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Friday, April 24, 2009 – Moroni 8

Now we rewind in time to when Moroni was “first called to the ministry.” If I had to guess, I would say this was probably his calling as one of the twelve disciples. But we don’t know for certain. We have a brief moment of Mormon telling his son he is proud of him. Once again, the greatest comfort to Moroni, a man of God who is all alone for several decades, is the words of his father Mormon.

This entire chapter is focused on just one of many false doctrines that had crept into the Church of Christ at this time: Infant baptism -- Both old world and new world Apostasies have this same error in common. The difference between the current Christian world and the Church of Jesus Christ at the time of Mormon was that the Nephite Christians still had prophets and apostles when this letter was written. So when this false doctrine arises, Mormon does what a prophet of God should always do: Pray to God to know how to proceed. As a result, the subsequent bold pronouncements against infant baptism are the divinely inspired Word of God to mankind. It is unknowable how well the Nephites received this rebuke. It has been received and accepted by the modern day Church of Jesus Christ. Nobody can accept Joseph Smith as a prophet of God and then continue with the practice of infant baptism. We know that it is wrong. We know that it offends God. We have a very long and powerful denouncement of the practice in this chapter.

This question is never asked nor answered in the New Testament, at least not in any of the surviving works of the Apostles. As a result, when the Apostles were gone, people were left to their own devices. The philosophies of men arise to fill in the gaps in theology and doctrine. Many incorrect assumptions are made. Infant baptism becomes institutionalized as the standard practice, largely based upon another man-made philosophy called Original Sin. We can wholeheartedly condemn those individuals who invented and canonized these false teachings all those centuries ago. We can hardly condemn those who come after them. If they want to know the Will of God on the matter, it is right there in Moroni chapter 8 along with all the reasons against it.

There was an early Protestant movement in the 1500’s that arose over the question of infant baptism called the Anabaptists: Anabaptist - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The only current remnants of this movement are the Amish, the Brethren, the Hutterites, the Mennonites, all of which are “influenced by” types of remnants. The actual denomination and movement is essentially extinct though their teachings are an important part of many, many Protestant beliefs. This group strenuously objected to infant baptism. Their name was given to them by others out of contempt and it means “Re-Baptizers.” The Catholic Church and Protestant Churches persecuted these people terribly. Far more Anabaptists were killed in those days than Christians were killed by Rome in the early days of Christianity. They were not well liked. They believed that an infant could not understand the commitment to God that was involved in baptism, so they denounced the practice of infant baptism and were baptized again as adults (those that had been baptized as babies that is.) If you were born into their beliefs, you would not be baptized until they were ready to personally commit themselves to God. It is interesting that they came to these conclusions on their own, but it is very sad that they were treated so terribly. The Spirit of God seems to find ways to teach people the truth in this case. It is extremely interesting how much violence and anger resulted from this -- something that in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we take for granted and understood. This is only one of countless examples where the Protestant Reformers absorbed so much fury and hostility to pave the way for the fullness of the Gospel. We can't thank them enough.

It seems reasonable enough to eliminate the practice of infant baptism because it seems to make no sense. Some thoughts:
a.) A newborn baby cannot commit sin and cannot knowingly make a commitment to God.
b.) It would be a pretty horrible God to damn all unbaptized babies who died in infancy to an eternity in Hell. That is not the God that I know and that is not the God Mormon knew. It would certainly be damaging to the faith of any believer to assume that a newborn baby is essentially a child of Hell requiring immediate baptism.
c.) There is a commitment in Baptism -- at least that is how we understand it. A baby can't really be expected to make a commitment to God, especially considering that a baby can't even speak -- so they can't verbally acknowledge their commitment.
d.) The basis for our understanding is in verse 8 "little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin." We have it directly from God. So we can at least be charitable to those who run to some incorrect conclusions on the matter. They don't have that first piece of information. They don't know that babies are clean before God and that they cannot commit sin. They have been taught the exact opposite, and for that reason, their practice of infant baptism makes sense. It is the false doctrine of Original Sin that leads them to error. Infant baptism actually makes sense within the context of Original Sin.
e.) The correct approach to dialogue on this matter is to begin with the foundation of: If the Book of Mormon is truly the word of God, then this is the revealed will of God on the matter. If that is true, then Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is God's Church and Kingdom. I think all differences of doctrinal understanding must of necessity be pointed directly at those points. Otherwise, we are pitting one set of human logic and understanding against another set of human logic and understanding. Human knowledge, understanding and logic has led to endless stupidity throughout history and I don't think we should lean too heavily on it.

Mormon states that he feels that the people are beginning to Deny the Holy Ghost -- again we are left to wonder how much knowledge they had that they were sinning against. Certainly much more than we have today. It is at least troubling to contemplate that even a few of them might have been guilty of committing the unforgivable sin. Whether their status was Perdition or a couple steps short of Perdition, it gives an eerie glimpse of what happens to people when they Deny the Holy Ghost. They were miserable, vengeful and completely unwilling (perhaps unable) to repent and return to God. They would go all the way to facing immediate death, yet they could not turn to God even then. Considering how much light and knowledge they had, it is unimaginable that they would have let themselves fall so far! What a tragedy! Yet they did it to themselves.