Infant Baptism

History:

Infant baptism was instituted by Christ and taught by the Apostles as part of the faith once for all entrusted to the saints. This practice was then carried on by the disciples of the Apostles down through the ages to the present for the vast majority of the Church. It was a universal and accepted practice of the Church and never something that was a controversy as far as I can tell until the 16th century. During the early part of the Reformation there arose a radical wing that sought to remove all vestiges of Roman Catholicism from their churches and quite simply through their erroneous epistemology threw the baby out with the bath water. These men called “Anabaptists” or “re-baptizers” held the mistaken belief that all authority should be stripped from the Church, and unless a doctrine was clearly shown (When I say "clearly" I mean "Thou Shalt . . ."; at least for their pet issues.) to be in Scripture it should be done away with (this epistemology of course led to the disunified mess we find the modern church in today). Of course they did not consistently apply this standard partly because it is logically impossible to do, and partly because they had some favorite doctrines they were unable to part with. They taught that only adult believers should be baptized, and all infant baptisms were of no effect, thus to need to rebaptize members and thus the name with which they were labeled. This radial skepticism of everything that had to do with the Church while understandable in the era in which they lived, led them to nail their theology on a chain of logical links that was attached to a hook firmly affixed to thin air. This is an excellent example and should serve as a warning of why we today must never put all our theological eggs in one historical period, but take into consideration the vast expanse of the theology of the Church as a whole.

Who Baptizes Infants:

The entire Church baptized its infants until approximately 450 years ago, Eastern, Western and Oriental. Most of the Church still does to this day. Only in the Western church in the past 450 years has there been any challenge to this practice. Most of the Western Church except Baptists, Churches of Christ and most Pentecostals (I’m sure there is more but I can’t think of anyone else here.) still practice infant baptism.

Theology:

I’m admittedly shaky on these points, but I’ll give it a go. According to the Roman Catholics baptism regenerates the individual and removes the taint of original sin, which allows the child to be received into the Church. For the Reformed Faith, the New Testament Church is merely a continuation of the Old Testament Church. Much like the Eucharist is a continuation of the Passover Feast, Baptism is a continuation of the rite of circumcision. Throughout the history of God dealing with His people, He works through covenants. Baptism is God’s sign of the New Covenant, which is placed upon all the covenant members of His Church. Since Reformed reject the notion that we come to God (And no we do not sing “Just as I am”.), baptism is not a sign for us to show God that we believe, but a sign placed upon us by God to show us that we are His. In God’s economy He always does the initiating. Since circumcision was done to infants so baptism is done to infants. As for the other parts of the Church I haven’t the foggiest notion what their theology is. I would guess that the Eastern Orthodox would claim it is a mystery and leave it at that, but I do not know.

Summary:

To be honest I haven’t delved deeply into the theology because the epistemological argument is so powerful for me, and because this part of theology doesn’t really jazz me all that much.