TJieodore W. Jennings, Jr. The Meaning of ... - Quarterly Review

aptized in infancy, the General Conference "forbade disrespect
toward infant baptism and those that saw fit to make use of the
same, but did not go further." 22
In their new confession of faith,
which was adopted in 1889 and carried into the Evangelical United
Brethren Church in 1946, the United Brethren affirmed baptism and
the Lord's Supper but insisted that the mode of baptism and manner
of observing the Lord's Supper were to be left to the judgment of
each individual, while the baptism of children was to be "left to the
judgment of believing parents." 23
No theological interpretation of
the sacraments was offered. Private judgment was extolled.
The Evangelical Church, patterned more closely after the
Methodist Church both in doctrine and polity, adopted Articles of
Faith in 1809 that were but a shorter version of Wesley's Article's
of Religion. Their rewrite of Wesley's article of baptism went as
follows:
Baptism is not merely a token ofthe Christian profession,
whereby Christians are distinguished from others, and whereby
they obligate themselves to observe every Christian duty; but it
is also a sign of internal ablution, or the new birth.
The Evangelicals could not bring themselves to use the word
regeneration, it appears. Maybe for this reason, S. J. Gamertsfelder,
president and professor of systematic theology at Evangelical
Theological Seminary, made it clear that the Evangelical Association
agreed with the Westminster Confession of Faith, which saw
baptism "as a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of. .
.ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of.
. .self-committal unto God. . . ." 25
Gamertsfelder likewise attacked "the error that water baptism is
absolutely necessary for salvation, as some hold." 25
He continued:
Another error closely allied to the preceding is the view that baptism
necessarily works transformation in the subject baptized.
This view is commonly called baptismal regeneration. . . We admit
that regeneration and water baptism may take place simultaneously,
but we also hold that they are not necessarily
connected. There may be regeneration ofthe heart by the Holy
Spirit on the sole condition of faith without water baptism?**
Thus, in the 1955 Book of Ritual of the Evangelical United
Brethren Church, one should not be surprised to find baptism
BAPTISMAL REGENERATION 47