The Salad Days

Wesley was baptized yesterday, and it was a special day. Since my
parents and sister were here, it was a small family gathering of sorts.

The more time goes by, the happier I am that we have chosen to baptize our
children. I think it takes some emphasis away from individual
experience and focuses all of us more on the fact that being a
Christian is being part of a covenant community. As my pastor put it,
our hope is that our children "will never know a day when they don't
know Jesus Christ as their Savior."

One of the reasons I value this notion is that I never had a "conversion experience." Because I
lacked this, and because the sphere of evangelicalism in which I grew
up so emphasized conversion, I was deeply troubled by a lack of
security. I hope that my children can look to their inclusion in the
covenant community from an early age as a comfort, and that what truly
matters is that they trust in Christ by his grace, not that they had an
experience of conversion. The anecdotes of the childhood conversion can
be comedic, as the child looks back to their years of debauchery
wherein they lusted after rattles and envied other kids' Elmos . The
thing I love about infant baptism is that it acknowledges that a child
can grow up in the faith. They don't need to be converted. If they
simply believe in Christ from a young age, they are indeed saved from
sin, as they are sinful at birth. But they needn't live a life of "sin"
in order to be saved from sin. Since they are born in sin, their belief
at all times in Christ as the savior from that sin is all that matters.
Just as a Jewish boy was Jewish at birth and made a part of a covenant
community through circumcision, so Wesley, Corrie and Jack can be a
part of the community. Unfortunately, that also means that just as a
Jewish boy could disobey Torah and leave the covenant community, our
children can also choose to walk outside the faith.

As we raise our children, our prayer is that they may always lean upon Christ as
their savior, and that they can say that they learned the faith from
their parents and from their church. I am deeply grateful for the fact
that Christ, by his grace, saved me before I led a life apart from Him.
I was always His, even though I struggled with sin like any other human
being. May it be said of our children as well. Thanks be to God for his
indescribable gift.