Baptism Quotes

“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 since I thought about God, but I think about him now. It is only natural. I am glad, suddenly, that I shot Eric in the foot instead of the head.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“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 minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.”
― Noam Chomsky

“I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“Minister: Welcome, brother! Do you reject Satan and all his works?
Bunny Breckinridge: Sure.”
― Tim Burton

“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 divine gift of birth from God.”
― Hans Urs von Balthasar, Unless You Become Like This Child

“Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“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 the matter. And then I had to discover exactly what that meant.”
― Aberjhani, The American Poet Who Went Home Again

“Accept the past as the past and realize that each new day you are a new person who doesn’t need to carry old baggage into the new day with you. It’s amazing how many people ruin the beauty of today with the sorrows of yesterday. Yesterday doesn’t exist anymore! For example, if ever I feel foolish or guilty about something I’ve done, I learn from it and attempt to do better the next time. Shame or guilt serves no one. Such feelings actually keep us down, often lowering the vibrations of those around us, as well. Living in the present moment is the recurring baptism of the soul, forever purifying every new day with a new you.”
― Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace: Essential Teachings for Enriching Life

“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 responsibility at a point in time difficult to determine.”
― Hans Urs von Balthasar, Unless You Become Like This Child

“...Of the Hindu, of whatever caste, it may be said, as of the poet, nascitur non fit. His birth status is unalterable. But with the Sikh the exact reverse is the case. Born of a Sikh father, he is not himself counted of the faith until, as a grown boy, he has been initiated and received the baptism of the pahul at the Akal Bungah or some equally sacred place.”
― Lepel H. Griffin, Ranjit Singh

“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 apostates had no valid subsequent ministry.”
― Thomas F. Madden, From Jesus to Christianity: A History of the Early Church

“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 the church where it is safe and comfortable rather than in public where there is opportunity to give witness to the saving grace of Christ. The great needs of society are left to para-church groups, government agencies, and other social service organizations. All the while the church is losing its muscle tone, its biceps are becoming loose and flabby and its belly is becoming round and soft. Not a pretty picture for one who once was toned and buff—a lean, mean fighting machine.”
― Craig Olson

“Teach the people the Word before converting and baptizing them”
― Sunday Adelaja

“Baptism of holy spirit is the necessity of a new birth.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Learning to listen with one's whole body. Learning to hear with the eye and see with the ear and speak with the hearing. Knowing the Spirit in movement and not in stasis.

Such a process makes us aware of the way some of our bodily and work-role functions were usurped for the rituals of the church over which women were forbidden to officiate as celebrants. New birth, symbolized by the uterine waters of baptism, was separated from physical birth. The Eucharist took the serving role in which women were cast all the time and adapted it as a seminal experience that only men could perform.”
― Nelle Morton, The Journey is Home

“When Delphine saw the knight's eyes soften, she reached her small hand out, and he took it in his large one. And she led him down to the stream, and, with its cool water, washed his head and his feet, and helped him wash the anger from his heart”
― Christopher Buehlman, Between Two Fires

“Problem was, Brother Brown kinda lost his grip and I sunk right to he bottom. I didn't know I was supposed to come right back up, so I just floated on down the river a ways, blowin bubbles and lookin up through the milky water at the clouds goin by. Aunt Etha told me afterward that the congregation panicked and charged into the river. They was still splashin around and callin my name when I popped up downriver like a bobber on a fishin line, a few shades paler and fulla the Holy Ghost!”
― Ron Hall, Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together

“To try to understand the words, first and foremost, is a fool’s errand. That’s why everyone thinks Christian fundamentalists, or really any kind of religious fundamentalists, are wackjobs or idiots or both. What most Catholics understand, it seems intuitively, or perhaps because they were baptized as babies and already put on their path without much of a say, is that they are supposed to behave like actors; it’s about learning the lines, the cues, then feeling them, there in the church and also out in the world. That’s it. That’s how Christianity is supposed to work; it is based on feeling, not knowledge. That’s what it means to be a follower.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“To be baptized is a sign that everything we are – work and play, personality and character, commitments and passions, family and ethnicity – is gathered up and given shape and definition by our identity as one of God's own children.”
― Thomas G. Long, Accompany Them with Singing: The Christian Funeral

