While the debate about whether to baptize infants or not has raged for five centuries, we can and should seek unity as brothers and sisters in Christ.  Baptism actually unites us by identifying us as part of the visible people of God, so let the world see our unity rather than division as we approach any differences with love, humility, and submission to Scripture.

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”Acts 2:37-39, ESV
Who should be baptized?  This question has sparked intense debate amongst Reformed Christians ever since the early days of the Reformation.  As someone who has attended baptistic churches until I recently joined a pedobaptist church (where infants are baptized).  In order to become a deacon I needed to be able to accept the Westminster Confession of Faith which meant accepting the pedobaptist position.  I entered that study believing that the Presbyterian version of pedobaptism—referred to as covenant baptism—was valid and biblical while believer’s baptism was preferrable.  I came out of that study with a reversed position: believer’s baptism is a valid and biblical position but covenant baptism better aligns with what the whole of Scripture teaches.  My purpose in this post is not to convince Baptists to begin baptizing their infants but to explain simply what covenant baptism is, why it is biblical, and how we can maintain unity in the Body of Christ regarding this topic.
What Covenant Baptism Is and Isn’t
First, it is important to define the actual question we are addressing.  The question is not whether to baptize believers or infants, since Scripture is very clear that we are to baptize believers.  Every example of baptism we see in Scripture is of new converts, so a church must baptize them and require of them a profession of faith in order to be biblical.  The question is not whether to baptize infants or believers but whether or not to baptize the infants of believers.  Scripture gives no clear examples of infants being baptized or being excluded from baptism, so there is room for genuine Christians to differ on this and still practice baptism biblically.  To paraphrase Romans 14, the church that baptizes infants does so in honor of the Lord and the church that refrains does so in honor of the Lord.  Let not the one who baptizes infants look down on the one who refrains, and let not the one who refrains cast judgment on the one who baptizes infants, for God has welcomed both!  So contrary to the perception of some Baptists, pedobaptists do not reject the baptism of converts following a profession of faith.
Another major difficulty Baptists have with pedobaptists is the assumption that baptism is considered part of salvation or a guarantee of salvation.  They would be correct in this regarding the Catholic and Lutheran pedobaptist views (baptismal regeneration), but not covenant baptism.  It is absolutely vital to differentiate between the two.  Covenant baptism of infants is not part of salvation and is not seen as a guarantee of salvation.  Instead, covenant baptism refers to the view that both believers and their children should receive baptism as the new covenant sign of entrance into the visible people of God.  It largely mirrors circumcision as the sign of entrance into the visible church and is therefore separate from actual regeneration.  Churches that faithfully practice covenant baptism make this distinction very clear in their baptism liturgies.  In these ways, covenant baptism answers two of the biggest Baptist objections to pedobaptism.
Why Covenant Baptism is Biblical
But is covenant baptism biblical?  Baptists often fail to see pedobaptism as biblical because pedobaptists often do a poor job of proving it from Scripture.  They often point to examples of entire households being baptized—of Cornelius (Acts 10:48), Lydia (Acts 16:14), the Philippian jailer (Acts 15:33), Crispus (Acts 18:8), and Stephanas (1 Corinthians 1:16)—which would include any infants.  But this argument is unsatisfying since the text does not mention infants in any of these households.  Pedobaptists then point to passages about the inclusion of children, such as Jesus calling little children to Himself and saying that the Kingdom belongs to them (Matthew 19:14, Mark 10:14, Luke 18:16) or Peter at Pentecost saying the promise “is for you and your children” (Acts 2:39).  They also point out the similarities between baptism and circumcision, but Baptists often have difficulty seeing a strong enough connection to justify pedobaptism.  All of these individual bricks are therefore easy for the Baptist to topple, giving the appearance that pedobaptists are grasping at straws for anything in the Bible to support their position. This is because pedobaptists have failed to establish the foundation on which all of these bricks rest to form a biblically-sound structure.
That foundation is covenant theology, which we have examined in recent posts.  We saw that all of the covenants are corporate in nature and included children.  We then saw the nature of shared responsibility and how that relates to the generational nature of the covenants and the role of representation.  Last time we saw how those the Bible calls worthless were members of the covenant people of Israel but were ultimately unregenerate.  From all of this, we see that families—as the central focus of God’s work—have always entered into the covenants, with parents (specifically fathers) representing their children, so they were all considered to be part of the people of God.  Some of them were faithful while others were not.  For the faithful, the covenant sign signified their inclusion in the invisible church, being united with Christ and therefore guaranteed to inherit the blessings of the covenant.  For the unfaithful, the covenant sign signified that they were not part of the invisible church, being separate from Christ and therefore guaranteed to inherit the curses of the covenant.  This was the context into which the New Covenant came, so it should come as no surprise that we see similar language in the New Testament.  From the earliest days of the Church, the covenant was for those who placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and their children (Acts 2:39).  In both Testaments, we see households joined the people of God.  Throughout the Old Testament we see the visible people of God containing those who are faithful and those who fall away: righteous Seth vs. unrighteous Cain, Shem vs. Canaan, Isaac vs. Ishmael, Jacob vs. Esau, etc.  During the exodus, we see the whole nation entering into the covenant, but many fell away:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.1 Corinthians 10:1-5, ESV
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Written by Stephanie O. Hubach |
Tuesday, October 26, 2021
God doesn’t make water boys. He creates image bearers: human beings blessed with the privilege of reflecting God’s character through whatever God given capacities they possess. This reality is caught more than taught. It is conveyed in how we treat others in our relationships and in how we treat our children throughout the day.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27)
When the younger of my two sons was in elementary school, he had a competitive relationship with one of the neighborhood boys. My son’s way of subtly getting under the other child’s skin was to lean over and whisper, “Water boy,” as he walked past him.  Water boy. Why water boy? In team sports, is the water boy ever on the front page of the news? Is he given the most valuable player award? Does he get lifted to the shoulders of his teammates as they victoriously march off the field? No. The water boy is mostly invisible. He doesn’t wear the uniform. He’s less than a full-fledged team member.
As a parent of a child with disabilities, you are no doubt pain fully aware that whispers of “water boy” can be directed toward your child in countless different ways. The whispers may not be loud, but they are there. In spite of the advances in legal protections on behalf of those with disabilities, the perception that they are “less than” still permeates the atmosphere. These societal whispers can begin to get under our skin.
In God’s economy, however, different is not less than.  In the opening chapter of Scripture, God reminds us of the simple truth that he loves diversity and has imparted value to every human being. He has created humankind to be diverse at the most fundamental level—that of male and female. Even more notable is that God creates every human being in his image. Every one of us is created with great value and an awesome responsibility: to bear God’s character in the world.  There is no higher form of dignity. There is no greater calling.
God doesn’t make water boys. He creates image bearers: human beings blessed with the privilege of reflecting God’s character through whatever God given capacities they possess. This reality is caught more than taught. It is conveyed in how we treat others in our relationships and in how we treat our children throughout the day. When you encounter whispers of “water boy,” remember that although your child may be different, he or she is not less. Your child is endowed with inherent dignity. So, as an image bearer yourself, reflect God’s goodness, truth, and beauty into the world in how you respond to others and to your child.
Taken from Parenting & Disabilities: Abiding in God’s Presence by Stephanie O. Hubach, a recent release from P&R Publishing. Used with permission.

