Have you lost your voice

I know that this is something that will be somewhat controversial, but lately as many of you know I've been engaged in a study of the sacrament of Christian water baptism and as you are likely aware, the greatest conflict within Christendom over baptism has always been (and will likely be until Jesus returns) the issue of infant baptism versus confessional (believers) baptism. Now I'm not particularly interested in getting into that debate here today as I am firmly planted in a tradition of believer's baptism, but as I have pondered what it means to live out that conviction a second order question comes to the forefront of discussion - what does it mean to repent and be baptized? (Acts 2:38)

If we are to maintain that baptism needs to come out of a conscious decision to respond to Christ and believe on him, then how do we define those crucial terms 'believe,' 'decide' and 'respond?' Do we mean to say (as has often been practiced) that to believe means to understand and that to decide means to have all the relevant information to make an informed choice and that to respond means to undertake a fully thought out and rationalized action based upon the empirical data that we have processed? My experience in Evangelical churches throughout most of my life reflects that approach to this quandary. We want to ensure that people understand fully the commitment they are making when they go through the waters of baptism and we want them to have a fleshed out understanding of salvation with at least a rudimentary understanding of Christian theology, so we have developed complicated systems of checks and balances to ensure that is the case. We put them through classes to teach them what's important, we have them interviewed by the elders to make sure that they were actually paying attention in those classes and to make certain they are good candidates for the rite and we make them jump through a series of other hoops before we will give them permission to respond to God as Scripture mandates them to. Along the way we pay lip service to the idea that baptism is a type of beginning and not a type of ending (to borrow the language of my former senior pastor, baptism is an initiation, not a graduation) but our practice frequently conveys the exact opposite message.

In the Bible however we get a very different picture of baptism. We get a picture of a rite that comes from God, is enacted by God and that we play our part by responding to him out of obedience. It is not a rite that is always (or even often) preceded by understanding; it is not a rite that marks the completion of a long season of preparation and study, it is not even inherently confessional in nature. Ben Witherington III in his book on baptism called Troubled Waters makes the case that baptism is not so much a statement as it is an appeal. It is an appeal to God in obedience that we would be counted with Christ in his death and resurrection and would receive the baptism of fire and Spirit promised by John when we was awaiting Jesus. Belief, in that sense only need be as robust as is required to call out to God who can save us.

All of that has been said to set the table for the larger question of what qualifies as belief in the Christian church? What do believe that makes us Christian? Or more specifically, to what extent to we have to believe to be saved?  What I have been struggling with in that vein is the issue of child-like faith and what role children can and should play in the corporate worship of the church. The question behind the question is in what ways can a child respond to God?

I am becoming increasingly convinced as I study and pray and observe the church and children within it that their confessions of faith are just as significant and sufficient as those of adults. That as they respond to Christ with the understanding they are capable of demonstrating that God is pleased and welcomes their worship to the same extent that he welcomes ours. When a four year old confesses in their heart that 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so' it is as complete a confession of faith as when an adult recites one of the great creeds of the faith. Jesus does not set any threshold for our commitment to him beyond all of us, so why do we think that all of a child's faith and devotion is somehow less than enough?

You can extend this argument to other groups that lack the ability to respond the way we might consider typical. The mentally handicapped are capable of great love and devotion and by the same Holy Spirit that draws us into relationship with him are capable of a robust and world changing relationship with God, but many of them would not be able jump through the hoops that we set for proving their belief.

Many of our friends and loved ones, as they age, face the challenges of different types of dementia or Alzheimer's disease that rob them of the capacity to confess Christ in what we would consider to be sufficient ways, but we do not generally believe that God excludes them from full participation in worship.

Probably the most poignant example that I can give however is of children themselves. While we as evangelicals (generally those not practicing infant baptism) have no hard theology to support this position, I have yet to meet an evangelical who believes to any extent that their children are as one author described 'little pagans' and that consequently, children who die via miscarriage, still-birth or at a very early age are somehow hellbound because they didn't make a coherent confession of Christ. No, to even consider such a position would be seen by most evangelicals as monstrous. When faced with those difficult questions we almost universally make an appeal to the character of God being gracious and compassionate and to his unending mercy and love as we rest in the knowledge that he does not hold accountable those who are mentally unable to respond to his grace with a conscious decision. So why do we hold them to that impossible standard?

I am convinced that Jesus holds us accountable for what we can understand, and expects us to respond according to what he has revealed to us up until that point. So when a young child asks Jesus into their heart because that is the extent of what they can comprehend, they are fully in the family of God. God accepts their confession of faith, as simple as it may be, as a full commitment of all that they are. And when a child asks, as the Ethiopian Eunuch does in Acts chapter 8, 'why can't I be baptized?' then we should do all we can to help that child respond to God in obedience, instead of stifling them in their relationship with Christ by imposing impossible requirements upon them. And when a young child asks their parents about communion and after being told what it is, desires to participate in the meal of the family of faith, then it is my conviction that they should be allowed to dine with their spiritual family in the meal that nourishes the church. Anything less than this sort of acknowledgement of child-like faith puts we learned Christians in the awkward position of wearing millstone shaped pendants.

The reality of the situation is (as is demonstrated in the story of the widow's mite) is that Jesus isn't interested in how much we know, he's interested in how much of us we are willing to give to him. To those who understand much, much is expected; but to those who understand less the same 100% is the standard we are called to follow. I would hazard a guess that as a percentage of full devotion, the child who sings Jesus loves me this I know, at the top of her lungs on a Sunday morning may be more committed to Christ than the seminarian in the front pew.

As I have been pondering these things over the past while There has been a song that I have been listening to by a band called Gungor that sums up the issue in a powerful way, here are the lyrics:

Let church bells ring
Let children sing
Even if they don't know why, let the sing 
Why drown their joy
Stifle their voice
Just because you've lost yours

May your jaded hearts be healed - Amen

Let old men dance
Lift up their hands
Even if they are naive let them dance
You've seen it all
You watch them fall
Wash off your face and dance

May your weary hearts be filled with hope - Amen

-Gungor, Church Bells