Worship, Revised and Expanded Edition: Reformed according to Scripture

by Hughes Oliphant Old

Many Christians began to put the emphasis on conversion rather than on baptism as the way to salvation. This is not at all surprising. What could be more natural than that a century of revolution should understand the Christian faith in terms of conversion! In America the Great Awakening emphasized a very intense personal religious experience and presented the conversion experience as the means of entering this deeper kind of personal life. The preachers of the Great Awakening claimed that one’s baptism in early childhood did not assure one of salvation. Baptism was no guarantee of eternal life. Much more important was a conversion experience. In fact, many preachers of the Great Awakening saw no real significance to baptism at all. Congregationalists, Methodists, and Presbyterians continued to baptize infants, but covenantal theology was largely forgotten.