The following article, written by Free Methodist Bishop Emeritus Paul N. Ellis, presents a vigorous historical and theological case for the baptism of infants and young children within the Free Methodist tradition. Ellis argues that parents dedicate their children to God, while the church receives those children through baptism as members of the covenant community and pledges their Christian nurture.
Readers should approach the essay as a historical document and a constructive theological argument. Its language reflects the concerns and ecclesial debates of its original setting, especially the question of whether Free Methodists should replace infant baptism with child dedication.
The contemporary Free Methodist Church continues to affirm baptism as a sacrament and means of grace, and its Articles of Religion state that infants may be baptized at the request of parents or guardians who promise Christian formation. At the same time, current Free Methodist pastoral practice commonly recognizes parent-led infant dedication as an available alternative. The article below represents Ellis’s argument for recovering a stronger covenantal and sacramental practice of infant baptism.
This article was originally published in The Free Methodist Pastor, Summer 1983. is stored, and was scanned by the Marston Memorial Historical Center. You can read the original scanned article HERE
Parents Dedicate, the Church Baptizes
Paul N. Ellis, Bishop Emeritus
Winona Lake, Indiana
I have in my possession The Discipline of the Free Methodist Church, 1874, published fourteen years after the founding of our denomination. Article XVIII of the Articles of Religion includes the following constitutional guarantee:
“The baptism of young children is to be retained in the Church.”
From the beginning until 1974, this statement concerning the baptism of children was the denomination’s position.
In 1974, a new Constitution was adopted by the General Conference and ratified by the annual conferences. The new Constitution provided a fuller explanation of our historic position. Regarding baptism as a sacrament, Article XVII states:
“We believe water baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the sacraments of the church commanded by Christ. They are means of grace through faith, tokens of our profession of Christian faith, and signs of God’s gracious ministry toward us. By them, he works within us to quicken, strengthen, and confirm our faith.”
Regarding the baptism of young children, Article XVII affirms:
“Baptism is a symbol of the new covenant, and since infants are recognized as being included in the atonement, we hold that they may be baptized upon request of parents or guardians who shall give assurance for them of necessary Christian training. They shall be required to affirm the vow for themselves before being accepted into church membership.”
Accordingly, the bishops have made it clear to pastors that ministers violate their vows of ordination in the Free Methodist Church if they refuse to administer baptism to infants or children upon the request of parents or guardians. This is the historic position of the church.
Wesley’s View
The founders of Free Methodism, who felt called to “return to early Methodism,” agreed with Wesley on baptism.
In his Works, Wesley included “A Treatise on Baptism,” in which he wrote:
“By baptism we enter into covenant with God; into that everlasting covenant, which he hath commanded forever, that new covenant, which he promised to make with the spiritual Israel. . . . And as circumcision was then the way of entering into this covenant, so baptism is now. . . .
“Therefore, it is not only lawful and innocent, but meet, right, and our bounden duty, in conformity to the uninterrupted practice of the whole Church of Christ from the earliest ages, to consecrate our children to God by baptism, as the Jewish Church was commanded to do by circumcision.”
See Burtner and Chiles, A Compend of Wesley Theology (New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1944), 266–68.
Inferences From Scripture
We must not forget that the Church of Jesus Christ from its beginning was—and remains—a covenant church, even as Israel was a covenant nation.
In Jeremiah’s promise of “a new covenant,” the prophet declares:
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah” (Jer. 31:31).
The author of Hebrews identifies this new covenant with Jesus:
“Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant” (Heb. 12:24).
There is no dispute that circumcision was, and remains, the sign of the covenant relationship between God and Israel. An adult proselyte entering Judaism must be circumcised. Those born into Judaism, however, are circumcised on the eighth day after birth. The rite acknowledges the ancient covenant among faithful Jews.
In the New Testament, the recorded conversions and baptisms of households strongly imply the inclusion of children. Peter declared:
“The promise is unto you, and to your children” (Acts 2:39).
He did not qualify “children” with the adjective adult. Such a qualification would have seemed unnecessary to the early church, whose members were steeped in the tradition of family unity in matters of religion.
When Paul and Silas were released from the Philippian jail, we read:
“And he [the jailer] took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway” (Acts 16:33).
