Lesson video

Hello and welcome to this lesson on baptism in Christianity.

My name is Miss Kendrick.

And today we're going to be looking at why Christians believe baptism is necessary.

We're going to be looking at infant baptism and believers baptism baptism as well.

Baptism is a really important sacrament for many Christians.

This is something that they believe is really necessary to live a Christian life and to receive salvation.

So this is what going to be one of the key practises that Christians do that you need to learn about.

So what do you need for this lesson? You need a pen or a pencil, a different coloured panel pencil, and some paper to make sure you're writing down your answers as we go along.

Before we look up baptism itself, we're going to start by making sure we know some key definitions.

So I've already used the word sacrament in this lesson and you might be thinking, oh goodness, Miss Kendrick.

I've never heard that word before, and that is okay, because I'm about to give you a definition.

But we going to start with the phrase religious practise.

Now, if somebody is practising in a religion, it doesn't mean that trying to get better at something.

Instead a religious practise is a formal action performed because of a belief.

So for example, Eucharist or baptism, and sometimes practises are known as rites.

So in this sense, a practise, a religious practise is something that Christians do to express their religion.

And it's something quite formal that they do in that most Christians will do this particular thing.

So a rite is a religious ceremony or act.

For example, Eucharist.

Now, just to make things a little bit trickier, not all practises are rights, but all rites are practises.

Okay? So some things that Christians do regularly and as part of their faith and because of their beliefs are not necessarily known as rites, but all rites are something that Christians do because of that belief.

Okay.

So baptism is a rites and in baptism, water is used to wash away original sin, and this is considered to be a sacrament.

So sacrament is our last word on this list.

It's a bit like the word sacred, isn't it? which means something for something to be special or Holy.

Now, a way to define a sacrament is an outward sign of inward grace.

So what this means is that something physical is happening, and that thing is making a change on the person.

So, and so grace is being received.

So for example, in baptism, that outward sign is somebody being either put underwater briefly or having water poured on their heads three times.

That's the outward sign, because who believe in sacraments believe that when that outward sign is performed, then something is genuinely changing in that person.

So that person is receiving grace and grace is the freely given gift of forgiveness, which Christians believe is made possible through Jesus death.

And that means that salvation is possible.

So that's an important thing to understand.

I and once went to a wedding where I thought this was described really, really well.

So the couple had just been married and the priest who was talking about the marriage, he was giving a talk afterwards.

He said, now these people don't look any different to how they looked earlier on today.

By looking at them, you wouldn't notice any change, but now they are married.

And the fact that they are married is not necessarily something you can see, but there has been a change and for many Christians.

Marriage is a sacrament.

So he was talking about how in the eyes of God, they are now changed because they are now one.

So hopefully that helps you to understand that many Christians who believe in sacraments believe that when someone receives a sacrament, they might not look any different.

But because of that outward action, like marriage vows or baptism or taking Eucharist, there's been a genuine change on their soul.

They've received an inward grace.

We don't need to be using these words regularly? And they're going to turn up in assessments and things like that.

So you're going to spend sometime learning them, using a look, cover, write, check, repeat.

So make sure you do this process properly.

I know it's obviously often not very exciting.

It's often not the tasks that students enjoy doing, but it is effective.

I should see loads of mistakes if I were to see your work, because it's all about making mistakes and correcting them.

So sometimes when my students start doing this, they very quickly go, Oh, Miss, this is really difficult.

I can't do it.

No, and may be it's fine.

You have another read of the definition or just one definition, cover up.

See what can remember.

If you can't remember very much.

That's fine.

You have another look.

And then you add a bit more, just go through that process and it will help you to remember these key definitions.

Okay.

So again, before we look at baptism in a little bit more detail, I want to make some links to important Christian beliefs.

Now here, I've got a diagram that I tend to use to explain the belief in atonement.

Atonement is made up of the words, act one meant, and it describes the work that Christians believe that Jesus did on the cross.

They believe that Jesus took on human sin, which we can see here and exchanged that for his righteousness and Christians believe that humans are seen as righteous as good, sinless in the eyes of God, because of this great exchange that they believe Jesus did on the cross.

Now, the key question here is, well, Christian might believe that that is the case, but how do they respond to that? And how do they become part of that story and receive that forgiveness.

And this is where practises such as baptism come in.

Now, many Christians would say that God offers this forgiveness and this salvation freely, but those people have to participate to receive it.

For example, if I told my form group that they could all have some cake at lunchtime and all they needed to do is to come to the form room to receive the cake.

