Archive: The Infant Baptism Controversy

By Ben Husted

Charlie and Helen were the kind of people any pastor would like to have in the church: they tithed, taught Sunday school, worked in United Methodist Men’s and Women’s groups, studied, witnessed for Christ and loved every pastor. I was interested, then, when they asked me to “come by sometime.” They had, they said, been thinking about something for a long time and wanted to talk with me about it.

When I made it a point to visit them they talked about having been baptized as infants and raised in the church. As adults they had experienced the new birth and for years had wanted to be baptized by immersion. When they had visited with previous pastors about this they had been rebuffed, and the significance of infant baptism had been explained to them. The conviction of their consciences, however—what they perceived as the direction of the Holy Spirit—did not cease. “Will you,” Charlie asked, “baptize us?”

Years later a young couple joined our church. She had been raised in the Disciples of Christ Church, he more or less in the Baptist Church, but now they had joined the United Methodist church their friends attended, where people were warmly concerned for their spiritual welfare and where they felt at home.

When their child Lauren was born we visited about infant baptism. They did not want her baptized, but they did want her presented to God at the altar of the church in infant dedication. Using an appropriate ritual, without water, Lauren was dedicated to the Lord at the altar of the church in a beautiful moment of worship. One long-time member of the church, however, missed part of the proceedings and asked on the way out, “Why didn’t you use water when you baptized that baby?”

Do we “rebaptize”? Do we “dedicate” infants in the United Methodist Church? These are questions every United Methodist pastor is asked. They are often answered, sometimes abrasively, in the negative. These questions, though, are answered in a surprisingly clear affirmative in our tradition!

The United Methodist Church, as we all know, is the child of a Methodist parent and an Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) parent. Our grandparents on the Methodist side are British Wesleyan Methodism and American history, and on the EUB side they are the United Brethren (UB) and Evangelical Association (EA).

Wesley’s position on baptism was the same as the Church of England’s position. When, in 1758, he published the treatise “On Baptism” it was simply a condensation of his father’s longer work on the subject, which was, in Albert Cutler’s words, “a square-toed summary of what was already essentially commonplace in central Anglican sacramental theology.” It was a treatise on infant baptism.

In 1784, when Wesley sent documents to America to help organize the Methodist Episcopal Church, Article XVII stated in part, “The baptism of young children is to be retained in the church.” This article, with the others, was adopted and protected from change, at least until 1972, by the First Restrictive Rule.

So for more than 180 years we were, as Methodists, bound to believe in infant baptism. And we were content to defend it with Wesley’s arguments, borrowed from a long list of ancestors reading back at least to Martin Bucer and Ulrich Zwingli during the Reformation.

Our forebears on the EUB side are not so well-known, nor are their practices so easily explained. Understanding them must take in the full sweep of the history of the Christian practice of baptism. The brief glimpse we can take here will be too limited, but perhaps it can show the major lines of the picture.

Infant baptism is a practice whose origin is simply lost in antiquity. There is no indisputable evidence that it was an apostolic practice, but it was practiced in some areas, at least, in the early second Christian century. It was not universally practiced, though, until sometime after the middle of the third century. During the Reformation the issue simply exploded into controversy.

Ulrich Zwingli was a Swiss Reformer who benefited from Luther’s pioneering work and, thus free from some bondage, went beyond Luther into what he considered new freedom, freedom to follow the Scriptures alone. Others followed Zwingli and took his approach a little further; they found in the Scriptures neither the state church nor infant baptism.

These issues were intimately related; infants were baptized into the church to which all citizens of a state belonged. Contending for a “called-out church” rather than a state church, the so-called Radical Reformers or Anabaptists also contended infant baptism was, on scriptural grounds, invalid—no baptism at all. So they baptized believers, which was recognized by the state church as rebaptism—theological heresy.

In contending for the baptism of believers into a called-out church, the Anabaptists were attacking the entire social order. Emotions ran high and feelings ran deep. Lines were drawn and blood was shed by both sides. For two centuries Anabaptists, such as the Mennonites, were persecuted by Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed alike, hunted from country to country, looking for a home. Some found tolerance in the new world.

Against the backdrop of the Reformation’s violence between Anabaptists and the state church, surely one of the most beautiful pictures of all Christendom is that of the first meeting between Phillip William Otterbein and Martin Boehm, fathers of the UB Church.

Otterbein, it is well known, was the scholarly pastor of a Dutch Reformed church. As a Reformed pastor, however, he had experienced an evangelical awakening just as had the Methodists. He and Methodists preached the same doctrine, followed the same disciplines and fraternized openly.

In 1766 or 1767 Otterbein went to a meeting of German Christians at Isaac Long’s barn near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This was a so-called “Big Meeting,” something like the camp meetings of a later age. Preaching at the Big Meeting was Martin Boehm, a Mennonite preacher who had also experienced, and preached, the new birth.

