31th Annual Chesterton Conference

31th Annual Chesterton Conference
Aug. 2-4, 2012, at the Silver Legacy Hotel (and Casino) in Reno, Nevada.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

"Debaptism"?

From the current (June/July, 2009) Issue of First Things, While We're At It:
• The National Secular Society of England has begun a campaign that promotes “de-baptism.” For £3 (about $5) a person can get a parchment de-baptism certificate, which claims the holder was a victim of baptism before the age of consent, and purports to revoke and renounce whatever church it was that did the baptism. Additionally, the newly un-baptized rejects all creeds and other such superstitions of the Christian faith. According to one de-baptizee, baptizing infants without their consent is a form of child abuse. So far, the National Secular Society claims, 100,000 Brits have applied for de-baptism.Baptism for those baptized is a biographical fact of life, no more erasable from one’s history than birth from one’s parents. Beyond biography, Christians assert baptism is an indelible claim from God upon the whole person. If God is likely to have any say in the matter, these de-baptizees, for all their petulance, might be in for a nice surprise come the other side of death. Of course, by then it will be too late to get a refund.

At first I thought this might be a joke, but I Googled National Secular Society of England and found that it wasn't.

What does G.K. have to say about this?
Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved (Orthodoxy, chap. 2).

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