Well, they are going to have to participate by coming to the form room.

I'm offering something freely.

I'm not saying they have to do anything to earn the cake.

I'm just saying that, well, if you want it, you've got to be here at lunchtime.

And if they choose not to come at lunchtime, they're not going to get the cake.

In a similar way, Christians believe that God freely offers this forgiveness.

And he says, you know, all people can receive this forgiveness from Jesus, but to participate in it, you need to follow Jesus.

Or you need to you know show that you're following Jesus through these things like baptism and Eucharistic, et cetera, et cetera.

So a gift really given that a choice to receive that gift.

And so many Christians would say that baptism is one way to receive this gift.

And one way to participate in God's story.

So we are going to have some quick fire questions to hopefully get some of these ideas into our heads.

And then I'm going to talk a little bit more about different types of baptism.

So firstly, what is a original sin? It is the sin passed down from Adam and Eve.

What is a practise? An action done because of a belief, and you might have spotted rites in there.

And I said earlier rites are practises, but not all practises are rites just to make us have to think really hard.

What is the point of practises? So we've got two answers here.

One is to express faith.

Another is to take part in God's story.

So if you were dithering between the two, I probably should have told you that there were two options there.

What is salvation? To be saved from sin? What is original sin? Is the sin passed down from Adam and Eve? Okay.

Baptism.

Now you might be familiar with baptism.

You might've been baptised yourself when you were a baby or even when you were older because in the UK, lots of families choose to baptise their children.

And we're going to look at differences between adult baptism and infant baptism and baptism in different denominations as well.

So in this picture, well, these pictures, you've got one picture.

The one furthest away from me, which is showing a believers baptism or an adult baptism and closest to me, we've got a picture showing infant baptism, a baby being baptised, and you might straightaway notice some differences.

So the adult has been put all the way into the water has been put up again.

That's why he's soaking wet.

And the baby is just having a little bit of water poured onto their heads with their parents and everyone around them.

The adult is standing in a pool of water.

Whereas the baby's just being held over a small, almost like a sink of water, which is called a font.

Now, the question is, why is it that these different types of baptism are practised? Why does some Christians decide that babies should be baptised, and others say that it should be left until somebody is an adult? And this is going to link to why they believe baptism matters and what they think is going to be the most important thing here.

When someone is baptised, we are going to look at these different approaches to baptism and a little bit more detailed.

But just to give you a couple of ideas now about why some Christians would choose adult baptism or believe this baptism, why some would choose infant baptism? Well, many people, many Christians will choose adult baptism because they believe that baptism is a commitment.

And that it's really important that someone understands the commitment they are making and that they make those promises that are made at baptism for themselves.

And for that reason, they would say that adults should be baptised rather than children.

Or they might say that there's a certain age at which children are old enough to make the decisions to be baptised.

And this is because they believe that becoming a Christian, being baptised is a life long decision, it's not something that they say, Oh, you know, you can pick up for a couple of years and then change your mind after a while and decide you want to be something else.

They would say that in having a baptism, you're promising that you're going to follow Jesus your whole life.

And they'd say that's a really serious commitment to make.

And therefore they would say only adults should be baptised.

However, other Christians might focus on the belief in original sin.

when they are thinking about baptism and they might argue that it's better for some to be baptised when they're very young, when they are baby, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, they believe that it's better to wash away original sin and enable that child to receive the Holy spirit as a guide early in life.

So that you've got that guide right from the very beginning.

Also, historically when often children used to die very young, they would argue that it would be better to be baptised because they believe that original sin would prevent somebody from going to heaven.

And so they would say that it'd be really important to wash away original sin when the baby was very young so that if that baby became ill and died, then they would be able to go to heaven.

And so those are just two reasons why Christians might choose believers baptism or infant baptism.

So what you're going to do is answer a couple of questions, saying what infant and believer's baptism are and give a couple of reasons why Christians might choose one or the other.

So why does baptism matter? Why is it so important? So many Christians, and like I said, for many Christians, it is a fundamental practise that they believe is going to be really important.

Well, there's a few different reasons why Christians practise baptism.

Firstly, one is to follow Jesus examples.

So the Gospel stories talk about Jesus being baptised at the beginning of his ministry.

Now Jesus was Jewish and baptism was something that was practised in Judaism.

And the story says that John the Baptist, who was a cousin of Jesus, was baptising people.

And Jesus came and asked that he be baptised as well.

