A few days ago I posted some thoughts on baptism. I did not address the when or where or how of baptism. But Dietrich Bonhoeffer scholar Dallas Roark, whose comments I have been posting the last few days, reveals that Bonhoeffer blamed a cheap grace mentality, when it exists, largely on infant baptism:
“The cheap grace mentality that Bonhoeffer censored came in part from the long-held practice of baptizing infants. Infant baptism became a cultural rather than a religious event which glossed over personal faith and commitment. Religion that begins in the unconsciousness of infancy often remains unconscious.” Dallas Roark
This was true for me in my own infant baptism, and for many that I know personally who were also baptized at birth.
I thought, growing up and as a young adult, that I was “good to go” simply because of my infant baptism. The Bible was not read or promoted in my household or in the church in which I was baptized. For my family and me, baby baptism was indeed cultural tradition, not commitment to Christ and His discipleship.
At age 38, when I first discovered Jesus, after years of church attendance at what I describe as liberal-political churches, I did not know the first thing about Christ, the Bible or God. It was at this point that my eyes were opened as to how I had been misled by my infant baptism, and it quickly became meaningless.
Copyright Barb Harwood
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