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A mission story...
On my mission, we had a discussion one day with the husband of a member. Both of them had been active in another Christian church in the area, until the wife became LDS. The husband still went to the other church, but politely agreed to listen to what we had to say...probably more due to his wife's insistance than any personal interest.
The discussion turned to baptism, specifically infant baptism, which his current church practiced and he had heard (from his wife) that we did not. There were a couple of ways to deal with this: share Moroni 8, of course, but that may have been a little much under the circumstances. I decided to take a more tactful approach and simply say we believe children are inherently sinless and need to reach an 'age of accountability' before baptism. I shared D&C 68:27 in accordance with this, as an explanation of our beliefs, and hadn't planned on discussing it any more...
Not quite... The text of D&C 68:27 reads, in actuality:
And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands.
Upon reading this, he asked the very reasonable question of why the verse specifically says children are baptized for the remission of their sins, when according to what I just said, they weren't supposed to have any yet.
I was not ready for this. I first had to check the English version to make sure this wasn't unique to the Chinese D&C (it wasn't), but after eliminating that possibility, I had no response to this. I admitted that frankly I did not know, and he didn't press (graciously), as we went on to other things.
This stuck with me for a long time afterwards. He didn't get baptized (although it was not likely he would anyway, since his real interest was minimal), and it was easy to feel I had failed, because I wasn't able to produce a reasonable sounding explanation on demand. It was a year and a half after I had come home, in fact, before I had any kind of an answer at all.
I was talking with a friend and related this story, when he suggested the very reasonable answer that you're only baptized once, even though you continue sinning throughout your life. The sacrament is related to the continuing remission of your sins, but the sacrament ordinance is only an extension of the baptismal ordinance, not a equal equivalent for it. Baptism is still the key to the remission of past and future sins. Therefore an eight-year-old who is baptized is still being baptized for the remission of their sins throughout his/her entire life, even though the slate might be clean right at that moment.
That made some sense, even though it was too late to use that in the discussion two years previous. Interpreting scripture is hard work--language can have so many different meanings (and meanings can change over time) that it's an terribly inexact science deciphering what the writer's true intent was. ('Their' is a pretty simple word, isn't it? And yet...) Without modern revelation, you can easily see how fractured any church can become when different groups interpret scriptures in different ways. Without modern revelation, how hard would it be to gather a group together that rejected the official doctrine of 'baptism-at-eight' using D&C 63 as a basis (Moroni 8 notwithstanding) and form our own Church, according to our own interpretation of scripture. Actually, people do this now even with modern revelation...
June 22, 2005 in Religion | Permalink
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Comments
Baron,
That's clever, but I think it's in direct contradiction with Moroni 8.
Moroni 8 strongly states that only people who have current sins need baptism. Little children who don't have sins don't need baptism.
(And if it's all about future sin anyway, then why not accept Catholic-style baptism of infants?)
Posted by: Kaimi | Jun 22, 2005 8:34:50 AM
Once kids reach age 8, they're accountable, which means they have sinned. Since 8 is kind of arbitrary anyway (some kids, I'm sure are accountable a bit earlier, some a bit later) makes sense that they get baptized at around age 8 (nobody goes around making kids get baptized on their 8th birthday, right?) because they've most likely sinned since becoming accountable. I mean, I know I sin pretty much daily... :)
Anywho...
Posted by: A. Nonny Mouse | Jun 22, 2005 9:26:20 AM
You're right...it's not a perfect explanation. Perhaps baptism at eight defies easy explanation because there are, in fact, multiple facets of it.
The remission of sins part could be related to current and future sins (meaning it would still be useful to infants), but the other aspects of baptism involving covenants and free agency require a certain maturity. Thus, baptism is done as soon as possible for the first reason, but only after the maturity required for the second reason has been obtained.
