What do you think?
Rate this book
Re-Baptism? What One Must Know to be Born Again
Book by Allen, Jimmy
245 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1991
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
April 16, 2011
Everyone knows that some Christians don't accept infant baptism, but one of the (many) unique characteristics of most Churches of Christ is that they only accept believer's baptism performed expressly "for the forgiveness of sins." Jimmy Allen addresses this view from both Biblical and historical perspectives.
Among his better arguments are: 1) the forgiveness of sins is not the only purpose of baptism; the Bible in fact describes about 20 different purposes (union with Christ being among the most important)--and yet, no one maintains that knowledge of all of these is necessary for baptism to be valid, and such a position would make conversion practically impossible to begin with; 2) Acts 2:38 says that two gifts are given as a result of repentance and baptism: the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. What exactly is meant by "the gift of the Holy Spirit" is not clear to many; and yet, few (if any) say that one must fully understand what this phrase means in order to receive what it describes. Why insist on the first promise but not the second?
Allen concludes that for baptism to be valid, all that is necessary is that it be performed on a person who has faith in Jesus who wants to obey God. This was, in fact, the almost unanimous position in the 19th century in Churches of Christ, as argued by Alexander Campbell, David Lipscomb, J.W. McGarvey, James A. Harding, and many others. It was not until the 1920s that the currently-prevalent view began to dominate in Churches of Christ.
This book is quite repetitive and fairly pragmatically written. But overall, I found it to be a persuasive book about an important issue that may look odd to those of other traditions, but that has very important implications within Churches of Christ for how we understand baptism and how we view those outside our movement.
Among his better arguments are: 1) the forgiveness of sins is not the only purpose of baptism; the Bible in fact describes about 20 different purposes (union with Christ being among the most important)--and yet, no one maintains that knowledge of all of these is necessary for baptism to be valid, and such a position would make conversion practically impossible to begin with; 2) Acts 2:38 says that two gifts are given as a result of repentance and baptism: the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. What exactly is meant by "the gift of the Holy Spirit" is not clear to many; and yet, few (if any) say that one must fully understand what this phrase means in order to receive what it describes. Why insist on the first promise but not the second?
Allen concludes that for baptism to be valid, all that is necessary is that it be performed on a person who has faith in Jesus who wants to obey God. This was, in fact, the almost unanimous position in the 19th century in Churches of Christ, as argued by Alexander Campbell, David Lipscomb, J.W. McGarvey, James A. Harding, and many others. It was not until the 1920s that the currently-prevalent view began to dominate in Churches of Christ.
This book is quite repetitive and fairly pragmatically written. But overall, I found it to be a persuasive book about an important issue that may look odd to those of other traditions, but that has very important implications within Churches of Christ for how we understand baptism and how we view those outside our movement.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review