Brothers,

Here’s a quick update on the re-baptism situation.  Our brother, Jordan G. (for anonymity’s sake), was able to secure his summer internship at an evangelical church without undergoing an adult baptism in addition to his prior infant baptism.  He is currently serving the church as he’d hoped, glorifying God through ministering to junior high students in the Twin Cities.  However, if he were to continue on in this church and wish to become an elder or someday seek ordination as a reverend, he would be required to undergo an adult baptism.  As it stands, he can avoid making a tricky choice between employment and the possibility of betraying Biblical ideals. 

That’s all for now, but any updates on the situation will appear on this site as they develop.  Currently, the forum for “Ever_Reforming” is open for new material.

Dan

Well, I guess you are all pretty busy with end of the semester stuff. Since I started the site, I will start the theological ball rolling as well.

Rebaptism- This is indeed an interesting question. I think two questions must be asked: is it right to for Dan's friend to be re-baptized, and secondly, if it is wrong, should he do it anyway. Both baptistic and reformed Christian believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I'm sure that the people at this camp agree with Ephesians 4:

⁴   There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;
⁵    one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
⁶   one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

The baptists at this camp, however, do not believe that this young man's baptism as an infant was valid, since it was not accompanied by his personal confession of faith. My first inclination was to say that this would be a compromise of Dan's friend's beliefs and would be condoning this position that we feel is less accurate according to Biblical teaching, name that we should include children in God's covenant. However, we must take into account the fact that Paul had Timothy circumcised before he went to preach to the Jews . For me, this is a very close parallel:

Acts 16: 1  "Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. And a disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek,
²   and he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium.
³   Paul wanted this man to go with him; and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. "

Although Paul preached vigorously against having Gentiles circumcised, he does it anyway. It seems that he had Timothy baptized in order to avoid conflict with his fellow believers and to have no external factors keeping them from having fellowship. This leads me to believe that it would not be wrong for your friend to do this, since his not doing it would certainly be a stumbling block for them if he were not baptized.

Now I want to hear what you men think about this case.

Dear Brothers,

Thank you for joining me to dialogue about  some very important topics: namely,what is the Reformed faith? and what would a spirit of true Reformation look like in our hometowns and home churches? Dan has suggested the first topic for debate below. I hope that this site helps to unite us and to spur one another on to faith, love, and good deeds, even while we are far apart through writing our own "e-pistles", if you will.

"A friend of mine who is a "Youth Ministry" major is looking into an
internship at an evangelical church this summer.  He's a good CRC kid,
padeobaptised on the second week, and when this church  found out he was
"reformed" they asked him if he would be willing to undergo adult
baptism at the beginning of his ministry.  Just curious for your
thoughts.  - Dan"

So what do we think? Re-baptism as a prerequisite for a summer job? Let's try to draw primarily from Biblical texts to either support or protest such an action.

Your Servant in Him,

Mox