I have many regrets from my time in the ministry, but I do have one memory I am semi-proud of. I stuck up for myself once, and now this is the one thing I can look back on and feel I did the right thing.

It was actually pretty petty. Something I don’t mention on here because it gets rather confusing is that I was Baptist until I was seven years old. At that time, my parents switched denominations because they couldn’t find a Baptist church they liked. The move was to a lesser known denomination that is doctrinally identical, but almost no one has ever heard of it, or if they have, they don’t have a clue what it is. However, I was saved and baptized in a Baptist church before this move happened.

It became an issue when I applied for a youth internship the summer after my freshman year of college. Despite being saved and baptized in a Baptist church, and attending a Baptist church and school for a year my first year as an adult, I was passed over for the position. I was later told that I gave the best interview, but the pastor had concerns that I was not raised Baptist. I chalked this up to an anomaly (wrong!) and moved on. Instead, I volunteered at another Baptist church that summer where I didn’t run into that problem. I loved it. I figured that was how most Baptist churches were. (Wrong!)

Within the first few weeks after marrying Bob and starting at our first church, the issue of church membership came up. I had never officially been a member of my parents’ church, so there was no problem on that front. However, in the Baptist church, you either become a member through baptism or through a letter from your previous church verifying your baptism or membership. I had neither because it had been many years since my baptism. They decided it would be best if I were re-baptized.

I refused. I thought that was a gross distortion of what baptism was about. Baptism, according to Baptist doctrine (and many other denominations), was a public declaration of acceptance of the basic tenets of Christian faith, not an acceptance of the intricacies of Baptist doctrine. I had been baptized in a Baptist church, I accepted the doctrine; I would not participate in such a distortion of a sacred rite. To me at the time, it bordered on blasphemy to treat something so sacred so cavalierly. I put my foot down, too, much to the chagrin of many.

In the end, it worked, because the church I was originally baptized in found my records right before they threw them out and sent them over. Still, it was completely ridiculous. I am glad that I held my ground and refused to compromise my beliefs. It was the only time I can remember that I did until I got out entirely.

Tags: baptism, Christianity, church, religion, Southern Baptist

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 6:29 pm and is filed under Church and Ministry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.