Dedicating Infants in Church
Question: Is it considered orthodox to bless infants in our Seventh-day Adventist churches?
The answer turns upon the meaning given to the word bless. If it means that a mystical rite is performed whereby the spiritual state of the infant is thought to be changed; in other words, if to "bless" means essentially the same as to baptize the infant, the answer is emphatically No.
But evidently the word bless must have other proper meanings, for our Lord blessed the children. Perhaps we might free the term of its possibly unorthodox implications by substituting the word dedicate. We may properly dedicate children to God from the very day of their birth. In so doing we are not claiming to effect a present change in the life of the child. Instead, the parents, who have come to years of accountability before God, are placing a possession of theirs in the direct custody of Heaven. The transaction is between the parents and the Lord. Many parents, in the quiet of their own homes have thus dedicated their babes to God.
The question, therefore, narrows down to this : Is it right to dedicate a babe in the church? We would answer without hesitation, Yes. Certainly the pastor ought to make very clear the meaning and the limitations of the service, so that no casual visitor could gain a mistaken impression. But that ought not to be difficult to do. How impressive it would be, yes, and how helpful it might prove in holding our youth later on, if when they were tempted to turn from the church, there would come to their memory the solemn story their parents had told them of their being dedicated to God in the church at the very start of life !
Such a dedication could be made a fitting and solemn setting for a word of exhortation to fathers and mothers to bring up their children in the fear of the Lord. What a challenge to parents to guide aright the life of a child whom they have publicly dedicated to God ! The more we bring the lives of our children and our own lives within the sacred orbit. of the church, the more do we protect those lives with the influence of Heaven.
We marry our youth in the church; we bury our dead from the church. Why should it be thought strange or out of keeping to cast the influence of the church about our children in a service of dedication when they are starting on the road of life?
When we speak of a service of dedication we do not mean a protracted ritual. Simplicity is consonant with solemnity, and brevity with both. A brief, appropriate text of Scripture might be read, then the prayer of dedication. We dedicate inanimate buildings to the Lord, with impressive public services. It would be strange reasoning, indeed, that would lead us to forbid or even discourage the dedicating of our most precious possessions of all, these babes that God gives to us.
F. D. Nichol. [Editor, Review and Herald.]
For another pertinent discussion of this point, see "Blessing and Dedicating Infants," by C. L. Taylor, in the October, 1944, Ministry, page 14.—Editor