s Supper and meaningful church membership (and baptism) are expendable for Christian discipleship?

The danger of tempting legalism on the one hand or despair on the other.

While giving the impression that the ordinary means of grace aren’t essential for the Christian life is one potential cost of prolonged delay, I suspect the other impression is more common: inadvertently casting a shroud of suspicion on childhood piety. We communicate, “I don’t believe you,” in the face of young professions of faith. What might such a message produce in the minds of young Christians? On the one hand, it might produce a legalistic impulse to self-justify in the eyes of one’s elders. “Apparently,” they may come to think, in a childlike way, “I can’t simply receive Christ by faith to be a real Christian. To be believed, I must add to my faith all sorts of performances and works to be able to be baptized.”

It is worth asking if we are using equal weights and measures. If our adult co-worker tells us that they want to give their lives over to Christ—that they recognize their sin and their need for a Savior, and they want to receive the gift of grace—we instinctively celebrate this and respond with catechetical instruction in view of baptism into church membership. As we should. But if a young child conveys the same message, how often do we Baptists respond with an internal scoff and something equivalent to, “That’s very nice, kiddo, let’s see if you really mean it in a few years’ time”? Now, I should hope that no one would ever respond to expressions of childhood piety so curtly, but I fear this is often the impression we give: as if our inclination is to believe the professions of adults are genuine until proven false, and is to doubt the professions of children until proven genuine.

If such a shroud of suspicion cast over the professions of children do not produce an unintended legalism, it may just as reasonably produce an outright despair. “The pastor says that anyone who comes to Christ will receive him,” a child may understandably reason, “and when Christ receives them, they are baptized. And yet, the pastor also says I cannot be baptized. That must mean that Christ receives others but not me.” Again, I trust that every Baptist who advocates for delay would be rightly horrified by this tragic logic. But I suggest that the practice of prolonged delays in baptism implicitly suggests this logic to the self-conscious believing child. At the very least, I wish it were on our radar more frequently.

Therefore, my own position is that churches ought to baptize believers who make a credible profession of faith into local church membership, regardless of their age. Obviously, a “credible profession of faith,” will look differently for an 8-year-old than it does for an 18-year-old. But if we are agreed that an 8-year-old, for example, can be truly saved, we must grant that an 8-year-old profession of faith looks like something. A good litmus test on this issue might be summarized as the “funeral sermon test.” If you could preach a person’s funeral, and you could offer the encouragement that the person is almost certainly in heaven on account of their profession of faith and the fruit in their life, such a person was baptism eligible. The pastor who refuses to baptize a 7-year-old on account of her age, for example, but could then preach at her funeral and say, “I had the most encouraging conversations with Sally about Christ and her faith. I am truly confident that she is with the Lord Jesus Christ right now,” is being inconsistent.

Answering Some Remaining Objections

Before concluding with a final plea for consideration, it’s worth responding to a few remaining objections to baptizing believing children. I have four in mind.

“The local church can’t be confident of the credibility of a child’s profession of faith.”

This object corresponds to reason #4 for delaying baptism above, and I grant that it may be the case for many churches. But this is a discipleship issue, and churches can mature in this area if they are discipled to take the piety of children seriously. This would look like increasing discernment and care for kids who profess faith in Christ among the flock. It should be clear, then, that I am not advocating for churches to “lower the bar” for baptism and church membership, as if baptizing children means automatically dropping all due diligence to discern credible professions of faith. The church that puts these things into practice as I am describing them may decide not to baptize a great deal of children who profess faith if their profession cannot be discerned as credible. This is no contradiction. We don’t baptize anyone who simply says, “I want to be baptized.” I am not advocating for a rejection of catechesis or baptismal/membership interviews, but rather for a catechesis and baptismal/membership interviews that takes legitimate childhood piety into account. Churches can grow in this area, but not by accident.

“Children can’t be knowledgeable in their votes and activities as members.”

