Baptism Confusion

[byzgirl]

My brother-in-law is a Pentecostal, Charismatic, Evangelical born-again Christian.

Unsurprisingly, he considers water baptism a separate thing from the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and uses Acts 10 (the story of Cornelius) to show his theory. Obviously, this creates not one, but two baptisms…the water one, being just an ceremony with no real meaning (in fact, he asks those that haven’t been water baptized to join him, during the summer, for a baptism in his swimming pool).

But what seems to confuse me, is that he tells his parishioners that even the ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ (which he claims is a separate event) is when the Christian ‘receives his gifts/charisms’…but adds that ‘it’s not necessary’…that it doesn’t really matter if you want to wait or put it off…that the important thing is being saved…and nothing changes that.

So, while his ‘beliefs’ in his creedo contains 'We believe in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit", he doesn’t state that it’s part of salvation.

Why? I think this theology is so confusing (like, in an attempt to explain something ‘other’ than the Catholic belief in one baptism (both water and spirit)…he has created mayhem. Now, despite what the bible says, Baptism has NOTHING to do with salvation at all!

 

[COPLAND_3]

I think his view of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit would be similar in nature as what we would call Confirmation, when we receive the Holy Spirit after Baptism. While we believe that we are Baptized by the Holy Spirit at water Baptism, he sees it being seperate.

 

[COPLAND_3]

By the way, we are born again, washed in the Blood Catholics. Don’t let evangelicals make you think that they are born again and your not.

 

[byzgirl]

I think his view of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit would be similar in nature as what we would call Confirmation, when we receive the Holy Spirit after Baptism. While he believe that we are Baptized by the Holy Spirit at water Baptism, he sees it being seperate.

I can see that point, but, while Catholics consider Confirmation (or eastern catholicism, in Chrismation, which is joined with Baptism and the first Holy Eucharist)…it’s a sacrament. He doesn’t consider it the equivalent of a sacrament…in fact, he suggests, to his parishioner (as their head pastor), that they don’t have to have the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, if they don’t want to.

In other words, though he claims belief in the doctrine of a ‘type’ of baptism (wrongfully separated from water baptism which is IN the Holy Spirit), he doesn’t consider part of the salvation process. In fact, his ‘being saved’ is not really a process at all. Once he/they are ‘born again’ in their profession of Christ, that’s all that is required (according to their theology).

 

[byzgirl]

By the way, we are born again, washed in the Blood Catholics. Don’t let evangelicals make you think that they are born again and your not.

Oh, trust me, I don’t.

I am completely convinced that it is a wrongful interpretation of Scripture…that Jesus speaks of only one baptism (that they are one in the same). I love the sacramental nature of the Incarnation (the physical and the spiritual united, as Christ is). It’s only natural that he would use physical and spiritual means to convey grace to us, who are in His Image.

I just wonder how he doesn’t see the confusion that this creates. He basically has two types of baptism, and NEITHER one of them is necessary for salvation!

 

[COPLAND_3]

I am a former Southern Baptist and we did not believe that Baptism was necessary, just only an outward sign that you show people that you are a Christian. I got to where I could care less about Baptism, kinda like “what’s the use!” The Sacraments saved my faith because I got to where I did not even desire to go to church anymore because I was getting more just studying the Bible at home, why get up early and go hang out with a bunch of church goers to play church. But at Mass I get much more than staying at home and reading the Bible, I get the Body and Blood of Christ!

So yea, it’s a faith that they have that I can actually maintain on my own without ever stepping into a sanctuary, but with Mass it is all together different!!

 

[byzgirl]

I am a former Southern Baptist and we did not believe that Baptism was necessary, just only an outward sign that you show people that you are a Christian. I got to where I could care less about Baptism, kinda like “what’s the use!” The Sacraments saved my faith because I got to where I did not even desire to go to church anymore because I was getting more just studying the Bible at home, why get up early and go hang out with a bunch of church goers to play church. But at Mass I get much more than staying at home and reading the Bible, I get the Body and Blood of Christ!

So yea, it’s a faith that they have that I can actually maintain on my own without ever stepping into a sanctuary, but with Mass it is all together different!!

God bless you…that’s a pretty big leap of faith (from Southern Baptist to Catholic)! There is so much beauty in the Sacramental and Incarnational nature of Christ’s Church. Christ, who is, since his birth, both fully human and fully God, reaches out to touch us Christians (with spiritual souls and physical bodies) in the same manner (using both aspects…both good and holy…for God created everything material, and called it good). It is so joyous and comforting to think of the Church as an extension of God’s hand (really physical) in the world (until His return). To me, it makes perfect sense and is ‘perfect’ like Him. It presents Christ, as He actually IS. Tangible, within His Church. I love being able to be both spiritually AND physically ‘touched’ by God…given his endless graces…offered in His Sacraments.

Protestants often make God, not only ‘spritual only’ (forgetting or ignoring His Incarnation)…but also stagnating Him within time (thus the ‘re-sacrificing’ idea they have, of what they often ‘think’ Catholics believe)…that Christ cannot continually offer the same sacrifice, in time, of Calvary (and perpetual offering) and not another or new one.

