Postcard73

With fundamental protestant xianity, a child can be born into a religious family, but the child isn't a xian until he has personally, consciously accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior...

Biff the unclean

With no Limbo or Purgatory to fall back on that puts the Prod toddlers out on a limb

Rational BAC

Well you were asking for a Christian viewpoint. I am Episcopalian so am not sure I can give you any kind of the Fundy answer you might want on this.

We have baptism as an infant which does guarantee you salvation. We also have a confirmation ceremony at the age of 12 or so, when you supposedly can make a personally rational decision. And if baptism didn't cut it, (which actually it does) then definitely confirmation is supposed to put you on the "good" side.

Now I was baptized and confirmed-------so I've got salvation coming out the ying yang.

But I guess the question is -----did I really know what I was doing at the age of 12? All I remember about it is I had to memorize all kinds of stuff. (the apostles creed for one thing which nobody seems to use anymore------maybe it was because of the part about Jesus going to hell for 3 days--which I thought was kinda neat actually--I always wondered what He did down there for those 3 days---would make a great movie)

Did I find any of this stuff to be restrictive mentally? Nope. Did it stop me from becoming an agnostic from about the age of 17 to 27? Nope. Didn't hurt me a bit actually. Did it help me in rebecoming a believing Christian at the age of 27? Nope. That is a whole 'nother story and has absolutely nothing to do with being baptized or confirmed.

Do I personally think that you have to be either baptized or confirmed to find salvation? Do I think you have to be "born again" at some other time in your life when you are feeling like shit, everything is going to hell and you just know that the world is definitely out to get you and somehow miraculously positive things happen after you accept Jesus as your saviour?

Nope.

Now I am sure what you really want is a Fundy answer so I will leave off and hope a Fundy comes on.

cydonia

Twenty years ago I was six years old, and apparently told my mother and grandmother that I had accepted Jesus as my savior after sunday school. I have no memory of this at all, and as I get older I start getting ticked that some sunday school teacher made me say I believed in something I had no ability to comprehend at the time. The strange thing is my mom and grandmother remind me of this, as if I'm breaking a promise I made to them personally, and they are dissapointed I didn't come through. WTF.

-DM-

The fundamentalist Bible churches that I was once involved with taught that salvation can ONLY come to someone who understands what s/he is doing when s/he repents of sin and accepts Jesus as savior. (Baptism was not a necessary ingredient at any age and did not in any way assure salvation. Rather, it was symbolic of one's conversion and strictly voluntary.)

Could children be expected to be "saved" and to understand what they were doing? Yes, in theory, if they were able to understand the concepts of sin, separation from "God," and "God's" remedy (the Cross). Sunday School was aimed at accomplishing exactly that for the kids of grade school age. In addition, there were "Good News" clubs (which met after school in the homes of faithful Christians), the sole purpose of which was to educate and then "save" the kids. This was accomplished over a period of time, plying them along the way with cookies and milk, stories and other entertainment, etc. Once they understood, how could they refuse? After all, what child would likely turn down eternal life in heaven for eternal life in hell?

-Don-

P.S. Although the Good News clubs that I saw in operation did not use Father Furniss' little treatise, they did use some of the concepts . . .

Kosh

If this is true, then why isn't it enough for Xians to just go around sprinklin every newborn? Much simpler to accomplish.

Your actions betray your true feelings about your claimed beliefs. If the baptism "actually does" save you, why need the "second chance"?

Rational BAC

If you read the whole post I think you would realize that I don't believe any of that crap is necessary for salvation.

What do I really believe is necessary for salvation?----for a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or atheist or whatever?

Live a good moral life. Take your chances on the rest of it when you get to the pearly gates.

Chances are you will be lovingly kicked into Heaven.

And if you did not live a particularly good and moral life? Especially if you lived a particularly evil existence-----the type of existence that at your funeral absolutely everybody said "Thank God--that fucking old bastard finally died------can I piss on his grave now?"------

--- Damned if I know what will happen for sure. Probably non-existence--which aint that bad. Like an endless sleep. But I think you will get to see what you missed before going into that endless sleep-----where the wailing and gnashing of teeth part comes in-----

I'm not real wild about the fire and brimstone part at least if taken literally.

Postcard73

Okay, I think this hits on one of the keys to understanding where fundies are coming from. Although I eventually got involved with the fundies, I was raised in a comparatively liberal Presbyterian church. I always thought the same thing- good people get into heaven. Correct or not, I think this is probably a common perception of xianity; I don't know how many people understand xianity this way on these boards. However, this is not what fundies believe...

Fundies believe that your eternal existence will be spent in heaven only if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior through prayer. This involves repenting of your sins and acknowledging that Jesus died on the cross to save you from those sins. I'm not going to go through the whole process, but I can 100% guarantee that you'd have no trouble finding websites that give you a "salvation prayer" word by word...

In application, this relates directly to the idea of fundies encouraging young children to accept Christ. By this thinking, a young child with a dynamite personality that is always happy and nice and friendly and would never do anything to hurt anybody is going to hell if he dies before being saved. At the same time, Stalin could have sincerely asked for forgiveness on his death bed, and he'd be in heaven right now despite the havoc he unleashed on the Earth. A xian might argue that someone as evil as Stalin could not or would not become saved, but the possibility definitely exists...

On a side note, I think this is one of several important points to understand why they are always thumping everybody over the head with their Bibles. From this perspective, even the vast majority of decent people on Earth are going to hell. I do wish a fundy would chime in on this thread. I had a very intense experience with the fundies myself, but I've been away from it for several years...

-DM-

Living "a good moral life" has little or nothing to do with being saved, going to heaven, according to the fundamentalists I know. It is, rather, as Martin Luther put it:

-Don-

Postcard73

Same here- that's what the rest of my post was about...