“But, in the early morning sunlight, dressed in their white gowns, the possibility of sin seemed to have been extinguished. Their sins were expunged. Major catastrophes like cheating on your wife and leaving your family, could no longer happen, would no longer happen.
But, of course, they did, and they do.”
― Paula Carter

“Covid-19 vaccine is the new baptism.”
― Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

“Peace seemed to roll in through the open door in the wake of Joan's departure. Elena took her son in her arms and gently kissed his face. His eyes were heavy with sleep, but the lids were almost transparent so that the blue of his eyes glowed through them like a jewel through gauze. She stroked the soft apricot down on his warm head and slid her finger into the tiny fist, feeling the fingers curl tightly round her own as if he knew without looking that it was his mother's hand.

The bairn, that's what they all called him. Athan said he had chosen a name, but Joan declared it was bad luck to say it out loud before the baptism in case a stranger or the faerie folk should learn it and use it to witch the child before his name was sanctified by the Church. At his baptism Athan would whisper it to the priest at the font, but only when the priest proclaimed it to the congregation would Elena knew what they were going to call her baby.”
― Karen Maitland, The Gallows Curse

“Sonnet of Holy Water

A new day starts with a new you,
And I ain't talkin' about born again nonsense.
A bigot baptized a thousand times is still a bigot,
A human helping another is Christ himself.
There is no second coming, there’s no reincarnation,
Except when we go from selfishness to kindness.
We are the messiahs and saviors of our people,
Nobody's gonna fall from the sky to lift the helpless.
The liquor store sells you the same divinity,
That the holy store sells you for even higher price.
We'll be born again when we abolish such divinity,
By baptizing the soil of society with our sacrifice.
The tears of joy someone sheds because of you,
Are the only holy water to build the world anew.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Handcrafted Humanity: 100 Sonnets For A Blunderful World

“How do we reach Gilead? Remember, Gilead lies beyond the River Jordan. That's where God meets us. The waters of the Jordan are made up of the tears of God, blended with the tears of all our grieving. The journey to Gilead crosses that river of tears. It's the journey we call baptism. That's what baptism is: being bathed, healed, cleansed, and renewed in the waters that flow from the broken heart of God. That's the balm in Gilead. The tears of the living God. The tears that make up the water of our baptism. To be baptized in the tears of God: this is the truest balm of all.”
― Samuel Wells, Be Not Afraid: Facing Fear with Faith

“The Abundant Chamber by Stewart Stafford

Divest yourself of sword and coin,
And burn all your illusions and airs,
Let the cave mouth swallow you,
Go willingly into its dark recesses.

A comforting seashell to the ear,
There is no sound out of place,
Stillness a vast garment grounded,
Encroaching ambiance calms.

Now look within and take stock,
Have you reached your apotheosis?
Be cleansed by pure water pools,
Then become reborn to the light.

© Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Back then I thought that men, like sins, could be done away with a little water.”
― Allie Ray, Holler

“You don't got to pull me back up, Preacher. It's just as well you hold me down beneath the waters.”
― Allie Ray, Holler

“My brother Junior said there was only one baptism, but I think of how the earth goes to be baptized every year. For what is snow but water? And what is winter but the cleansing death? And then spring comes fit to bursting with new life---comes out from the death of winter like Lazarus from the cave, and heaven and nature starts itself over again.”
― Allie Ray, Holler

“Never fail to try again”
― Marcia Mandisi Mabaso, The Adventurous Nun: Stories My Family Told Me: Biography of Sister Mildred Lungile Madlala

“For all Christians, baptism embodies release from yesterday's sin and receipt of tomorrow's promise: going under the water, the old self is buried in the death of Christ; rising from the water the self is new, joined to the resurrected Christ.”
― Dorothy C. Bass, Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time