Posted by: The Baron | Jun 22, 2005 4:41:20 PM
If you read throughout the footnotes to Moroni 8:8 it tells a great deal about children and how the atonement works for them. A footnote referenced D&C 29:46, stating that all children are saved from the foundation of the world through the Only Begotten. Perhaps Christ suffered for their sins before the age of 8, then they became "responsible" after baptism. The orginial scripture in this blog quotes about children must be baptised for their sins. Baptism is symbolic of leaving the old behind and starting anew. Most 8 year olds know they have done something wrong in their lives, while they may not be punished for this, they can realize their past mistakes and promise to try harder. Baptism may be a way of showing thanks to the Savior for what He has done for them and promising to be more like Him...just a thought.
Posted by: Amy | Jun 22, 2005 6:22:02 PM
Christ was baptized, but 2 Nephi 31:4-7 says he was "holy", which suggests sinlessness, and that's what we usually say about Christ. Christ didn't have to have sinned to need baptism. Neither do we. We do have to be capable of sinning, though, and capable of choosing the right (which go hand in hand), for it to mean anything when we make the covenant. Baptism is primarily about entering a new way of life, committed to keeping the commandments, and relying on the power of the atonement and repenting when we go wrong. It's a covenant : )
Posted by: Ben H | Jun 22, 2005 8:42:03 PM
Is it really in contradicition, Kaimi? After all, Mormon doesn't even state an age.
Posted by: Kim Siever | Jun 22, 2005 10:16:55 PM
In Primary the manuals have you teaching a simplified version of the principles of repentance in the CTR-5 class and thereafter. The kids in my class are all 6 and 7 years old and most any of them can recite them (feel sorry, ask for forgiveness, right the wrong, don't do it again) as well as tell you that when you turn 8 you become "responsible" for your sins, but right now they aren't, but they still shouldn't do anything wrong. Always amazes me my kids don't push me further on that point; maybe it's because I'm unorthodox (last week one of the 6 year olds called me to repentance because I used other kinds of sin -- besides stealing candy from a store -- as examples) enough to distract them.
The only thing that makes me feel better about this particular "magic age" is that most every six-year-old I know seems like they really shouldn't be held accountable for what they're doing yet, and most every ten-year-old seems like they really should. Also, I was consciously choosing dumb things that were obviously wrong by the time I was 8, so again. At the same time, the 20-odd days between my 8th birthday and my baptism don't worry me, anymore than any random set of 20 days before that time. Neither at that time nor now do I worry that had I died, I would be lost in my sins, because I don't think Heavenly Father is an accountant. Or, at least, he's an accountant who loves and understands his children at least as well as any human parents do. Would any of you condemn your little children because of the date on a calendar? I think the idea is to get them as close to when they're capable of knowing right from wrong and choosing one path or the other. I think it's easy to overanalyze this kind of thing and get concerned.
Eight is a perfectly reasonable age to conduct baptism (and they won't let a child who really isn't ready get baptized, in my experience) and it frankly makes a lot of sense for all kinds of reasons to have a single age where the majority of kids go through this ordinance. Sure, it's an itsy bit like arbitrary "you're 18 which means it's time for you to vote" and "you're thirty-five, which means you're old enough to become President" stuff, but aren't Priesthood ordination at 12 and a mission call at 19 the same way? It's a mix of factors. The fact that we've got scriptures that say that little kids aren't to be baptized just means that for sure 5 is too young, right? The Anabaptists think infant baptism is evil, and baptize in adulthood only. I think we'd argue that young teenagers are old enough. A single age is useful. It doesn't have to be a matter of "Heavenly Father descended from the clouds and Joseph brought forth a stone and God in his infinite mercy inscribed the ages at which baptism and priesthood ordination and mission calls are to be given..." for it to be the right way for things to be done. I'd rather have it be "8 with an interview with the Bishop" than "as soon as child can provide a complete defense of the Articles of Faith and demonstrate memorization of all 100 scripture mastery verses," which seems like the only viable alternative.
(all of which makes me think it's slightly more unfair to really overhype 8th birthdays within families, but I suspect that's a natural phenomenon that you just have to accept... still bugs me that the only two birthdays most of the kids in my ward care about are 8/baptism and 16/dating; turning 14 is practically an excuse for mourning for a lot of the girls, who have to leave their old classes.)
Posted by: Sarah | Jun 23, 2005 3:06:02 PM