I simply don’t accept this response. It is true that children have varying depths of awareness but practicing the ins and outs of church membership is a growing experience. They learn to grow in their depth of understanding by engaging in the activities involved while being taught about them, just like every other church member. I fear we often lose sight of the deeply spiritual benefit of the ordinary means of grace when we make them strictly cerebral. Members grow in their edification of covenant commitments and participation in the Lord’s Supper and the like even as they are growing by incremental steps in their understanding of the same. Why would this not also be the case for believing children?

Similarly, we recognize that immature Christians often lean entirely on the wisdom of those who have discipled them and led them to Christ for the first few years of their Christian journey. This is a normal part of Christian discipleship. “So, what are we voting on?” “Why is this person being disciplined?” “Should I vote to affirm this pastor? What should I be looking for in order to inform my vote?” These are all questions an immature believer asks his more mature mentor. When these questions are asked, discipleship happens when the mentor answers them: “I’m going to vote to affirm this pastor, and I think you should too. Here’s why.” If that is the case for immature Christians and their mentors, why would it not be appropriate for children and their parents—their primary God-ordained spiritual mentors?

“What about member meetings that cover sensitive matters?”

Picking up on where my answer to the previous objection left off, I see no problem with concluding that believing member-parents have the parental responsibility to determine their kids’ maturity level. It is right for their role as parents to inform them on which meetings they excuse their children (believing or not) from attending.

“If parents can make those calls, then the children haven’t truly entered into meaningful church membership—meaningful church membership means that the individual comes out from under his parent’s authority to being under the authority of the local church and her pastors.”

This objection is the one for which I have the least sympathy. I must confess, it feels a bit like grasping for straws. Would we not, by this logic, require for wives to come up from under the authority of their husbands once they become members of a local church?

We should be able to affirm that the various governments and authority-structures God has set in place can co-exist. Sure, things become messy where they overlap, but this need not erase their conceptual and legitimate distinctions. A wife that is submissive to her husband is not wrong for refusing to heed his commands to speed on a highway. Why? Because she is also subject to the law and the state. A wife can be under the authority of her husband, her pastor, and her government in different ways on account of their differing spheres of authority. Why could a child not likewise be subject to both his parents in one way, and his pastors and local church in another? Again, the overlap of these authority structures in certain instances (like in the case of a membership meeting wherein members are expected to vote, but that also will contain material the parent does not seem suitable for his child) does not erase their conceptual and legitimate distinctions.

A Concluding Plea to Display the Heart of Christ

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away. (Matt 19:13-15)

This biblical episode is a favorite among pedobaptists who wish to offer a “gotcha” to Baptists who refuse to sprinkle their infants. Baptists rightly retort that Jesus is commending certain childlike virtues in these situations. He wants for us to be childlike, and he commends the childlike virtues of humility and trust. Children are professional gift-receivers. They are the best receivers of gifts specifically because they are not prideful or self-conscious or cynical. Most children, when they receive a truly good gift, do not need to be instructed on either (a) their benefit of receiving the gift rather than trying to make their own inferior version of it, or (b) the fact that receiving the gift means that they cannot earn it or pay it back. No, they will take the gift and immediately begin enjoying it. That’s what you do with gifts: you receive them. So, the proper response to the news that following Jesus is impossible in our own strength (Matt 19:10; 19:22-23) is not to despair or try harder, but rather to become childlike in our trust and gratitude—to humbly receive Christ and all he is for us.

And yet, we would not be treating this passage faithfully if we simply concluded with an abstract commendation of childlike piety. After all, Jesus does not here say that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like children—but rather to the children who come to Jesus themselves. This passage is not merely about Christ’s heart for those who are like children, but also about his heart for children.

To feel the force of this scene, try, if you will, to sympathize with the disciples. It would be easy, but ultimately misleading, for us to read this story as if the disciples are just being mean or belittling to the children in a cruel way. But keep in mind what’s happening in the story: Jesus was teaching. It’s not crazy for us to conclude, with the disciples, that the people bringing their small children to Jesus were being a distraction or a disruption. This is why the text tells us that the disciples rebuked not the children, but the parents who were pushing their children on Jesus. And to be fair, if Jesus is ministering through teaching, how crazy is it, really, to conclude that Jesus is being distracted from his real ministry by having to deal with those who can’t even comprehend his teaching?