Roughly three dozen bills that would ban trans women’s participation in women’s sports are currently wending their way through state legislatures. If they are passed, courts will almost certainly strike them down as unconstitutionally broad. These legal battles might eventually make their way to the Supreme Court, where their fate would be anyone’s guess.

If a single image could sum up Lia Thomas’s victory in the 500-yard freestyle event at the NCAA swimming championships last week, it would be that of Thomas and the runners-up taken right after they were awarded their medals. Behind a sign with the number “1” on it stands Thomas, who seems barely able to conceal embarrassment at what is undoubtedly an awkward situation. To the right, noticeably keeping their distance and a full head or two shorter, are the runners-up. Their smiles seem no less awkward.
The scene resembles an eerie propaganda video, in which a jubilant dictator can be seen waving at fawning crowds who know their lives depend on making it all look authentic. Thomas’s competitors will not face firing squads should they choose to complain, but they will almost certainly face a social media pile-on (assuming that Twitter doesn’t preemptively suspend them for suggesting that transgender women are not biological women). Their names and reputations will be dragged through the mud, their career prospects destroyed or severely curtailed, and their place on the college swim team—and, with it, their scholarships—jeopardized. A teammate of Thomas’s who criticized her participation in women’s sports told a U.K. newspaper that she would speak only on condition of anonymity, for she was concerned that future employers might Google her name and deem her “transphobic.” Meantime, those who support Thomas’s participation in women’s sports speak their minds freely and without fear of repercussions. What was that about transgender people being powerless?
Thomas, argue her defenders, is both a woman like any other but also a transgender trailblazer. Only in the minds of ideologues for whom reason and logic are oppressive social constructs can these two claims peacefully coexist. If gender identity alone is what makes one a woman, and Thomas has a female gender identity, then her transgender status is simply irrelevant to her achievement. Indeed, it doesn’t technically exist. Many transgender people prefer not to be recognized as trans at all, as this qualifies their self-identification as “real” men or women. “They hate, and I mean hate, the word trans,” reports trans activist and child psychologist Diane Ehrensaft. And how could it be otherwise?
The Human Rights Campaign warns that “contrasting transgender people with ‘real’ or ‘biological’ men and women is a false comparison” that “can contribute to the inaccurate perception that transgender people are being deceptive or less than equal, when, in fact, they are being authentic and courageous.” This is a strawman wrapped in a non sequitur. Critics of gender self-identification do not argue that people like Thomas are “being deceptive,” but rather that they are themselves deceived. HRC’s use of “authentic” here really means “sincere”: transgender women are being sincere, not deceptive, when they say they have a strong inner sense of being a woman. But that sincerity is irrelevant unless one first assumes that what makes a belief true is the fact that it is sincerely held, rather than its correspondence to objective reality. Who, apart from academic postmodernists, believes such a thing? Surely not those who display signs insisting that “science is real” on their front lawns.
This question-begging contrast of biological reality with “authenticity” and “courage” appeals to the therapeutic ethos, that powerful current in American culture. Elite support for transgenderism was never rooted in philosophical arguments about human sex differences or new discoveries in the human sciences. It derives from a narrative that stresses the harm to a person’s mental health if that person’s gender self-identification is not “affirmed.” The claim that only affirming someone’s internal sense of gender can release her of her agony has been subjected to serious and sustained criticism, but activists continue to tout it as gospel, and America’s power brokers seem unable or unwilling to resist it.
The sudden prominence of transgenderism in the West owes in large part to compassion having become unmoored from reason, and to ethics having been reduced to compassion. The proliferation on college campuses of mental health bureaucracies is one the more visible aspects of the rise of the “therapeutic state.” When the parents of female University of Pennsylvania swimmers wrote a letter to the university complaining about Thomas being allowed to swim on the women’s team, the university responded with a brief note reiterating its commitment to “inclusion” and providing a link to campus mental health services.
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