Children and baptism

Dear Mike,
When are children old enough to be baptized?

Children are innocent until they reach the age of accountability which is different for each child. Some understand the pressure of conscience and accountability before God at various stages in their development and training. This is why we can't make a hard and fast rule concerning the age that one can be baptized. The Jews pegged the time for a child's transition into adulthood at 13. I include a brief commentary of this ceremony for your review:

Bar Mitzvah is a Jewish coming-of-age ceremony that marks a boy's transition into adulthood in the Jewish community. The ceremony usually takes place when a Jewish boy reaches the age of 13. At this age, he is considered morally and ethically responsible for his own decisions and actions according to Jewish tradition. After the Bar Mitzvah ceremony, the young man is recognized as a Bar Mitzvah, meaning "son of the commandment," and is expected to fulfill the religious obligations and duties associated with adulthood. For Jewish girls, a similar ceremony called Bat Mitzvah is often celebrated around the age of 12. In recent times, some Jewish denominations also celebrate Bat Mitzvah at the age of 13, aligning it more closely with the traditional age for boys. The exact age and nature of these ceremonies can vary among different Jewish denominations and communities.

Of course, we do not use this as a rule for the age of a young person's baptism but the Jewish thought on this does give us a certain guidance.

My own thought about the correct time for baptism is twofold:

1. Does the young person know the fundamentals of the gospel and does he/she believe these things to be true? I don't expect a young person's faith to be as mature as an adult's faith but it is faith, usually devoid of doubt and complication. They do believe that Jesus is the Son of God, they do believe that they will be forgiven their wrong doings (lying, disobedience, using bad words etc.). In other words, a 12 year old's misdeeds not a 30 year old's failings.

2. Is there a fear of God? Our youngest daughter was baptized as a young child. She understood the principles but she also had a great desire to go to heaven. She was frightened by a lightning storm one night and reasoned that if a bolt had hit her directly, she would die and if she did she feared not going to heaven. She wanted to be sure that she was right with God, and thus obeying the gospel was the reassurance she needed to calm that fear of judgement.

Now, I have also refused to baptize young people who wanted to be baptized because it was their birthday, because it would please their parents, because everybody in the youth group was doing it etc. Jesus did say, "Let the children come to me and do not hinder them…" Mt.19:14. It seems to me that when children sincerely want to come to Jesus and understand the basic way this is done, we should not prevent them if they understand (at an age appropriate level) the proper response to the gospel and have a need to consciously do something to confirm their faith. Theirs may not be the robust, mature faith of an adult but it is an acceptable faith uncluttered by adult thinking and doubt.