Church Voices

Why is it that many unchurched people in our society understand the importance and commitment involved in being immersed (baptized) while much of the church leadership in America places it’s importance below the Ten Commandments (or some other arbitrary delineation degrading immersion to a rule that can be qualified)?

I have known dozens of youths (often teenagers) who have expressed a desire to be immersed into Christ Jesus but whose parents have either refused or told them to wait.  In fact, there is a situation right now in our community where a father doesn’t want his daughter to be immersed because of the importance and weight of such a decision.  One that involves a lifelong commitment to faith in God.  You know, it is an important decision.  Being immersed into Christ is a proclamation to the world that you are committing your life to Christ.

That in and of itself should be enough to keep immersion in its place as part of the conversion experience.  (There are other reasons as well, but this post is not about them.)  Instead we have ministers and church leaders telling people that it’s akin to tithing.  (Hmmm, I don’t even know if that is true since many church leaderships in our country view tithing as a requirement that God makes of Christians.  Would they be the same people to be repulsed at the idea that immersion is a requirement of God to become a Christian?)  Immersion is not something you do when you become a more mature Christian, immersion is what is done to you to begin your journey following Christ Jesus.

I find it ironic that many Christians are so immersed in our culture that they are unable to see their own compromise to a dualistic worldview that results in privatized faith and often a rejection (in part) of Truth as revealed to us in God’s word, and yet many non-Christians have maintained a sense of that Truth despite a conscious rejection of it.