Things Heard: e61v4
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at
7:38 am
- Breast nazis exposed, err, in a manner of speaking.
- Faith and science … and a Russian Saint.
- Advice on selecting what to read.
- Looking for a book on anger and forgiveness and the Christian life. My suggestion was The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World.
- A problem with the de-baptism thing. Including of course … why?
- Petraeus on Pakistan. More on that front here.
- Heh, the bike and April 1.
- A “not funny” April 1 joke.
- Verse.
- Temptation and Lent.
- On living the Christian life.
- Parents. Not perfect (well, duh).
- A notable ex-Baptist swims the Tiber.
- Will he do it?
- A paper on materialism and mathematics (HT: Mr Reppert).
- Gaffe. So, is he being stupid or intentionally insulting?
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re: “De-baptism”…
Baptism is a ritual, a rite, a thing we do to commemorate something. So, if someone wishes to reject that baptism (and I can see this especially in those who went through infant baptism), who is to say they can’t? In that sense, “de-baptism” is just another ritual.
I guess I’m sympathetic, not because I wish to see people reject the church, but because of our own anabaptist (literally RE-baptizers) tradition, where we have also rejected the notion of child baptism and embraced a baptism as something of our own adult choosing. If anabaptists can start a new tradition (or renew an old one, if you prefer), then who is to say that debaptists can’t start a new tradition themselves? It’s a free world and symbolism can be important to many of us.
Dan,
So the meaning of ritual is isolated to person and community? Where does God come into the picture? Is God and active participant? If so, isn’t that a Sacramental picture, which is seems you’ve rejected.
Is the Eucharist a ritual to “commemorate something” or is more going on? And for that matter, I have no idea whether the Anabaptist includes communion.
Have you really rejected all Sacramental content to worship? When you re-Baptize how do you reconcile that with “one Baptism for the remission of sins” from the Creed … or is that another historical thing you’ve cast aside.
We baptize before God, self and community. No rejection of God happening. We also celebrate communion. So, no, we haven’t rejected all sacramental content, I don’t reckon.
But if someone is rejecting their infant baptism, why stop them? As if we could.
Dan,
I’m not and I don’t think anyone is suggesting “stopping” them. The question is, if you don’t believe why do it? That is to say, if you think Baptism is just ritual and God doesn’t participate … then what is the impulse and reason to create an un-Baptism rite?
We are a people who like rituals. Unbelievers as well as believers. Seems to me, and this is an example of that.
Symbolism thrives in hearts of people of all sorts.