And then in the Bible, it describes this moment where the voice of God is heard and the Holy spirit descends like a dove.

And there's this image of all three members of the Trinity together, at Jesus baptism.

Christians believe they should follow Jesus' example.

And therefore many of them will be baptised because of this.

The second reason is sin and baptism.

So I've already talked about that in a little bit of detail.

There is the belief that baptism washes away sin and for many Christians.

That's not just symbolic.

That is literal sin being washed away from their souls.

So that will be one very important belief about baptism.

And finally, we've got the church and baptism and there's a few things actually say for this.

Firstly, Christians believe that before Jesus ascended into heaven, He told His followers to go into all nations baptising in the name of the father, the son and the Holy spirit.

So the church believes that there is or many churches believe that there is a command from Jesus to baptise people when they become Christians.

Also many Christians would say that being baptised is the point at which you're welcomed into the church.

So for that reason, if you ever go into a traditional church building, one of the first things you'll see near the entrance is the font.

The font is the small pool of water that is used to baptise babies or perhaps adults as well.

And it's at the entrance of the church to symbolise that baptism is the moment at which you are welcomed into the church community.

So for many Christians being invited into the church community is going to be a really important part of baptism.

And the last one I was going to say, which links to the first thing I said about the church.

That order, is that in response to Jesus commands that people be baptised.

In the new Testament, you can read many stories about people becoming Christians, and being baptised by the apostles.

So there was this practise of baptism from the very beginning in the church.

So that would be another reason why it's important.

The next thing we're going to look at before we answer some questions is a little piece of evidence for baptism.

And I've already quoted this one to you.

So these are the words of Jesus before he ascended into heaven.

And Christians believe that, or many Christians believe that this is a command.

So Jesus says "go then to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptise them in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy spirit." So this piece of quotation is really useful piece of evidence for you when you're writing about baptism in an examination.

It can be used to support quite a few different practises around baptism.

So for that reason, you are going to pause the video now, and you're going to write down this quotation.

okay.

Hopefully you've gotten that down.

So the next thing you're going to do is answer some questions.

Well done for getting those answers down.

I hope that you did add to your own answers with a different coloured pen when going through my examples, because like I often say that's a really good way to make sure you're improving and that you are remembering those answers.

So why have I got a slide with the word denominations on.

what denomination? A denomination is a group within Christianity? And the reason why I'm talking about this now is because I'm going to refer to a few different denominations in this lesson.

And we need to have a bit of background to understand why different groups of Christians believe or act in slightly different ways.

And this is often due to disagreements in history about Christian belief or Christian practise.

However, core beliefs are the same, which makes those people Christians.

So for example, in all different Christian denominations, they will believe that Jesus is important.

Most Christian denominations will believe that Jesus is God and that he's equally God, there are a few that have slightly different beliefs, but we're not going to get into that right now.

Now I've got a very, very, very basic timeline here, just to help you have this in your head.

And if you are interested in history, I think church history is really interesting.

It's one of my favourite topics.

So I don't expect you to share my love of it, but let's start with Pentecost.

So the day of Pentecost is the day Christians believe the church is born.

This happens 50 days after Easter Sunday.

And it's the event where Christians believe that the Holly Spirit was given with tonnes of fire over the Apostles head and it's believed to be the moment that the church community was born.

And many people became Christians on that day.

Now Christians were persecuted for about 300 years after Pentecost.

And so we're quite scattered and weren't really able to come together and have a formal agreement on what they believed until Emperor Constantine became Christian and decided to get everyone together to outline what Christians actually believe.

Now, as soon as they try to get everyone in the same room to agree on something, of course there's going to be disagreements.

And there were several councils which were very focused in particular on outlining beliefs about the Trinity.

That's where we get things like the Apostle's creed and later on the Nicene creed, but we also have some schisms. So schism means split.

So fairly early on, there was a split between the Eastern Orthodox church traditions.

So, you know, lots of churches like the Coptic, Egyptian churches and things like that and what we would call Roman Catholic.

So the Europe European churches.

So we have that first sort of big split.

Now later on, we have the Reformation, so for a long time, the Roman Catholic church was the main church in Europe.

So the Pope sort of was ruling it.

It was in charge of it.

And lots of different countries were part of that until the Reformation in the 16th century, where a monk called Martin Luther, not Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King Jr.

was named after his dad who is named after Martin Luther.

If I've got that right, Martin Luther protested against what was happening in the Roman Catholic church, because he said their was a corruption going on, and lots of things happened like the Bible in that point, up until that point was written in Latin.

