Word: baptism
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Most Christians have always defended the necessity of baptism for salvation, relying on Jesus' words in St. John's Gospel: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." The stern-minded theologians of early Christianity, Father Dyer says, interpreted these words strictly, and consigned unbaptized babes to hell. "They are vessels of contumely and the wrath of God is upon them," wrote St. Augustine. "If no one frees them from the grasp of the devil, what wonder is it that they must suffer in flames with...
...Catholic, Protestant and Jewish laymen in Houston will cooperate on a city-wide church census. Mutual concern for backsliders has tempered ecclesiastical competition somewhat. Undermanned Catholic dioceses in the Southwest no longer complain when Protestant missions minister to Mexican-Americans who may be Catholic by birth and baptism but not by any demonstrated devotions. Many local councils of churches are now planning carefully to avoid the organization of new Protestant congregations in small communities that can barely support the ones they already have...
...believers must embark on a person-to-person campaign - "more heart-to-heart talks, frank explanations and patient conversations." He suggested the formation of Young Atheist clubs, whose members could enter into anti-religious dialogues with believers, such as warning pregnant women about the physical dangers involved in baptism and circumcision...
...racial unrest in our country, the fact that a group of several thousand Negroes in Nigeria have asked for baptism in the church, and other outward signs would indicate to sensitive Mormons that the Lord is preparing the way for a change in the policy that excludes the Negro from the priesthood. Such a change would not, as your article stated, require "a most awkward reinterpretation of Mormon teaching on pre-existence." Christ, for reasons of his own, has excluded the Negro from his priesthood in our day, and a change in policy by revelation would not be surprising...
Preserving Freedom. The Disciples can easily talk union because they combine a maximum of spiritual freedom with a minimum of churchly trappings. Their congregations practice baptism by immersion, elect their own pastors, allow laymen (and women) to conduct the austere Sunday services, which may omit a sermon but never omit Communion. The Disciples have no confession or creed, and the divinity of Christ is their sole rule of faith. "Ever since the beginning, we've been scared to death that we'd arrive at a theology everyone would have to subscribe to," says Industrialist J. Irwin Miller...