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John the Baptist adopted baptism as the central sacrament in his messianic movement, [26] seen as a forerunner of Christianity. [citation needed] Baptism has been part of Christianity from the start, as shown by the many mentions in the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles. Christians consider Jesus to have instituted the sacrament of ...
Believer's baptism (also called credobaptism, from the Latin word credo meaning "I believe") is the practice of baptizing those who are able to make a conscious profession of faith, as contrasted to the practice of baptizing infants. Credobaptists believe that infants incapable of consciously believing should not be baptized.
Baptists practice believer's baptism and the Lord's Supper (communion) as the ordinances instituted in Scripture (Matthew 28:19; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26). [5] [additional citation(s) needed] Most Baptists call them "ordinances" (meaning "obedience to a command that Christ has given us") [6] [7] instead of "sacraments" (activities God uses to impart salvation or a means of grace to the participant).
In the close of his comprehensive 2009 study, Baptism in the Early Church, [161] Everett Ferguson devoted four pages (457–60) to summarizing his position on the mode of baptism, expressed also in his The Church of Christ of 1996, [162] that the normal early-Christian mode of baptism was by full immersion. [163]
Baptism by non-Catholic Christians is valid if the formula and water are present, and so converts from other Christian denominations are not given a Catholic baptism. The church recognizes two equivalents of baptism with water: "baptism of blood" and "baptism of desire".
His book Baptist Church Perpetuity explained his theory that various Christian movements of the past led inevitably to the formation of the Baptist Church. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] Another book, Baptizo-Dip Only , expressed his disagreement with Dr. Whitsett's assertions about the baptismal rites of English Baptists.
One of the earliest of the Church Fathers to enunciate clearly and unambiguously the doctrine of baptismal regeneration ("the idea that salvation happens at and by water baptism duly administered") was Cyprian (c. 200 – 258): "While he attributed all the saving energy to the grace of God, he considered the 'laver of saving water' the instrument of God that makes a person 'born again ...
Friedrich Schleiermacher, an influential nineteenth-century Reformed theologian, saw baptism as the way the church receives new members and taught that faith is a precondition for baptism. He was ambivalent about the practice of infant baptism, teaching that it was not an essential institution, but could be continued as long as the church was ...