babies

[Robert]

[Tuirgin]

[Karen]

[Tuirgin]

[Lirenel]

Hmmm, interesting topic.

I've always considered children (and even infants) sinful by nature. I have only to look back at my own childhood to realize this. The thing is, as I child I didn't truly understand what sin meant. I was taught right from wrong, but didn't understand why right was right and wrong was wrong. It was only in 5th grade that I realized I was sinful and asked God into my life and became a Christian.

In my opinion, children are 'innocent' until that point in which they understand sin, even if not by that name. It's like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Does that make sense?[/i]

[Mornamoice]

Even an infant is not innocent. Sinful acts are not the beginning of the sinful nature, but come about as a result of the sinful nature when the child is old enough to commit them. You don't have to teach a child to lie or be selfish or strike his sister... those things and other sins come naturally because of the sinful nature of humanity that we are born with.

That said, I believe God is merciful and will not simply condemn a child who has not reached the age of reckoning, at which he or she is capable of taking responsibility. You can see this idea, I think, in the Jewish ritual of Bar Mitzvah (and, the more recent equivalent for girls, the Bat Mitzvah). When a boy is 13, he becomes a Son of the Law... he then assumes responsibility for his own obedience to the law (which before had rested on his parents shoulders). I have heard infant baptism likened to circumcision and confirmation likened to the Bar Mitzvah.

Though I attend a Lutheran church now, I grew up Southern Baptist. Baptists do not practice infant baptism, preferring instead believer's baptism by immersion. While I don't get into the argument over immersion versus sprinkling (I believe both can be valid), I cannot believe that an unbaptised infant who dies is sent to Hell.

All three of my children were baptised, the older two as infants and the youngest at age 3-1/2 (we adopted her not long before... could be she's been baptised twice now, but we don't know much about her infancy). As I told my husband when I agreed to have them baptised, I do not believe that baptism actually impart salvation to them. I was willing to allow the ritual as a public sign of my commitment to raise them in such a way that they will each make the choice to follow Christ when they are old enough. I also considered it a way of asking God to work in their lives so that they would seek Hiim as they grow older. I also agreed to it to ease the hearts of those family members (not my husband, who happens to agree with me) who truly did fear that an unbaptised child could not enter Heaven. When they are old enough for confirmation, they will not go through it unless they have actually asked Christ into their hearts. At this point, my oldest daughter has done this and our conversations convince me that her faith is genuine.