Otterbein was greatly moved by Boehm’s simple preaching of the Gospel, and after the service he made his way to the front where he embraced the bearded, plainly dressed Anabaptist and said, “Wir sind Bruder! ” or “We are brethren! ”

The new birth and a bear hug swept away 200 years of hatred and bloodshed. A bond of fellowship and love was formed that was strong enough to accept different views and practices of baptism. The church that eventually formed around those two men included not only Reformed, who baptized infants by sprinkling, and Mennonites, who baptized believers by pouring, but also Dunkers, who baptized believers by trine immersion, and Schwenkfelters, who did not practice outward baptism at all. No wonder the Statement of Faith of the United Brethren, when it was organized in 1800, simply said, “We recommend that the outward signs and ordinances—namely baptism and the remembrance of the Lord in the dispensing of bread and wine—be observed; also the washing of feet when the same is desired.”

This confession continued in effect until amended in 1889 when a similarly accepting confession was adopted. Article VII reads in part, “… the mode of baptism and the manner of observing the Lord’s Supper are always to be left to the judgment and understanding of each individual. Also, the baptism of children shall be left to the judgment of believing parents.”

Our other grandparent from the German side was the Evangelical Association (EA), established in 1803 around the work of Jacob Albright. Albright was a baptized Lutheran who experienced the new birth about 1790 through Methodist neighbors and Otterbein’s associates. An accepting attitude toward baptism was held in the EA, and both believer and infant baptism were practiced.

However, in 1829 an EA pastor rebaptized someone who had received infant baptism. This caused a major stir, and the matter was taken to the Western Annual Conference where the vote was unanimous in condemning that action and forbidding rebaptism.

The matter did not end there, however; it was taken to the EA General Conference in 1839. The decision of the Western Conference was overturned, and it was established that “rebaptism was permitted when desired, but that it should not become a frequent practice, and pastors must not advocate it.”[1]

Having drawn these elements from the history of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, we must also note that as time went on both parents of the EUB, and then the EUB Church itself, moved more toward a general practice of infant baptism. This is reflected in the Articles of Confession adopted at the United Conference in 1946 and still carried in our Discipline. Article VI states in part, “We believe children are under the atonement of Christ and as heirs of the kingdom of God are acceptable subjects for Christian baptism.”

This being said, though, it is also true that the EUB Church never officially moved away from its more inclusive position. This is evidenced by the fact that the Ritual of Dedication of Infants was still part of the official ritual of the EUB Church in 1968. A small concession to this was made in the UMC Discipline of 1968. In a change from the Methodist Discipline of 1964, children were to be added to the Preparatory Membership Roll who were “baptized or dedicated,” rather than only baptized.

This wording remained in the Discipline until it was quietly dropped in 1980. Since that time we seem to have no recollection of our EUB tradition in that part of our Discipline.

This being the case, it may come as a surprise to many, as it did to me, that the ritual of the Dedication of Infants is still a part of our official United Methodist ritual. According to the information recently circulated by the United Methodist Book of Worship Committee, “Currently, the United Methodist Church recognizes that ‘The Ritual of the Church’ is that contained in: 1. The Book of Ritual of the Evangelic!! United Brethren Church (1959). …”[2]

I was able to find this Book of Ritual, actually a part of the 1959 Discipline, in the archives of a UM university library. There, paragraph 2071 is the ritual for “The Baptism of Infants”; paragraph 2072, “The Baptism of Adults”; and paragraph 2073, “The Dedication of Infants.” Yes, UMs dedicate infants.

A new note of adventure was added to this mix of traditions at General Conference last year when we adopted a much more Anabaptist doctrinal statement than we have ever had. Now our Discipline reads, “Scripture is the primary source and criterion for Christian doctrine,” and “Scripture remains the norm by which all traditions are judged.”

While I do not doubt that with that statement we had in mind a correction to the problems of pluralism—the growth of new “traditions” not rooted in Scripture—the new statement invites us to examine not only someone else’s favorite traditions but ours as well. I believe it invites us to an examination of our traditions concerning baptism under the searching light of Scripture.

In that light infant baptism cannot be presented as a litmus test. Scripture simply does not conclusively demonstrate the practice of infant baptism. We recognize this fact when we say “Scripture implies it”[3] or when we join Zwingli in stretching infant baptism into a parallel with circumcision. Those arguments are convincing if we really want to be convinced, but they simply are not definitive.[4]

All of these considerations invite us to move forward into a new attitude among United Methodists toward infant baptism. Yet that step forward can be simply a step back to reclaim a powerful and beautiful part of our tradition, the tradition of tolerance found in our United Brethren and Evangelical Association grandparents.

I believe it is time to recognize that neither Scripture nor our tradition as United Methodists has a clear and unquestionable word on the mode and practice of baptism. It is time for all of us to openly affirm that Charlie and Helen are “good United Methodists” and that Lauren is just as much a preparatory member as any baptized infant.

Is there room in our church for Martin Boehm? Is there room for our Mennonite, Dunker and even Schwenkfelter forebears? I believe our answer must be yes. There was room in the early church, and there is room in the church today.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Behney, J. Bruce and Eller, Paul H., The History of the Evangelical United Brethren Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979), p. 148.

[2] Morrison ,Susan and Langford, Thomas A . III, in an insert between pages 14 and 15 in The Circuit Rider, February 1989.

[3] Robb, Ed III, ‘Why We Baptize Children,” Challenge to Evangelism Today, Summer 1988, p. 8.

[4] Beasley-Murray, G. R., Baptism in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1962), ch. 6.