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Why does the Lutheran Church baptize infants? |
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Written by Jay Gamelin
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Tuesday, 09 October 2007 |
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We are very clear in baptism that it is something God does for us, not something we do for God. In some traditions, baptism is something you do after you decide to follow Jesus. As Lutherans, we stress that baptism is not an act of our deciding for Christ, but an act of God, reaching down and claiming us. In Baptism, GOD is the subject and we are the direct object. God acts on our behalf and baptizes us, even though we don’t deserve it and cannot claim it. So it goes, since it is not something we do for God, then we allow infants to be baptized, the most humble faithful believers in the congregation. After all, it was Christ who said, “Unless you become like a child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:1-5).
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