And most people couldn't read Latin and lots of people couldn't even read anyway.

And so they couldn't access those stories in the Bible.

So what lots of the reformers did, and it's called Reformation because they wanted to make reform in the church.

They started translating the Bible into their common languages.

And so that's why we've got this splits here, where it says Protestant, because all those denominations that protested against what was happening in the Roman Catholic church at the time are known as Protestant churches.

But as you know, all of these people are interrupting the Bible for themselves.

There's going to then be lots of different groups about and how people understand what's written in the Bible.

So this is where we have Protestant denominations, such as the church of England, Baptist, Methodists got Pentecostals.

There's lots and lots of these thousands of denominations in Protestant Christianity and Roman Catholic is at the side over there because the Roman Catholic church continued and there were counter reformations and there was lots of reform in the Roman Catholic church as well.

And there are still Roman Catholic churches today.

So this is why there's all these different beliefs within Christianity.

And this is just a bit helpful background for you to understand why there's going to be some slightly different practises.

I hope that's been useful and deeply interesting cause I think it's deeply interesting.

So what you're going to do now is you're going to answer some questions on denominations and Christianity.

All right.

So baptism in Roman Catholicism.

So we're going to use Roman Catholics as an example.

And if you're writing about this in an examination, you want to use the sentence Roman Catholics beliefs or one way Roman Catholics practise baptism is because if we're name dropping different nominations, we're showing that we know what they believe and what they're doing.

So Roman Catholics believe that baptism is a sacrament.

There are seven sacraments in Roman Catholicism.

Baptism is one of them and they believe it's necessary to wash away original sin.

So that means they believe you've got to be baptised.

If you want salvation, if you want to go to heaven, if you want sin washed away.

So it's incredibly important.

They believe that you can only be baptised once.

And they would say that baptism makes an indelible mark on a person's soul.

What that means is that it makes a permanent change and that no one can be re-baptized and no one could be unbaptized.

So that's actually a very, very important thing.

Again, if you look at your church history, people who re-baptized, people historically were often heavily persecuted and killed.

So, people really, really cared about these things historically, and people care a lot about them today as well.

Roman Catholics will usually practise infant baptism, particularly if the family is Roman Catholic, but that doesn't mean they don't practise adult baptism.

If someone's an adult and they were not baptised as an infant, maybe because their family weren't Roman Catholic, then they can be baptised as well.

And the service will look very similar, but obviously they will not be held like baby, like in this picture.

So how does baptism take place in Roman Catholic church? So the priest will anoint the person or the baby with oil on their forehead and water will be poured over their head three times.

And in this picture it's being done with a shell, which is traditional.

The pool filled with water for baptism is called a font.

So I've told you that earlier.

And as a reminder, I said that the entrance of the church to represent being welcomed into the church community.

If it's a infant baptism, the parents, perhaps godparents as well will reject Satan and profess their faith.

So it's showing their commitment to God really, and that they're going to reject anything that's evil.

And if it's a baby being baptised, the parents will reject Satan on the behalf of the child.

So the person being baptised or the baby will often wear white.

This partly symbolises the purity of faith in the cleansing power of baptism.

It also symbolises the white garments which Jesus wore, when he is placed in the tomb after his death on Good Friday.

And a baby might wear baptismal gown.

That's been handed down for generations and an adult will typically put on a full length white gown as well.

And now if we look a little bit, at why Roman Catholics practise baptism and how you're going to answer some questions.

Okay? So baptism in the church of England.

So the church of England is also known as the Anglican church.

I'm not going to get into the difference between those names right now.

But, infant baptism in an Anglican church will look very similar to Roman Catholic baptism.

There'll be a font.

The water will be poured on their heads three times, there'll be anointed with oil, lots, and lots of different things.

One difference may be that often the family gathers around the fonts in an Anglican baptism, but that's not necessarily always going to be the case.

And perhaps some might happen in some Roman Catholic baptisms as well.

So it's going to look very similar.

One thing to be aware of is some church of England churches.

Some Anglican churches will practise believers baptism as well.

And if the parents of a child prefer believers baptism, then that baby might be dedicated rather than baptised.

And I'm going to get into that in just a moment when I'm talking about believers baptism.

So believers baptism, some Christians such as Baptists believe that it is important for people to choose for themselves if they are baptised.

And we'll see this in lots of other Protestant denominations as well.

And this is partly because they believe that baptism is a public commitment to faith.

