Should Grandparents Baptize?
I’ve seen several similar discussions recently among LCMS Lutherans on social media concerning Holy Baptism. The question is whether or not a Lutheran grandparent should baptize his or her own grandchild if the parents refuse to have the child baptized. The discussions pretty much follow a pattern. The pastors say “no.” But a good many of the laity “of a certain age” say “yes.” Some wholeheartedly advocate for the grandfather or grandmother to “baptize” the child secretly in the sink. Knowing the power of television “programming” and the hypnotic lure of the laugh-track, I wonder how many people “of a certain age” were influenced by this particular scene in the antichristian, subversive TV show called “All In The Family.” Of course, Archie’s own words do explain why his grandson was unbaptized and being raised by unbelievers.
While such opinions are motivated by a love of posterity and a desire for their salvation, as well as recognizing the salvific nature of Holy Baptism, they are misplaced and inappropriate. And in fact, the resort to “do it yourself” may well be a symptom of why the problem exists in the first place.
Keeping one’s grandchildren in the faith begins much sooner. It begins when the future grandparent is himself or herself young and as of yet unmarried. It begins by living the Christian life, not merely holding it intellectually or going through the motions. The Christian life is the liturgical life. For the liturgy is the Bible - the Word of God - in action. It is the liturgy not merely accepted intellectually, but lived out day by day “with hearts and hands and voices” (LSB 895), as the hymn teaches us. Of course, if this hymn from our tradition is not part of your life, it will have no such reflective catechetical value to you, and probably not to your children or grandchildren either.
So even as a single man or woman, live the liturgical life! Never miss a Sunday Divine Service. Attend Bible class. Be involved in the life of the church. “Pray, praise, and give thanks,” in the words of our Catechism. And if this phrase doesn’t resonate with you, once again, this is part of the problem - since the Catechism is foundational for a generational faith - as we recite in the Catechism from the Close of the Commandments (Ex 20:5-6). Your daily life is liturgical. Pray before meals (again, see the Catechism), as well as in the morning and evening (once again, the Catechism). Have a daily pattern of worship in the home, whether Matins, Vespers or Compline, or the simple orders of family prayer (LSB 294ff). Read the Scriptures daily! Don’t neglect private confession and absolution. Rejoice in the ebb and flow of the church year, of feasting and fasting (which should be more front and center than the sports seasons or other matters of entertainment and recreation). Let the liturgical life of the Word of Christ dwell richly in you (Col 3:16) - what you hear, pray, read, and sing. Let the Christian faith and life become a habitus, definitive of, and central to, who you are as a person.
And then look for a spouse that is on the same journey, or one who will join you on this path. This is crucial. A household divided will fall (Luke 11:17).
I realize that this is increasingly difficult today. Declining birthrates and generational unfaithfulness have conspired to make it harder for young people to find a godly spouse. This is a very real cross; all the more reason to pray that the Lord will provide. There are things you can do, such as looking for opportunities to meet other young people and other singles who share your faith. God works these things out in surprising ways. So cast a wide net. Don’t underestimate the power of “a friend of a friend.”
And when you do get married and have children, continue in this faith and life. Gladly hear and hold the Word sacred (again, Catechism), a commitment as holy and irrevocable as your marriage vows. Have your own children baptized publicly by your pastor at your church, and let the children never remember a time when the faith wasn’t paramount. Let them never call to mind when they didn’t see you pray, hear the preaching of the Word, or receive the Sacrament of the Altar. Commit to attending every Sunday, barring sickness or being away. Don’t fall into the world’s trap of making your children’s soccer or dance class a priority. The Divine Service is the focal point of the Christian life, for young and old. That is where we encounter the risen Lord in Word and Sacrament - including the Sacrament of Holy Baptism that your own children should cherish by witnessing others being baptized, by singing hymns lauding baptism, by making the sign of the cross, and by having their own baptismal certificate on the wall.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut 6:4-9).
