Hi Tom.  I'm sorry it has taken so long to respond to your email, and at this point our counsel will have come after the fact.  We hope the birth of your child went well, and pray that all are healthy and happy. 

 

With regards to infant baptism, there are various views, even among Protestant denominations.  My parents were Lutherans, and so I was the recipient of an infant baptism.  However, they viewed my baptism as more akin to a baby dedication -- a sign between God and them that they would raise me with the knowledge of the Lord and His gospel.  I also received baptism as an adult, as a personal decision of mine, and a symbol of my conscious choice to follow Christ.  The "pedo-baptist" view is that since circumcision was a sign of the Old Covenant, and was performed on infants, so baptism, a sign of the New Covenant, should also be performed on infants.  The baptist view (not to be strictly aligned with the Baptist denomination) is that baptism as a sign of conversion should be the conscious choice and decision of the person being baptized, as an outward profession of his or her faith. 

 

The issue of baptism and pedo-baptism is not one essential to salvation, so there is certainly room for disagreement.  Christian Research Institute has a good position statement on baptism, including pedo-baptism, and I encourage you to check it out here: http://www.equip.org/free/CP0708.htm.  Thank you so much for your words of encouragement, and we ask the Lord's blessings on you and your family.

 

In Christ,

 

Ben and Jennifer Rast
Contender Ministries