by Ian Buchanan

Created on: March 19, 2008

Christians have baptized infants for over two thousand years. The exceptions are within the more fundamentalist denominations that reject the concept in favor of baptizing only adults who knowingly profess their faith after study and personal commitment. This is known as Believer's Baptism. This position has become part of the fundamentalist doctrine. Although it is difficult to find clear Scriptural evidence to forbid infant baptism, denying it cannot be easily discerned in Scripture either.

In Luke 18:1517 we read that "People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for them and said, "Let the children come to me and do not stop them;
for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." (NRSV).

Acts 2: 38-39 states "Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiveness; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you, for your children (NRSV).

Acts 16: 33 refers to baptizing whole "households", a term covering children as well as servants. Households suggest an understanding of the family as a unit. 1 Cor. 7: 14 implies even one believing parent in a household makes the children holy. (NRSV)
The Catholic Answers website quotes Hippolytus writing "Baptize first the children, and if they can speak for themselves let them do so. Otherwise, let their parents or other relatives speak for them" (The Apostolic Tradition 21:16 [A.D. 215]).
In addition, Irenaeus: "He [Jesus] came to save all through himself; all, I say, who through him are reborn in God: infants, and children, and youths, and old men. Therefore he passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, sanctifying infants; a child for children, sanctifying those who are of that age . . . [so that] he might be the perfect teacher in all things, perfect not only in respect to the setting forth of truth, perfect also in respect to relative age" (Against Heresies 2:22:4 [A.D. 189]).
Origen, in his Commentaries on Romans 5:9 [A.D. 248]), wrote "In the Church, baptism is given for the remission of sins, and, according to the usage of the Church, baptism is given even to infants."
Most Protestant denominations and Roman Catholics share the same Old and New Testaments, and baptisms conducted among these faiths are recognized. Ephesians 4: 5 refers to one baptism, and therein lies one of the Biblical challenges to the fundamentalist insistence that adult, already baptized as infants, be baptized again, according to their polity.

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