And like I was saying earlier, they would say that this is a lifelong commitment.

So that it's important that that person can make that decision for themselves.

And this is one reason why it's known as believers, baptism, because it's all about the person believing in Christianity.

So how has this carried out? Well, the person being baptised will often give their testimony.

They'll confirm their faith and reject Satan.

What I mean by testimony is that they might tell the story of how they became a Christian and why they want to be baptised.

In adults, baptismal believers baptism The person will often be baptised by full immersion.

So that's what we can see in this picture.

Guys just being baptised and the picture we looked at earlier in the lesson.

Now this is very symbolic.

So in believers baptism going under the water, represents dying with Christ.

And it's dying to that old life of sin where they were not following Jesus and being under the water represents Jesus being in the tomb or in the grave after he died on good Friday.

And then when they're raised up out of the water, again, this represents Jesus' resurrection and also rising to a new life in which they are following Jesus.

This is why you sometimes get the phrase born again Christians.

This idea that they're dead to an old life and that they are in a new life in which they follow God.

I talked a bit about dedication earlier on.

So these Christians, will often instead of doing infant baptism, when they have a baby, they will still want to mark the birth of that child and thank God.

So they might have a church service where they give God thanks for that child.

And they pray for the family and dedicate that child to God rather than do an infant baptism.

What you're going to do now is you're going to answer some questions on believers' baptism.

Hey, well done for taking on all of that different information and writing down your answers.

I hope now you've got a good understanding of how Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Baptists, or some free church Christians practise baptism, and why it's important to them.

And I've just got a last point to link to before we do some quick fire questions to make sure we're getting this into our heads.

So like I said earlier, a really important thing to remember with baptism is that many Christians believe that its a necessary sacrament to enter heaven.

Now, this is going to be a really important thing to keep in mind when discussing the importance of baptism.

So you might have some evaluate questions that say something like helping the poor is more important than sacraments like baptism.

Now there's lots of things you can talk about in a question like that.

You could talk about the parable of the sheep and the goats and the belief that God judges people based on their deeds.

But you could also say, but for many Christians, they believe that unless you've had original sin washed away, you can't go to heaven.

So it doesn't matter how many good deeds you do.

Original sin must be washed away first, and then you could go and do good deeds.

So I just wanted to make it clear to you how important baptism is to many, many Christians and its importance is a tunnel and linked to the afterlife.

So I hope you're ready for some quick fire questions.

Firstly, which Christians practise believers baptism? Baptists.

That is a really easy one to remember guys.

And also just remember that Baptist is a denomination.

That believes not only about baptism, but that is where they've gotten their name from because of the belief and believes in baptism.

Roman Catholics never practise adult baptism.

True or false? That is false.

If someone becomes a Christian later in life and converts from Catholicism, then they would be baptised as an adult.

Anglican and Roman Catholic baptism services are similar.

True, or false? True.

There are some differences, but they are going to look fairly similar.

In a Roman Catholic baptism, how many times does the priest pour water on the person's head? Three.

I'm sure lots of people are glad it's not seven.

Some Christians believe.

Hang on.

Let me get that star, three.

Why do you think it's three? What else is the three of in Christianity? So the words often used is I baptise you in the name of the father, of the son, and the Holy spirit.

So that's where we've got the number three from.

Some Christians believe baptism is necessary for a person to go to heaven.

True or false? True.

And that's going to be Roman Catholics.

For example, some Christians argue that only adults should be baptised as they can take on the promises of baptism themselves.

something in my words tell you that's true or false? True, and Baptist Christians in particular are going to believe that.

So well done for taking part in today's lesson.

Key thing to remember, make sure you know the names of your denominations and make sure you know, what they believe.

The example I often give to students is let's say I've got a student called Jimmy in my classroom.

And I would just make up something that Jimmy has said or so.

You know, last week Jimmy was talking about how much he loved Pokemon and Jimmy will go.

I didn't say that.

And he'll be slightly annoyed that I'm making things up that he said, and this is what you have to keep in mind when you're talking about denominations.

Do not guess, do not make up what you think they believe, be accurate.

Because if I was to say that you said something or believe something that you didn't, you would complain, wouldn't you? You'd go I don't believe that, or I didn't say that.

Think about it in the same way when it comes to these different denominations, we need to be accurate about what they claim they believe.

So that's my sort of top tip before you go off and do your quiz questions.

I hope you get on okay with them, and in the next lesson we'll be looking at different views on the Eucharist.

So if you're going to do that lesson, I will see then.