{"id":18039,"date":"2026-02-07T05:21:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T05:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=18039"},"modified":"2026-02-07T05:21:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T05:21:19","slug":"no-infant-baptism-is-not-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=18039","title":{"rendered":"No, infant baptism is not abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"


By Carl R. Trueman<\/span><\/span>, Voices Contributor Thursday, February 05, 2026<\/span>iStock\/Sviatlana Lazarenka<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the most striking aspects of our therapeutic age is the increasing inability of many to sustain a sane and coherent moral hierarchy. Perhaps this stems from the omnipresence of social media. Everything, everywhere always demands our attention and yet, with nowhere solid to stand, we have no way of judging what is important and what is trivial. <\/p>\n

Or perhaps it\u2019s because the label of \u201cvictim\u201d has become the most coveted title. Now many seek the \u201cprize\u201d without having been subjected to real abuse \u2014 abuse that no one would wish upon himself.<\/p>\n

A prominent Catholic recently argued in the\u00a0Irish Times\u00a0for a new category of victim: those subjected to infant baptism, especially as practiced by the Catholic Church. Former president of Ireland and canon lawyer Mary McAleese\u00a0declared\u00a0it to be \u201ca long-standing, systemic and overlooked severe restriction on children\u2019s rights with regard to religion.\u201d Really? At the very moment when thousands are being slain in Iran for protesting the brutal religious regime, McAleese apparently lies awake at night worrying about infant baptism. This is an eloquent testimony to the moral disorientation that marks our present age.<\/p>\n

Several comments are in order. First, McAleese does not deny that baptism brings certain \u201cspiritual\u201d benefits, such as \u201cexpunging original sin\u201d and \u201copening up … the flow of God\u2019s grace.\u201d But she objects to the lifelong membership of the Church that baptism claims to involve. Of course, her fear of the objective responsibilities that baptism entails only has force if she accepts that what the Church teaches about baptism is true. Yet, like a good therapeutic consumer of spirituality, she embraces what comforts her and discards what causes discomfort or demands too much.<\/p>\n

Second, McAleese\u2019s hyperbolic language is ridiculous. Reflecting on her own baptism, she laments that \u201cnothing else was to shape my life so powerfully or impose such formidable restrictions on my inalienable intellectual human rights as that brief Sunday baptism ceremony 7\u00bd decades ago.\u201d Really? Nothing else had such a powerful impact on her life? None of her years pursuing an education? Her marriage? None of the children to whom she gave birth? None of the relationships she had with friends and mentors, intellectual and spiritual? Not one of those shaped her in a more profound way than a ceremony that she sees as deeply problematic in part because she has no recollection of it? That is very hard to believe.<\/p>\n

Third, she clearly does not understand that we live in a secular age. As Charles Taylor commented, we today can believe in the same things that people did in the 15th century \u2014 but unlike them, we choose to believe, whereas they had no choice. In that sense, we might provocatively claim that even Catholics are now Protestants. We are creatures of religious choice. Catholics today may be baptized as infants, but if they are still practicing as Catholics by age 20, it is because they have chosen to do so. The Church might still claim the apostates as members, but it makes no practical difference. Yes, the Church can excommunicate, as McAleese points out \u2014 but that power only has weight if the Church\u2019s teaching about herself is true. Since McAleese rejects church teaching, excommunication should, in her view, amount to little more than an empty gesture.<\/p>\n

And that leads to another significant point. McAleese herself has spent much of her public life attacking the Church\u2019s teaching on male ordination, abortion, sexuality, and gender. She was a signatory, for example, to the 2021 document \u201cA Home for All.\u201d That she remains a Catholic would indicate that the Church, far from using baptism as a means to corral and crush her members, is rather lackadaisical or even impotent in that regard. As a Protestant, I am always puzzled by Catholics who so clearly despise their Church\u2019s teachings not only on what it means to be Catholic but even to be human. Why such people continue to use the label \u201cCatholic\u201d even while treating it in the most un-Catholic way \u2014 making it mean whatever they want \u2014 is a mystery to those of us on the outside. <\/p>\n

I would argue that the Roman Church hierarchy, far from being a despotic bully, is far too gracious and patient with the McAleeses within her fold. The Church would have far more credibility if she showed that she does make the kind of demands on her members that McAleese bemoans by taking firm action against those who have made careers out of mocking her teaching.<\/p>\n

As to McAleese herself, her concern for the victims of infant baptism is quite a contrast to her lack of concern for the unborn. It is odd that baptism of an infant is so abusive whereas the killing of the same child in the womb is a human right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I might conclude by saying that nothing else was to shape my life so powerfully or impose such formidable restrictions on my inalienable human rights as that act of love between my mother and my father that led to my conception 59 years ago. I suspect McAleese would agree that life was something imposed upon me without my consent. It\u2019s therefore just a pity that she does not extend the logic of her objections to infant baptism back to the moment when egg collides with sperm.<\/p>\n

Originally published at First Things.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Carl R. Trueman is a professor of biblical and religious studies at Grove City College. He is an esteemed church historian and previously served as the William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and Public Life at Princeton University. Trueman has authored or edited more than a dozen books, including The Rise and Triumpth of the Modern Self<\/em>,\u00a0The Creedal Imperative, Luther on the Christian Life, and Histories and Fallacies.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carl R. Trueman, Voices Contributor Thursday, February 05, 2026iStock\/Sviatlana Lazarenka One of the most striking aspects of our therapeutic age is the increasing inability of many to sustain a sane and coherent moral hierarchy. Perhaps this stems from the omnipresence of social media. Everything, everywhere always demands our attention and yet, with nowhere solid<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[2041,641,5814],"class_list":{"0":"post-18039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-baptism","10":"tag-infant"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}