Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: nlt@romeo.cs.duke.edu (N. L. Tinkham) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Proper baptism Message-ID: Date: 6 Mar 90 08:36:44 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Duke University CS Dept.; Durham, NC Lines: 33 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Our Benevolent Moderator writes, in response to David Tate: > [verrryyyyy interesting. Has anyone else seen Baptist congregations > accept people as members who have not been baptized as adults by > immersion? I know of a Baptist congregation here in Durham that will receive members from other denominations without re-baptizing them, although I think they are unusual in this. (The congregation is jointly affiliated with the Southern Baptists and the American Baptists, and it is fairly "liberal" by North Carolina standards.) The church of my childhood (a Southern Baptist congregation in Virginia) has what I believe to be the more common policy, that of recognizing only baptism of believers by immersion as valid for membership purposes. That congregation does allow Christians who have not been baptized by immersion but who desire membership (e.g., an elderly person for whom immersion would be a difficult physical ordeal, or a person baptized in infancy who is opposed on principle to being re-baptized) to enter into a sort of halfway membership, called "Watchcare"; such a person would not be able to vote at church meetings but would otherwise be thought of as belonging to the church. Since this congregation has a policy of admitting any Christian, baptized or not, to Communion, the question of "proper baptism" does not arise in the Eucharistic context. (I don't know whether Baptist churches that practice closed Communion admit Watchcare members to Communion, or indeed whether they would offer a Watchcare status at all.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "For Christ plays in ten thousand places, Nancy Tinkham Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his nlt@lear.cs.duke.edu To the Father through the features of men's faces." rutgers!mcnc!duke!nlt