Our Baptismal Confession

Having witnessed several baptisms in various denominations, I recognize the fact many groups do not take a public confession of the individual being baptized just prior to the act of baptism and so these few comments today only reflect the nature of what takes place on a regular basis in my own fellowship. While not responsible for what I write, my youngest daughter at Abilene Christian University gave me the idea for these comments and I am more than pleased to see her taking hold of her own faith and not simply mimicking the things told her in the past.

Most members of my fellowship expect and some might even raise their hand and say, "wait a minute. We have not heard his/her confession yet," if we were to take someone into the water for baptism without having them stand before the congregation and state their belief that Jesus is the son of God. I will not go into it at this time but most of the congregations I have been affiliated with over the years will ask women if they belief Jesus is the son of God so she can give the only acceptable yes. After all, it is important to remember women MUST remain silent in our worship services and the only allowable alteration to this "command" from God is when they join in the "song service" and admit they believe Jesus is the son of God.

Returning to the focus of my comments, I finally realized while talking to my daughter the problem with divisions in our fellowship has nothing to do with people "leaving" the truth of scripture behind, but rather our failure to adequately ask for the RIGHT CONFESSION!

It is not enough to know of the person recognizing Jesus as the son of God; the son of God who came and gave His life for our sin. Since the Church is obviously responsible for adding members to the body of Christ, we need to know more about their ability to match the "true" commands of God. We fail because we do not have them stand and confirm their displeasure of women praying in the service, instruments being used, a girl collecting the attendance cards, women serving communion to the membership and a myriad of other items demanded by those seeking to take the Lordship from Christ.

In my search of through the bible, I do not find the official creed of the Churches of Christ demanded by so many for fellowship and I am saddened these same people will even allow someone the opportunity of baptism and tell them their name is being written in the book without knowing they are "true believers."

I hope we will soon get to a point in our fellowship where we recognize our understanding of God does not position us as the official scribe for the Book of Life!