If you’re looking toward church to validate your views on life, give up

Last updated on: December 6, 2013 at 6:50 pm by Billy Kangas

If you’re looking toward church to validate your views on life, give up 2013-12-06T18:50:53-04:00 Billy Kangas

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I recently got into a discussion over infant baptism with a few of my friends and readers on Facebook. It was all stared by a blogger who argued that those of us who practice infant baptism are basically destroying the church. Saying, and I quote (emphasis mine):

“Do you hold and believe in infant baptism? Then you destroy all opportunity of Christian unity. You govern your local church, if you are spiritual leader, by some other standard than God’s Word, and place more weight on tradition of your denomination or desire of those willing to swallow a lie. You have exchanged God’s Word for a man-made, man-contrived law to establish church membership, without the ordination and approval of God. You who practice infant baptism offend the Bride of Christ, offend the prayer of Jesus Christ, and offend the Christ Himself.“

This was pretty extreme, and I was sucked in to the argument. (I know, I know DON’T feed the Trolls) My response was:

“Although I think scripture proclaims infant baptism, I know you may disagree with my own understanding of the text… However I also want to point out that the very people who decided what was and was not scripture CLEARLY practiced infant baptism.
If you trust their canon, why not trust their baptism?

If you want unity, perhaps you should not be fighting to preserve a recent theological innovation that is only believed by a small minority of the Christian population.
Infant baptism has always been a valid baptism…
it is YOU who create division when you begin to deny it.”

This issue highlights one of the reasons that I joined the Catholic Church. There is a tendency for individuals to decide what pet dogmas are most important to them and to break unity with those who disagree (Catholics still disagree, but I like how we can all do it at the same table). This tendency to break unity with one another over any and all things is highlighted by this classic sketch:

Another “funny” example of this is a tounge-in-cheek article about a Presbyterian church in the small town of Centerville, GA that splits forty-seven times. Each split creates a new church with a new set of doctrinal priorities (or flower arrangements) and a new name, and the names are getting out of control. For example, “The Presbyterian Totally Reformed Covenantal Westminsterian Sabbatarian Regulative Credo-Communionist A Millennial Presuppositional Church of Centerville” The article jokes “the PTRCWSRCCAPCC up to 6 people on Sundays now.”

It’s funny, but really it’s not, because the story highlights a very-present reality. People do try to find
a perfect church, and I have seen too many churches torn apart by petty squabbles to laugh too hard. If I tired to make a church out of everyone who agreed with me I would have to worship alone every week… which is what more and more people seem to be doing.

I guess all of this is to say, if you’re looking toward church to validate your views on life, give up. Church is not there to make sure you‘ve got it all right. It’s there to Give you Jesus. I go to church because in that community, though it may often be small, poor, ugly and wrong, Christ is present.

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