In doing all of these things, you are doing all that a person can do to make sure that his own future grandchildren will be baptized, raised in the faith, and saved. Without making the liturgical life, both at home and at church, a priority, you are sending a contrary message, knocking over the first domino in the Four Generation Fade: a very real phenomenon that pastors see and lament all the time.
The time to be serious about your grandchildren is when you raise your children.
Children raised in this way - especially when led by the father (Hausvater) as the “head of the family” (once again, the Catechism) - will be far more likely to pass the faith on to his own children.
All that said, a parent can do all of these things and his children may still go astray. And this is heartbreaking. Our antichristian culture along with the devil, the prince of this world, can lure away many a prodigal son or daughter. But the chances of such a lost sheep returning in repentance is far better when the children have been raised hearing the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and where Holy Baptism has been seen as a treasure “worth more than any” (LSB 594:1) from the time of his youth. And this is, yet again, a consequence of what is sung in the household. Is it only the world’s pop music? Is it Christian pop music that de-emphasizes the sacraments? And along these same lines, is the home a place where forgiveness is spoken, emphasized, and lived? Or is the Christian faith seen as legalism, moralism, and scolding?
So what is a grandparent to do if his own children wander and refuse to raise their children in the faith?
What he should not do is to take matters into his own hands, as did Abraham and Sarah, by seeking to force the kingdom into coming by their own action, by having Abraham sleep with Sarah’s servant Hagar. That usurpation, that lapse of faith, resulted in generational hardship for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all of the Israelites.
Unless it is a life-and-death emergency, it is not the vocation of the laity to baptize. Nor is the Holy Sacrament magic. It is supernatural, but it is not like a witch’s spell. Faith is involved. This is why even babies confess the Creed and take vows at their baptisms, speaking by faith through the parents and sponsors. For a child to be baptized apart from such parental faith is to put a target on the child’s back. Baptism saves, but not apart from faith. For example, you can’t evangelize and make Christians of hundreds of people by swimming in the ocean and screaming out the baptismal formula. You can’t hand out salvation at a waterpark by bringing along your super-soaker and uttering the “magic words.” That’s not how this works. Nor is Holy Baptism a secret thing. For even emergency baptisms are publicly acknowledged by the church.
So grandparents who would do this should repent and put their faith in God’s providence, and not their own presumptuous actions.
I know it is painful. I have lost members over this. I have also seen the Four Generation Fade up close and personal. I have even seen it with faithful grandparents whose adult children simply chose a different path. I have also seen it among grandparents who did not prioritize the faith, and whose children, like the Harry Chapin song “Cats in the Cradle,” have grown up to be just like them.
If you are a grandparent in this predicament, repent of your own failings as a parent, pray fervently and constantly for your own children and grandchildren (following the example of St. Monica, whose years and years of prayer were answered by the conversion of her son Augustine and her husband Patricius). Set the example of the Christian life for your family by praying before meals, attending church every Sunday, reading Scripture, singing the hymns of the church, and continuing to pepper your life with sayings from the Bible and the Confessions - especially the Small Catechism.
Offer (without being obnoxious) to take your grandchildren to the Divine Services of the Church. Invite, but don’t nag. Respect the parents’ wishes. If they take you up on the offer, let your grandchildren (and maybe your children!) see you reverently listening to the sermon and receiving the Holy Supper. Have children’s Bibles in your bookshelf at home. Don’t present the faith as scoldy and moralistic, and don’t be passive-aggressive or self-aggrandizing - but rather conduct your Christian life as joyful, humble, and grounded in the Gospel. Be patient. And be countercultural, let your children and grandchildren see the “more excellent way” (1 Cor 12:31). And they may even consent at some point to having your grandchildren baptized, and allow you to bring them to church with you. Of course, better yet, would be for the parents themselves to return to the fold and lead their own families themselves. This is certainly worth praying for!
At any rate, take comfort that you are not in charge, but God is, that the Word is powerful, that the Holy Spirit “calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith” (Catechism). And as the holy apostle teaches us:
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:13-15).
“This is most certainly true.”