When the convert emerges from the water, the world seems changed. The world has not changed, it is always wonderful and horrible, iniquitous and filled with beauty. But now, after baptism, the eyes that see...

Under the leadership of religious professionals, modern worship has become passive—listening to a message and singing some songs. Seldom is there a call to service or an invitation to trust Christ. Baptisms take place inside...

Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the...

You know it’s a real salvation when Baptists use cold water.

I entered the water as naked as when my mother bore me. When I first touched the cold water I felt a shudder go through me, then the shudder was transformed into a sensation of...

The Church does not dispense the sacrament of baptism in order to acquire for herself an increase in membership but in order to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person...

The Spirit of God draws or leads the sinner from one phase to another, gradually, in proportion as one is found having a disposition to responsive hearing. Grace flows ordinarily from prevenient grace through the...

I called it a baptism in flaming ink that forced me to shed my shyness about recognizing myself as a poet and to accept the fact that life had never given me any choice in...

It would be unjust toward children to introduce them to Christian teaching and existence only as little pagans and catechumens, in order to leave it up to them to choose the Faith on their own...

Prominent Christians in Constantine’s time waited to be baptized until their deathbeds lest they commit a “major”sin that couldn’t be forgiven of those already baptized. Others felt anyone who did anything to avoid martyrdom were...

We have seen some gatekeeping or fencing-the-table language already beginning to rear its head in this context. One needed to be baptized to take the meal; one needed to repent to take the meal; one...

Bishop Hostettler explained that baptism was not the means by which one is saved, but simply an outward sign of salvation. Just as an Amishman’s beard is an indication of his marriage and commitment to...

At present, the successful office-seeker is a good deal like the center of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, but draws everything else to him. There are so many societies, so many churches, so many...

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and...

We are members of God’s family. One faith, one hope and one baptism.

I take thee at thy word:Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized;Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Love is tears of joy, this is the baptism of fingers. (L’amour, c’est larme de joie, – C’est le baptême des doigts)

One Lord, one faith and one baptism.

Thus the vocation of the baptized person is a simple thing: it is to live from day to day, whatever the day brings, in this extraordinary unity, in this reconciliation with all people and all...

Dost thou renounce Satan, and all his Angels, and all his works, and all his services, and all his pride?” …The first act of the Christian life is a renunciation, a challenge. No one can...

Because I am baptized in the name of God the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” – John Calvin (from his catechism)

I breathe in. The water will wash my wounds clean. I breathe out. My mother submerged me in water when I was a baby, to give me to God. It has been a long time...

There has been a rediscovery of the meaning of baptism as entrance and integration into the Church, of “ecclesiological” significance. But ecclesiology, unless it is given its true cosmic perspective (“for the life of the...

It is not necessary that faith and repentance should always precede baptism. They are only required from those whose age makes them capable of both. It will be sufficient, then, if, after infants have grown...

It is because baptism is a real insertion of human beings into the ascended manhood of Christ that the Church is Christ’s own body, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones.

The early Mormons were even less concerned about ministerial training. On several occasions, a man heard a discourse, submitted to baptism and confirmation, received a call to priesthood, and was sent on a mission –...

The earthly form of Christ is the form that died on the cross. The image of God is the image of Christ crucified. It is to this image that the life of the disciples must...