Nevertheless, we must conclude that the disciples misread the situation. They were wrong in their estimation that Christ’s real ministry was among the adults, and that the children were a distraction. While the disciples felt compelled to correct the crowds, Christ felt compelled to correct the disciples. It is as if Christ is saying, “Don’t you dare try to keep them from me; they lay more claim on my attention than you do. The Kingdom is composed of children—specifically, those who come to me believingly, and are brought to me believingly by their parents. Don’t demand that they be more like you in order to gain my attention, rather, be more like them!” Jesus, the children, and their parents all seem to agree that Jesus’s attention is well spent on the spiritual welfare of the children. They want him to lay hands on the children and to pray for them, and Jesus gladly obliges.

My prayer is that we would be just as wary of despising childhood piety—even inadvertently—as we are of offering baptism prematurely. We must reckon with the fact that this passage tells us that Jesus thinks highly of children being brought to him. The fact that your small children believe you when you tell them about Jesus is something Jesus himself considers a virtue to be emulated, not an occasion for doubting their sincerity. How strange is it that we are tempted to say, “Oh, they just say they believe in Jesus because they heard it from us and they’re trying to be like us,” as if that’s a bad thing! Why should we not fan this gracious and providential gift (i.e., your children being born into a believing household, pre-loaded with the desire to be like you) into flame rather than dousing it in the name of being discerning?

Now, I recognize that we can innumerate stories of children who make a profession of faith when they are younger and who turn from Christ when they get older. But why should our default consideration of our children’s early signs of piety be suspicion and skepticism? Why should we be so uncharitable as to assume that they will fall away, when Jesus’s posture seems to work in the opposite direction? After all, there are also plenty of stories we could share of adult converts who apostatize as well. This does not lead us to have a default posture of skepticism towards every profession of faith for adults. Neither should we let professing children who grow up to reject Christ lead us to assume that childhood professions of faith are false until proven genuine.

This point has been made in striking fashion by C.H. Spurgeon (always a safe person to quote for Baptists!):

I hope it is not quite so common as it used to be, but I used to see in certain quarters among old folks a deep suspicion of youthful piety. The seniors shook their heads at the idea of receiving children into the church. Some even ventured to speak of converts as “only a lot of girls and boys”: as if they were the worse for that. Many if they hear of a child-convert… sharpen their axes to have a cut at him by way of examination. He must know all the doctrines, certainly, and he must be supernaturally grave. It is not every grown-up person who knows the higher doctrines of the Word, but if the young person should not know them he is set aside. Some people expect almost infinite wisdom in a child before they can believe him to be the subject of Divine grace. This is monstrous. Then, again, if a believing child should act like a child, some of the fathers of the last generation judged that he could not be converted, as if conversion to Christ added twenty years to our age. Of course, the young convert must not play any more, nor talk in his own childish fashion, or the seniors would be shocked; for it was a sort of understood thing that as soon as ever a child was converted he was to turn into an old man…Now, if any of you still have an idea in your head hostile to the conversion of children, try and get rid of it, for it is as wrong as wrong can be… learn from the Master’s words that you are not to try and make the child like yourself, but you are to be transformed till you yourself are like the child.^[1]

I don’t presume to tell other churches what their policy must be on baptism and church membership. Frankly, it’s none of my business. Perhaps you conclude that the costs of premature baptism still outweigh the costs of prolonged delays in baptism. Fair enough. This is a prudential matter, and I have no intention of elevating it to the level of dogma. Every church and church leadership body has to discern how to organize their homes and church practices. Much wisdom is required in this area, and we will all ultimately answer to the Lord for the stewardship he grants to each of us. I simply wish to call our attention to a way we may be tempted to violate Christ’s heart, even inadvertently. However we decide to structure our churches, we must take care to ensure we showcase, rather than obscure, Christ’s generous heart toward children.

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[1] Spurgeon, Come Ye Children, 32.