California's top court overturns gay marriage ban

[sigmadiva]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you. Most Christians -- Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed/Presbyterian, Methodist -- do practice infant baptism; obviously, they do not see it as a public declaration of faith -- at least of the infant's faith. (Some see it as a declaration of the parent's faith.)


I see the distinction you are making, although I would disagree with the statement that if a child is "christened," and "stays in the eyes of God" he does not need baptism. He doesn't need baptism because he has already been baptized, and those traditions that practice baptism of infants also hold that baptism cannot be repeated.

/hijack/

My church does not believe in nor do we practice infant baptism. We feel that the person must first study and understand the Word of God before he / she is baptized. Nor do we pratice infant christening.

/end hijack/

[MysticCat]

^^^ Never suggested otherwise. Many, many churches do not practice the baptism of infants and believe it to be an unscriptural practice -- growing up where the majority of people are Baptist or Pentecostal, I understand that quite well.

All I said was that most Christians belong to churches that do practice it. Seeing as how Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans represent well more than 60% of the world's Christians, then without taking into account the other Protestants that practice it, I think my claim was a supportable one.

This has became a major highjack/derailment. If anyone wants to PM about it, fine by me; as interesting as it may be to a few of us, though, I don't see it really adding anything to this particular discussion.