Baptism :: essays research papers

Baptism   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are many positive and negative arguments about infant baptism in the Catholic Church. Baptism is a Christian. Baptism is the second biggest sacrament known to Christian religions. Baptism is a Christian sacrament marked by a ritual, which admits the recipient into the Christian community. In the Roman Catholic tradition baptism is celebrated by immersing a persons head with water.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Infant baptism has a lot of good negative arguments to help make this issue so controversial. One argument is that Catholics baptize at an early age, because of pressure of the Jewish religion. Male Infants of the Jewish faith are circumcised in order to get their right of passage into the church. Feeling the pressure the Catholic church felt that they should use infant baptism as a way of passage for the Christian faith.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another more prevalent argument is the idea of infant baptism not having any biblical foundation, which is presented by Karl Barth. Barth brings up the facts that Infant baptism was started in the apostolic period, not the period of the New Testament itself. Barth continues his argument with the fact that infant baptism has brought about the fact that people are Christians as a result of birth.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Cyprian of Carthage presents positive arguments on the issue of infant baptism. Cyprian explains that infant baptism obtains remission of both sinful acts and original sin.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  A philosopher named Augustine helps to clear up the controversy over infant baptism being right or wrong. Augustine raises the issue that, the apostolic creed states that there is â€Å"one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.† Since the creed presents this then the church followed that infant baptism remitted original sin.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Being raised Catholic it is hard to understand some of the negative comments. For instance I really don’t believe I’m a catholic because of birth. I was taken to church as a child, but as I started to understand the beliefs I could have easily rejected the beliefs of a Christian faith.