Infant Baptism

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See this page in the original 1992 publication.

This entry has two parts: Infant Baptism: LDS Perspective concerning this practice, and Infant Baptism: Early Christian Origins.


Infant Baptism: LDS Perspective

Author: PARSONS, ROBERT E.

Children are baptized as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when they reach age eight and receive a bishop's interview to assess their understanding and commitment. This age for baptism was identified by revelation (D&C 68:25, 28). The Church does not baptize infants.

The practice of baptizing infants emerged among Christians in the third century A.D. and was controversial for some time. According to the Book of Mormon, it similarly became an issue and was denounced among the Nephites in the fourth century A.D. When Mormon, a Nephite prophet, inquired of the Lord concerning baptism of little children, he was told that they are incapable of committing sin and that the curse of Adam is removed from them through the Atonement of Christ. Hence little children need neither repentance nor baptism (Moro. 8:8-22). They are to be taught "to pray and walk uprightly" so that by the age of accountability their baptism will be meaningful and effective for their lives. [See also Accountability; Children: Salvation of Children; Fall of Adam; Original Sin.]


Bibliography

McConkie, Bruce R. "The Salvation of Little Children." Ensign 7 (Apr. 1977):3-7.

ROBERT E. PARSONS

Infant Baptism: Early Christian Origins

Author: NORMAN, KEITH E.

Although the New Testament never mentions infant baptism either to approve or to condemn the practice, many passages therein associate baptism with faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, and forgiveness of sins, none of which are appropriate requirements for infants (Mark 1:4-5;16:15-16; Acts 2:37-38;19:4;22:16; Rom. 6:1-6; 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 3:26-27; Col. 2:12-13; Heb. 6:1-6;10:22; 1 Pet. 3:21).

The assumption that those baptized are committed disciples continues through the second century in Christian literature (Didache 7.1; Shepherd of Hermas: "Vision" 3.7 and "Mandates" 4.3; Epistle of Barnabas 11; Justin, First Apology 1.11, 15). The earliest explicit reference to the practice of baptizing infants dates to shortly after A.D. 200 in the writings of Tertullian, a North African theologian who opposed it on the grounds that baptism carries an awesome responsibility and should be delayed until a person is fully committed to living righteously (De baptismo 18). A decade later Hippolytus, who would become a schismatic bishop in Rome, wrote a handbook of rules for church organization and practice. Some versions of his Apostolic Tradition (21.3-4) refer to baptizing "little ones," who should have an adult relative speak for them if they are unable to do so themselves. However, since Hippolytus prescribed a normative three-year preparatory period of teaching, reading, fasting, and prayer prior to baptism (Apostolic Tradition 17), the infant baptism passage has been questioned as a later interpolation.

The first Christian writer to defend infant baptism as an apostolic practice was apparently Origen, the preeminent theologian of the Greek-speaking church, who wrote on the subject around A.D. 240 in Alexandria, Egypt. Origen referred to the frequently asked question of why the church should baptize sinless infants (Homily on Luke 14). In response, he argued that baptism takes away the pollution of birth. Origen's Commentary on Romans further elaborates this theme, asserting that because of hereditary sin, "the church has a tradition from the apostles to give baptism even to infants" (5.9). However, this passage is suspect because it is found only in a Latin translation by Rufinus, who tended on several occasions to "correct" Origen according to later doctrine. A few years later, Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, addressing the question of the timing of infant baptism, wrote that a child's soul should not be placed in jeopardy of perdition even one day by delaying the grace of baptism (De peccatorum meritis 1.34).

Historically, then, infant baptism cannot be demonstrated as beginning before the third century, when it emerged as a topic of extended controversy. Not until Augustine wrote against the Donatists two centuries later was infant baptism established as a universal custom (Jeremias, pp. 94-97; Jewett, p. 16). Thereafter, the practice went largely unquestioned until the Protestant Reformation, when a radical group in Zurich broke with the reformer Zwingli over this and other issues in 1525. These so-called Anabaptists (those who denied the validity of their baptism as infants and were rebaptized as adults) were precursors of the Baptist movement.


Bibliography

Beasley-Murray, G. R. Baptism in the New Testament. London, 1962.

Cullmann, Oscar. Baptism in the New Testament, trans. J. Reid. Chicago, 1950.

Jeremias, Joachim. Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries, translated by D. Cairns. Philadelphia, Pa., 1962.

Jewett, Paul K. Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace. Grand Rapids, Mich., 1978.

KEITH E. NORMAN


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