Baptize! Baptize! Baptize!—But Why?
“IN THE space of a few months I have baptized more than ten thousand men, women, and children.” So wrote Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier regarding his work in the kingdom of Travancore, India. “I went from village to village and made Christians of them. And everywhere I went I left behind a copy of our prayers and commandments in the native language.”
Greatly impressed with Francis Xavier’s letters, King John of Portugal ordered that they be read aloud from every pulpit throughout his kingdom. The letter of January 1545 just quoted was even approved for publication. The result? “Before long half the students in Europe, ‘falling to their knees and pouring forth hot tears,’ were clamoring to go to India and convert the heathen,” writes Manfred Barthel in his book The Jesuits—History & Legend of the Society of Jesus. He added: “The idea that it might take more than a couple of holy-water sprinklers and a satchelful of tracts to convert an entire kingdom does not seem to have occurred to many at the time.”
What was actually accomplished by such mass conversions? Jesuit Nicolas Lancilloto realistically reported to Rome: “Most of those who are baptized have some ulterior motive. The slaves of the Arabs and Hindus hope to gain their freedom by it or gain protection from an oppressive master or simply to get a new robe or a turban. Many do so to escape some punishment. . . . Any who are driven by their own convictions to seek salvation in our teachings are regarded as madmen. Many apostasize and return to their former pagan practices not long after being baptized.”
The desire to convert and baptize the heathen was shared also by the European explorers of that era. It is said that Christopher Columbus baptized the first “Indians” he encountered in the Caribbean. “The official policy of the Spanish Crown put the conversion of the native population as first priority,” says The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity. “By the end of the sixteenth century, the 7,000,000 Indians of the Spanish empire were, in name at least, Christians. Where we have statistics of conversions (Pedro de Gante, a relative of the Emperor Charles V, who had joined the missionaries, told of baptizing 14,000 with the help of a single companion in one day), it is evident no serious preliminary instruction had been possible.” Such superficial conversions were often accompanied by harsh, brutal, oppressive treatment of the natives.
The importance placed on baptism spurred these explorers and missionaries on. In 1439, Pope Eugenius IV issued a decree at the Council of Florence that said: “Holy Baptism holds the first place among the sacraments, because it is the door of the spiritual life; for by it we are made members of Christ and incorporated with the Church. And since through the first man death entered into all, unless we be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, we cannot enter into the kingdom of Heaven.”
Contention arose, though, as to just whose baptism was valid. “Because it was also the fundamental rite of entry into the church community, baptism was quickly claimed as a prerogative by several rival churches, each of which called itself orthodox and accused the others of heresy and schism. Modifications of baptismal rites by the various sects were inevitable,” notes The Encyclopedia of Religion.
The practice of baptism, however, predates the Christian faith. It was employed in Babylonia and in ancient Egypt, where the cold waters of the Nile were thought to increase strength and bestow immortality. The Greeks also believed that baptism could bring regeneration or could procure immortality for the initiate. The Jewish sect at Qumran practiced baptism for initiation into their community. It was required that Gentile converts to Judaism be circumcised and seven days later be baptized by immersion before witnesses.
Obviously, much importance has been placed on baptism down through the ages. But what about today? Is it necessary in these modern times? If so, why? Indeed, should you be baptized?