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CASE STUDY NUMBER 14

BAPTISM REQUESTS

Your Board of Elders has been presented by the pastor with some unusual and difficult questions regarding baptism. The pastor wants you to do research along with him, so you can arrive at a consensus on how to respond.

  1. A couple in your church wants to arrange for their grandson to be baptized on the Fourth of July weekend, when their son, his wife, and new grandson will be visiting from Connecticut. Their son was baptized in your church, made a confession of faith in high school, but has not been involved in a church since going away to college ten years ago.
  1. A young man met with the elders to make confession of faith. Since then he has mentioned he would like to be baptized. He discovered his parents had him baptized as an infant. They said they were in a bridge club and one couple said that after the baby came they should bring him down to their church to be baptized. His parents say they didn’t attend the church, before or after the baptism, and they give no indication of interest in Christianity.
  1. Two teenagers have approached the pastor. They think it would be really cool to be baptized at the nearby lake. One was baptized as the child of members of your church. The other has never been baptized.
  1. A student explained that she and her mother became Christians in a home Bible study group in New Jersey. They had been part of a church where her mother had her baptized as a child. She did not think they believed the gospel in that church, and on a recent college break she talked with the pastor, who made it clear that he didn’t believe salvation was through Christ alone, or that you can rely on the Bible, and actually made fun of her beliefs and called her a “fundy”. She would like to be baptized when she joins your church.
  1. A college junior has explained that, although she became a Christian in high school, her parents, who are not Christians, will not let her join a church. She told the elders in tears that, since she is not baptized and not a member, she has never taken Communion.
  1. A Japanese woman feels anguish because her parents are very upset that she wants to be baptized. They believe she is ashamed of being Japanese, and that she won’t pray at the family shrine when they are gone, and doesn’t show sufficient willingness to honor them.
  2. A couple who were raised in the Lutheran church are anxious to have their baby baptized soon. They have friends who lost a baby (unbaptized) in a crib death, and they believe that child is in hell. Also, they have seen elders in your baptismal services, and it is important to them that only the pastor will be doing the baptism. They take great comfort in the Lutheran doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and plan to instruct their children accordingly.
  1. The youth group president informed the pastor that at the fall retreat the (outside) speaker baptized 10 of them in Lake Michigan.

Preliminary Questions:

  1. On example #1- are there any insights from the RCA Book of Church Order or the baptismal forms of the RCA? They may apply to some of the other examples too. Can you find a description of the “Half Way Covenant”? What was the motivation for it? What are the dangers?
  1. On example #2- check Grudem on ex opere operato. Check the Belgic Confession, Article 34, and the RCA baptismal forms. Was this a valid baptism?
  1. On example #3- What is the RCA’s view on baptism by sprinkling,

pouring, and immersion?

  1. On examples 5 and 6- What is the responsibility of a believer to

her parents? If you could get the Commentary on the HeidelbergCatechism, by Ursinus, one of the authors of the Heidelberg, from the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., see what he said about the fifth commandment. Can you find, from mission literature, what Christian baptism means to someone coming from a Muslim, Hindu, or typical Japanese (Buddhist/Shinto) background.

  1. On example 7- what is baptismal regeneration? See Grudem, and “Presumptive Regeneration”, Appendix # 3. How do you respond

to the anxiety to have the baptism soon, and only by the

pastor?

Responses: What are the key concerns in each example?

How will you respond to each of the situations above?

Is there relevant Scripture to share?

How will you handle the possible disappointment or disagreement

with your decisions?