# Baptists *changed poll*: Any adult children, raised in Church, not baptized?



## Semper Fidelis (Mar 1, 2007)

{Note: Sorry about that, can those that voted re-vote, poll question lacked granularity} 

I don't know why this occured to me today, but I wanted to know if there are any children in your congregation who are now adults and are not baptized. You need not give great detail but I wondered if you could explain why, you believe, any that are grown are unbaptized. {Note, more than "they're uncoverted". Do you think there are any contributing means to their reprobation that you can detect.}


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## Kevin (Mar 1, 2007)

OK I know I have not been a baptist in about 20 years but I went ahead and replied to the poll anyway. I spent the first half of my life a baptist and left at the age you are asking about. And yes out of 20/30 of us my age at that time several were not yet baptised. 

The reason was they had not made a profession of faith. Although most who had been in the church since birth were baptised as small children 2-6 years old.

As my wife (daughter of a baptist pastor & baptised at age 3) says "Baptists don't believe in infant baptism, they believe in toddler baptism!"


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## Herald (Mar 1, 2007)

Give me a few years to reply. We're only six years old and don't have any children that have grown up in our fellowship yet. In fact, we only have one teenager....my daughter!


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## refbaptdude (Mar 1, 2007)

They are unbaptized because they are unconverted.


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## 5solasmom (Mar 1, 2007)

I'm just curious (I've been a baptist all my believing life and recently changed to Presbyterian)....what exactly constitutes as a "profession of faith" and when is it believed to be _credible_ (for instance, a child's faith is typically not accepted as a credible profession in many baptist circles)?


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## SRoper (Mar 1, 2007)

There are children at my Presbyterian church that have not been baptized...


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## VictorBravo (Mar 1, 2007)

This is admittedly a source of concern and calls for much prayer in our assembly. Parents do not want to coerce their children to make a superficial and false public profession. It is very frightening and sobering to see a young adult profess, be baptised, and then later publicly deny faith. It has happened.

This caution may be biased the wrong way, but praise God we still have Baptisms of young people who soberly seem to understand what they are undertaking and who humbly profess faith. Contrary to what other Baptists might experience, we don't have "toddler baptisms."

As for credible profession of faith, it is not a formula. When a child professes faith to his parents or to others, we rejoice. By way of procedure, it is announced to the assembly and the congregation is encouraged to get to know the child if they don't already. As I implied above, this usually occurs when the child is old enough to express his thinking clearly, and most often occurs in teens and young adulthood. The elders also talk with the child. At that point, we are similar to the Presbyterians. If nobody is able to demonstrate open sin or contradictions to the testimony, and the testimony is indeed public, the child is scheduled for baptism.


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 1, 2007)

refbaptdude said:


> They are unbaptized because they are unconverted.



All the 18 year olds that grew up in your Church are unconverted?


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 1, 2007)

UPDATED POLL: If you haven't re-voted yet then please do so. I had 5 that had <100% converted.


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## Archlute (Mar 1, 2007)

SRoper said:


> There are children at my Presbyterian church that have not been baptized...



D'oh!


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 1, 2007)

*BUMP*

Oh Baptists...

I changed the poll and had to reset 5 of the responses. Could you please re-answer the poll and if you haven't please answer it.

This is for science.


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## elnwood (Mar 1, 2007)

I didn't grow up in a Baptist church, nor have I been in any single Baptist church long enough to even make a guess at that number.

I'm also confused by the question. Generally if they become adults and are unbaptized, they no longer go to church. Are we supposed to count the ones that still go to church, or are we counting the ones that grew up the church and have since left unbaptized?


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 1, 2007)

elnwood said:


> I didn't grow up in a Baptist church, nor have I been in any single Baptist church long enough to even make a guess at that number.
> 
> I'm also confused by the question. Generally if they become adults and are unbaptized, they no longer go to church. Are we supposed to count the ones that still go to church, or are we counting the ones that grew up the church and have since left unbaptized?



If they grew up in the Church and didn't get baptized and then left the Church when they weren't forced to attend by Mom and Dad anymore then that would count as a person who was not baptized before they became an adult and the person who was in that Church would not be able to answer for the first option.

Hence, if you had 10 kids that grew up in the Church, and one of them is now an unbaptized adult and the other 9 are baptized then 90% of the children were baptized. If 3 of them never got baptized then 70% were baptized.


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## VictorBravo (Mar 1, 2007)

SemperFideles said:


> *BUMP*
> 
> Oh Baptists...
> 
> ...




I'd be happy to help out Rich, but it won't let me vote again. I recall my vote was for the original "some".


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 1, 2007)

victorbravo said:


> I'd be happy to help out Rich, but it won't let me vote again. I recall my vote was for the original "some".



If you voted already, please tell what you would choose for the new version of the poll. Sorry about that Victor. I thought the first one would provide good granularity but Trevor is right above.


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## VictorBravo (Mar 1, 2007)

SemperFideles said:


> If you voted already, please tell what you would choose for the new version of the poll. Sorry about that Victor. I thought the first one would provide good granularity but Trevor is right above.



OK, 25-50 would be mine.


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## VictorBravo (Mar 1, 2007)

SemperFideles said:


> *BUMP*
> 
> 
> This is for science.



 
Having done a fair amount of experimental design and biometry in my wayward youth, I got a kick out of that. Are we going to do a Chi-square analysis on this? I wonder what the variables will be.


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 1, 2007)

victorbravo said:


> Having done a fair amount of experimental design and biometry in my wayward youth, I got a kick out of that. Are we going to do a Chi-square analysis on this? I wonder what the variables will be.



Nah, this will be far more exacting than that stuff. This is more like the science of phrenology.


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 1, 2007)

trevorjohnson said:


> 75-90% would be mine....sorry for putting a kink in the poll.



No kink at all. Thanks for the feedback.


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## Semper Fidelis (Mar 6, 2007)

Wow! Who answered that less than 25% of the kids that grew up in your Church ended up being baptized? Any extenuating circumstances?


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