Baptism is so important to the Church and its understanding of what Jesus wants that the Church agrees with people who have a child all covered in sores and who is very sick being baptised with stagnant water. This happened a lot in the poor hygiene of the Middle Ages. It can happen today in war zones. Infection will happen and may result in the death of the child. The Church holds that baptism must still be given for spiritual life that is being made pleasing to God by baptism matters far more than physical life. Jesus put his spiritual life before his physical life and didn't try to escape the arrest that led to his cross. He risked the life of his mother and friends and brothers in the way he practiced his spirituality.
Show solidarity with the babies and the sick who were killed by filthy baptismal water by keeping your baby away from the poisonous waters of baptism.
When infectious disease such as tuberculosis, were rife, the Church continued with baptisms as an essential service. Many a baby was left without parents over this. Infected priests baptised the baby giving the baby a clear death sentence. Parents knew. The village knew. It still went ahead.
St Thomas in the Summa said if the baby's death seems imminent in childbirth then when the baby's head appears baptise it right away. That meant touching the child and mother with dirty water. Infection had to happen. Sure enough the Church never demanded that water be boiled and cooled. He also said that if mad person seems lucid and asks for baptism, then it should be given to them even if they start objecting and screaming.
Commenting on Romans 3:8 that bans doing evil so that good may come, he said that you must not kill a woman to get the baby out to baptise it. A sacrament that raises such a question is hardly good or divine. You don't ask, "Is it right to kill a person to stop them eating the chocolate cake?" unless you disrespect their life in the first place. The answer, "No", does not change that.
Religion teaches that substantial evil is impossible. It argues that only something good can do evil or make it possible for evil is an abuse of good and is a nothing in that sense. So something that manages to be wholly or substantially evil would not be a something at all, it is a nothing. Religion says Satan is smart and preserves himself and abuses these good things to do harm. Rather than being wholly evil, Satan cherry-picks the evil he favours and would wield vengeance against any evil he does not like. Selfishness reigns there. So he is able to be wholly selfish without being wholly bad. It is because of good that he is able to be so selfish.
This makes no sense. If evil is a non-thing then the more evil one is the less of a person one is.
I wonder if some in the past held that a baby only had an equal right to life or at least proper care when its supposed evil was washed away and forgiven in baptism?
Baptism is also about calling a child a person who will sin in life.
Make no mistake, baptism and the faith it represents does not regard a person with sin or evil as fully human. It does not matter if it is a defect of 5% or 50%. It is the attitude that stinks.
WORKS CONSULTED
12 Church of Christ Doctrines Compared with the Holy Scriptures, Homer Duncan,
Missionary Crusader, Texas, 1984
All One Body – Why Don’t We Agree? Erwin W Lutzer, Tyndale, Illinois, 1989
Baptism, Meaning, Mode & Subjects, Michael Kimmitt, K & M Books, Trelawnyd, 1997
But the Bible Does not Say So, Rev Roberto Nisbet, Church Book Room Press,
London, 1966
But What About the Thief on the Cross? Cecil Willis, Guardian of Truth, Bowling
Green, Kentucky
Christian Baptism, Philip Crowe, Mobray, Oxford, 1980
Covenant Reformed News, Volume 7, Number 13, Ballymena, Northern Ireland
Four Great Heresies, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1975
Handbook to the Controversy with Rome, Vol 1, Karl Von Hase, The Religious Tract
Society, 4 Bouverie Street, 1906
Is it necessary for you to be baptised to be saved? Hoyt H Houchen, Guardian of
Truth, Bowling Green, Kentucky
Is Water Baptism Essential to Salvation? Curtis Hutson, Sword of the Lord, 1988
Jesus and the Four Gospels, John Drane, Lion, Herts, 1984
Objections to Roman Catholicism, Edited by Michael de la Bedoyere, Constable,
London, 1964
Radio Replies, Vol 3, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul,
Minnesota 1942
Reason and Belief, Bland Blanschard, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1974
Regeneration or the New Birth, A W Pink, Evangelical Press, Welwyn, Herts,
England, undated
The Documents of Vatican II, Edited by Walter M Abbott SJ, Geoffrey Chapman Ltd,
London, 1967
The Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, Hodder and Stoughton,
London, 1986
The Only Way of Salvation, H. A. Twelves, Christadelphian ALS, Birmingham
Vicars of Christ, Peter de Rosa, Corgi, London, 1993
When Critics Ask, Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, Victor Books, Scripture Press
Publications, Illinois, 1992
Why Baptism Really Matters, Fred Pearce, Christadelphian Publishing Office,
Birmingham
Why Does God? Domenico Grasso SJ, St Paul Publications, Bucks, England, 1970
Why you Should be Baptized, Herbert W Armstrong, Worldwide Church of God,
Pasadena, California, 1991
The WWW
Doctrinal Summary by Br Thomas Mary MICM. This page informs us that Catholic teaching is that if you hear of the Catholic Church and don’t join it or study it your damnation is guaranteed. It affirms that babies that die without baptism will be banned from Heaven forever.
BIBLE QUOTATIONS FROM:
The Amplified Bible