Team Umizoomi, ready for Baptism

My 3 year old son, Hayden, loves Team Umizoomi!  I mean, loves that show.  Whenever he wakes up in the morning or from his nap, his request is well known by all around.  Turn on Team Umizoomi.  Hayden can also answer questions about Jesus like a champ.  If you ask where Jesus lives, he'll answer confidently, "In my heart."  If you ask who made the grass, world, or us; he'll answer, "Jesus" or "God" without skipping a beat.

So shouldn't he be baptized?  Has he "asked Jesus into his heart", "prayed a prayer of salvation" or "gotten saved"?  NO!  He's three.

I read an article recently on Christianity Today stating that in the Southern Baptist Convention, baptisms are dropping off at a record level for all but preschool aged kids.  You can read the article here.  This is alarming to me.  I'm not that worried about Southern Baptist general baptisms, but I am concerned about the growing practice of baptizing children before they're capable of making a commitment for Christ.

Is this weird coming from the guy who just wrote a post about allowing children to join us in Communion?  Maybe.  But as a Baptist, I see baptism as a profession of our faith that represents a lifelong commitment to Christ, and I'm not sure that's something a preschooler can make.  (Communion, on the other hand, is a practice of the presence of Christ and He consistently called children to Himself while on earth.)

According to Piaget's stages of brain development, children don't have the ability to think  concretely until ages 7-12 and don't usually begin to develop the capacity for abstract thinking until around age 12.  Many are still developing abstract thinking well into their 20's.  I don't know about you, but being able to understand cognitively that there is an invisible God who created the universe, is Trinitarian, and sent Himself/His Son to earth to die on the cross as atonement for our sins and raise from the dead requires a bit of abstract understanding.  

And it makes me wonder if the reason we're losing our young people as they acquire the ability to think abstractly and are challenged by the world, is because we push them to make commitments they can't cognitively make when they're younger.  So they abandon what they were taught because it all seems like it was forced, and now they are trying to come to terms with it all.

The truth in my family is that all three of my boys could answer the questions right; especially if I asked the questions in the right way.  My 5 and 7 year olds could even tell you that they love Jesus and know He is an important part of their lives.  But that's because we have taught them those things.  And on their level, they really do believe them.  (Of course, they believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and that they can be super heroes when they grow up too.)

So be careful, parents, pastors, Sunday School teachers.  The only good you are doing by pushing your child to "get saved" and be baptized at an early age is to make yourself feel better.  But are you willing to do that at the expense of a real commitment?  I'm not.  I'm not, because I get to walk with teenagers and adults as they actually go through this struggle to faith on their own and see that true commitment is worth waiting for.

What do you think?