Baby Dedication or Infant Baptism

Though the Catholic denomination, as well as Augustine, Luther, and Calvin embraced and promoted infant baptism, I reject it.

However, I see no harm in dedicating a child to the Lord.

There were steps that led up to infant baptism.
Originally, people believed that confessing Jesus saved them.
Second, people began believing that if you confessed your sins and got baptized at the same time saved them.
Third, people began believing that baptism was the last stage of salvation.
Fourth, people began believing they were saved by the act of baptism.
Fifth, people began believing that you should baptize a child because they may not live to adulthood and the baptism secured their places in Heaven.
Sixth, people began sprinkling children instead of baptizing them due to health risks.

Infant baptism is still practiced in Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinistic circles.
Blessed water (holy water) later began being used to sprinkle infants.

Though I do not believe in infant baptism, I have no issue with dedicating a child to the Lord. In infant dedication, you simply ask your church leaders to anoint and pray that the Lord touches and blesses the child. This dedication does not save the child nor does it secure future salvation for the child. In performing the practice, the parents or guardians are thanking God for the gift of the child and are letting God know that the child belongs ultimately to God. The act also is a way of asking for provision for the child as well.

See:
Matthew 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17

- - Jeremy Brown 2003


Also see:
http://ag.org/top/beliefs/christian_doctrines/gendoct_11_accountability.cfm
http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/infantbaptism.htm
http://www.carm.org/questions/baptise_infants.htm

I agree with John Calvin on Baptism:
Whether the person baptised is to be wholly immersed, and that whether once or thrice, or whether he is only to be sprinkled with water, is not of the least consequence: churches should be at liberty to adopt either, according to the diversity of climates, although it is evident that the term baptise means to immerse, and that this was the form used by the primitive Church. - Calvin's Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 15, Paragraph 19

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