Given the nature of family life in that day, one might expect a specific exception for “infants and young children” if Paul had intended to exclude children from the sacrament.
The classical statement in our baptismal ritual concerning the church’s acceptance of children in baptism is found in the words of Jesus:
“And they brought young children to him, that he should bless them; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was displeased, and said unto them, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God’” (Mark 10:13–14).
A Methodist Scholar Speaks
Addressing the church’s responsibility to receive into its fellowship all those for whom Christ died when they themselves cannot yet make a choice, Olin Alfred Curtis writes:
“The church of our Lord has the right and the duty to claim the helpless. She should take into her atmosphere and association and, if possible, service all people who are unable to make a choice for themselves; not only all irresponsible children, but all the feeble-minded, and all those unfortunate souls who have been mentally wrecked by woes too terrible for human fortitude.”
Curtis describes this group as members “by Christian claim.”
He continues:
“If you ask what infant baptism precisely stands for as a rite, the answer should, I believe, be this: It stands for the sacramental acceptance by the church of the consecration unto Christ of a babe by a home.”
See Olin Alfred Curtis, The Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1956), 420–21, 438.
A Presbyterian Scholar Speaks
John Frederick Jansen asks:
“Must a child be outside the church? Does not Baptism rather say that from earliest infancy I am brought into the environment of grace and receive the seal of God’s love? Of course an infant does not feel any effect. But who is to say how soon a child becomes aware of love, and why not divine love?
“What shall the church say to its children? Shall it forbid them Baptism? Shall it assume that there is no such thing as a Christian child? Are children outsiders in the church, or are they members of the household of faith? If the old Israel included its children in the family of faith through circumcision, shall the new Israel exclude them?”
See John Frederick Jansen, The Meaning of Baptism (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1948), 102, 108.
Some Personal Observations
- Baptism does not regenerate either adults or children. For an adult believer, baptism is a sign of the covenant of grace entered into by faith; a public confession that the believer trusts in Christ’s atoning work for salvation; and a means of grace. For an infant, baptism is likewise a sign of the covenant of grace and a confession by the parents and the church that children are saved—not because they are innocent, but, as are all people, because of the universal atonement made by Christ for the human race. I also believe strongly that baptism is a means of grace to the child. Do we not pray for our children? Do we not anoint them with oil for healing? Should we think grace is given only to persons old enough and rational enough to understand fully the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? If so, who may be baptized? Who understands it fully?
- Parents dedicate the child; the church baptizes the child. Dedication is made by the only persons who can give a child to God: the parents. In baptism, the church accepts the child in a formal yet spiritual manner and pledges, in cooperation with the parents, to confirm that child in the Christian faith. It is meaningless for the church to assume that it can dedicate a child whom it has not accepted into the family of God.
- The Free Methodist Church historically stood within the classical catholic tradition of baptizing children. Until comparatively recent years, the Free Methodist Church stood alongside the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopal, Reformed, Presbyterian, Methodist, and other churches of Catholic, Calvinian, Arminian, and Wesleyan traditions in recognizing the baptism of children as a valid sacrament of the Church of Jesus Christ. Today, we are being influenced, to our loss, by Baptistic branches of the church, including the Churches of Christ.
- Replacing baptism with dedication departs from Free Methodist intention and doctrine. In my opinion, Free Methodist pastors who persuade members to have their children “dedicated” rather than baptized turn away from the intention of our founding fathers, fail to transmit the letter and spirit of our Articles of Religion, and miss a significant opportunity to witness to the covenant character of the church.
- The New Testament church was not merely a believers’ church. It was—and continues to be—a covenant church. It receives believing adults into its fellowship, as Judaism has always done, but it also includes the whole Christian family until, if it should occur, a growing child turns away from that fellowship in unbelief, just as an adult may do.
- The nurture of children is therefore of supreme importance. We believe that a child’s confession of Christ as Savior—even at four or five years of age, or perhaps younger—can be valid. Therefore, we have a solemn responsibility to confirm our children in the Christian faith, guide them in Christian love, and bring them to an adult experience of Christ through the revelation of the Holy Spirit. The vows of adult baptism and church membership can become meaningful to a child who is assured that the church has received him or her from infancy into the loving family of God.