Infant Baptism: Is it Against Christian Sensibilities?

This starts another 3-part series on a Catholic doctrinal position. Lucky for me, most Christians practice infant baptism. For a list go here. The next two posts--infant baptism in the Scripture and in Church history--seem most germane to this topic since how you feel about infant baptism has a lot to do about what you think about baptism in general (what it is and it's effect) and how you received your baptismal tradition.

Setting those two issues aside for a moment, I'll bullet some considerations that illumine why infant baptism is not against Christian sensibilities:

• We are born with original sin
• Original sin makes us guilty from the get-go
• We are all in need of a savior
• Every person has dignity
• Babies are persons
• They have dignity
• They also are in need of a savior because of original sin
• If baptism washes us, it washes us of something
• It isn't dirt; it is the stain of original sin in the soul

Why would we deprive this of a child? Didn't Jesus say "such are the kingdom of heaven"? I think we do two possibly very damaging things when we don't baptise our infant children. First, we don't acknowledge original sin. Second, we devalue the unique and dignified personhood of the child. This, I think, is the most damaging effect sociologically. In an age where the unborn has no value, what does it mean when the first religious act we make is to say, "Your personal relationship with God needs to be put off." Why? Does it imply that they are less than persons? I'm not sure, but I think there is something enlivened in the heart when you offer your newborn to the Church to be baptized. Conversely, it is not enlivened when you don't (I know because I've done it both ways).

When you offer your child for baptism, you give him or her to God. It is the circumcision of Christ. As a parent I am not helpless as to the spiritual destiny of my child, yet neither is my child passive as to their cooperation with the grace of Christ. That will come later. However, in infant baptism the inestimable value of the baby as person is recognized. Would we deprive baptism to an adult who is in a vegetative state or mentally handicapped to such an extent that they are like an infant? Of course not, I don't think anyone with a heart would. Yet, why do some refuse a newborn baby baptism? I'm not sure. Maybe try here or here.

At least for what it's worth, infant baptism isn't against Christian sensibilities.