It reminds me of the aversion they often hold toward the crucifix…yet, for Christmas, they have no problem placing God in the creche (as a baby). In other words, we see the spectrum of Christ’s life, which isn’t bound by time or space.

He is God Incarnate, and there’s nothing that is impossible with God!

I’m always reminded of my brother-in-law’s Christmas sermon from a few year’s back (he gave us, as a gift, a copy of his sermon on CD). When I listened to it, I was reminded of his limitation on the Incarnation of Christ. It was probably a rejection (as usually, much of his theology falls into the path of not so much ‘what he believes’ but avoidance of ‘what Catholics believe’). For he said, during his talk on Mary, that she gave birth to “Jesus, the man”. Who, we ask, is that??? In his avoidance of the ‘impression’ that Mary gave birth to God (in the second person of the Trinity), he basically stripped God of his Divine nature (separating it from his human nature). And as we know, we are persons, not natures. There is a very fundamental theology that is tending toward ‘heresy’. Jesus was never, since the conception of the Holy Spirit, just a ‘man’. He was always God and will aways be God. Since the conception, in Mary’s womb, he is the God-man. One person.

That really highlights, for me, the problem that Evangelicals have with understanding the Sacramental nature of the Church, in its perfect tie to the Incarnational Christ!

It’s something that we need to help them see, and let them share…because it’s meant for them too. God is calling them to His one Church.

I’m happy that you found it, and that God gave you the grace necessary to see and to embrace the fullness of Christian faith.

I’ve been enjoying this thread’s exchanges tonight. I think I must go now…but please have a blessed and Merry Christmas (Christos Razdajetsja)!!! God is with us! Emmanuel!

 

[byzgirl]

I am a former Southern Baptist and we did not believe that Baptism was necessary, just only an outward sign that you show people that you are a Christian. I got to where I could care less about Baptism, kinda like “what’s the use!”

Okay, I re-read your comment and have to make one last comment. That’s where I think my brother-in-law’s theology is heading (with his beliefs about Baptism). I mean, if they believe that no Christian is ‘required’ to be baptized-- (despite the Holy Scriptures that directly state so (their taking text out of context and therefore misconstruing the true understanding/doctrine), and the foreshadowing of water/spirit baptism in the OT.– then, you’re right…what’s the use?

He actually tries, weakly, to encourage his parishioners to partake of the water baptismal ceremony (in his backyard pool)…but where is the desire (the calling to do so) when it’s meaning is ‘little more than ritualistic nothingness’. If you don’t believe that the Holy Spirit comes down upon the believer, through the purifiication/regeneration of water, then why bother at all?

To make it worse, he then weakly suggests that his own ‘Baptism of the Holy Spirit’ (the second baptism), is OPTIONAL!! Where is the substance???

That is NOT truth. That is NOT the gospel of Christ. That is a poor, POOR, imitation.

That is why it’s important for us to keep praying and evangelizing…because they deserve the truth.

Again, have a Joyous Christmas!

 

[NotWorthy]

Your friend is ignoring the reason while Cornelius became filled with the Holy Spirit. God saw that the Church was ready to receive the Gentiles into the Church. They couldn’t exactly walk up and be baptized, because they weren’t Jews. So God filled them with the Holy Spirit as a sign for the Christians to believe that the Gentiles were ready to be added to the Church.

 

[byzgirl]

Your friend is ignoring the reason while Cornelius became filled with the Holy Spirit. God saw that the Church was ready to receive the Gentiles into the Church. They couldn’t exactly walk up and be baptized, because they weren’t Jews. So God filled them with the Holy Spirit as a sign for the Christians to believe that the Gentiles were ready to be added to the Church.

Yes, you’re exactly right. He is completely ignoring the context of the Scriptures, to support his doctrine. God was welcoming the gentiles, as members of His Body–and he doesn’t have to do things in the expected order of events. He wanted to SHOW Peter (especially) and the other Apostles that it was His Will that they belong to the Body. That was their signal, to let go of their fear or misgivings and to accept them into the Church. There are exceptions (God can do whatever He wants), within Scripture, but it doesn’t create a new doctrine (a second baptism).

Paul, my brother-in-law, believes that the second baptism is when the Christian ‘receives’ his gifts/charisms (sort of like an imitation of Confirmation/Chrismation). The confusing part about it, is that he tells his parishioners that it’s not necessary to ACCEPT those gifts…that it has nothing to do with salvation (they are already saved).

If you ask me, it’s a very empty creedo. Here we have two baptisms that are virtually rendered into nothingness. Who would really care to be baptized at all in his church? You can take it or leave it…especially the water baptism. What would give his ‘community’ members the initiative to do so (especially those that don’t care for rituals)?

The scary part of this is, some of his parishioners (those that haven’t been baptized) are NOT really saved, according to God’s design. And whether or not that will bar them from heaven, is up to God.

So God’s call for one faith and one baptism (in WATER *AND *SPIRIT) has deteriorated, within his brand of Pentecostal-style Christianity, into a hodge podge of mixed up interpretation and doctrinal confusion!