Well, nobody is too old. But what about too young? A person should be old enough to have basic understanding of what personal faith in Christ means. Sometimes a child, say five or six years old, may have made a decision to invite Christ into his or her life.
In these situations, we may do one of two things:. That question arises frequently. The reason we use the term Infant Dedication rather than Infant Baptism is that such children really have no conscious choice in the matter. The major focus of commitment in Infant Dedication is actually that of the parents. We will then have a conversation or interview with you about your readiness for this step in your spiritual journey.
Make it a big deal! Baptisms are always encouraging to the other believers present, and your baptism may be a great witness to your friends and family. Thus, while baptism is more than symbol for Wesley it is necessary to enter Christ's church , the act of repentance is also indispensable for salvation.
Wesley does not seem to be concerned about this tension. Wesley addresses those who reject infant baptism. He argues that infants and children are not only acceptable candidates, but that it can be demonstrated biblically.
Like circumcision, baptism is a sign of the covenant in which children are included. In addition, Christ not only welcomes the children to come to him, but he rebukes his disciples for turning them away Luke To those who respond that Jesus' welcome of the children is not about baptism, Wesley responds that baptism is the way the risen Christ welcomes children into his church.
Moreover, the Book of Acts is clear that entire households were baptized, which must have included children Acts We regretfully recognize that a baptized adult could someday rebel against God and lose their part in God's kingdom. We believe the same for babies. Though we baptize children we do not think we are doing something irrevocable. Who will be saved in the end? Those who persevere to the end. We baptize babies because we expect the best. We expect our children to be Christians.
We expect to bring them to church, teach then the Bible, pray with them before bedtime, live a holy life before them… so that they will indeed never rebel against God's grace at all. During New Testament times it was common when a father became a Christians his "whole household" was baptized--including all the children and even slaves.
And we baptize babies too. Not many Wesleyans do, but we can. If you do not like this practice, you probably don't like our theology either. But you'll have to agree the practice grows out of our theology.
In a sense the parents and church "stand in" for the child's personal faith until they choose to ratify it themselves later. Can they refuse to ratify our decision? But we baptize a child with full intent on raising them in such a way that they will naturally ratify our faith decision for them. We're that optimistic. One scholar has described the Wesleyan position as having "a pessimism of nature and an optimism of grace. Wesleyans retain an extremely high view of children. We believe Jesus did too.
We believe that a child should be the adult's example of how to get into the kingdom of God. We believe Jesus really meant it when he warned against causing a child "who believes in me" to stumble. Can children have faith?
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