Re-baptism, insurance conversions, and sprinkling
Dan has no problem re-baptizing someone whose first baptism lacked real repentance, comparing understanding Jesus at 25 versus 40, and would do it for the peace it gives. Ben tells of someone baptized fifteen years ago as fire insurance and says God is not bought off by a wet body. Ben lands mostly with Dan: his concern is less the technicalities than someone flatly refusing, since Jesus said to do it and the church has always baptized. On sprinkling as a recent innovation, the room jokes that dying to self because someone tossed a mud pie at you misses the burial picture, and Ben frames baptism and communion as physical actions concurrent with a spiritual reality, not magic but not empty show either.
More on Baptism
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Is skinny dipping in the Sea of Galilee sacrilegious?
- Is skinny dipping in the Sea of Galilee sacrilegious?
The hosts debate the hard question: one argues the category of 'sacrilegious' itself is man-made — something is sin or it isn't — and that the congressman's real problem was foolishness, not location (Jesus was in a boat there; it is moving, recycled water).
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Chat questions: what must one do to be saved?
- What must one do to be saved?
- At what point is someone saved?
Reading listener questions from the chat — one host tosses the first to Dan by name — the hosts answer that faith is always the baseline: belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God who died physically and rose physically, since 'demons believe and shudder' too.
From No. 34 · Where Do I Start?
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Dawson: everything feels like a sales pitch
Mike asks Dawson where the church presents community poorly. Dawson: everything feels like a sales pitch now — every invitation defended with ten reasons, which makes people suspicious.
From No. 590 · Theodore Franco
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Baptism Sunday spectacle: mascot, dunk Sunday, inflatables
Ben describes a church advertising a big baptism Sunday complete with a basketball-team mascot, “dunk Sunday,” rides, and inflatables, and asks whether meeting Jesus is really that life-changing or whether churches fluff it up.
From No. 588 · hypokritēs