Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Let me ask you a question. Have you heard about this new trend of virtual baptism?
Are you not really sure what to think about it? Well, neither are we, so we discussed it. Let's do this.
You're listening to the Reachwrite podcast, the show dedicated to helping your church reach more people and grow.
Well, hey guys, I'm Thomas.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: And I'm ian.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: And today we're talking about virtual baptism.
And if it's something that is okay to do and what our thoughts are on it, have you heard much about this, Ian? Is this something that you've I know you have your finger on the pulse of churches because you talk to a lot of our clients. Have you heard anybody talk about this?
Anybody that we work with or anything?
[00:00:46] Speaker B: No, not really. Actually, this one I think is a real new and fresh one and even new on me. Not surprised. And of course it has surfaced recently as we'll talk about but no, to be quite upfront. No, I've not heard this be addressed. I'm sure it will be though, here, pretty soon.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm reading about it more and more online and some of the most prominent churches in the country are offering forms of virtual baptism. And so we figured that it was something that would be a good conversation piece. I have very mixed feelings about it. If I put all my cards on the table, I'm starting at a negative when it comes to virtual baptism, but there are some things that I think are mitigating circumstances. We'll get into some of the cases and the reasons behind it and talk a little bit. But before we dig in, let me break down a little bit about what we mean when we say virtual baptism. And I've seen two primary iterations of it, if we will. So the first one we would call it more like I'd say like an online baptism. And what this is, I think even large churches are doing this. I saw Life Church in Oklahoma is doing this here where they offer a baptism that you can sign up for online. And then no pastor would come to you. But they encourage family members and other people maybe a helper to be with you, but maybe a pastor from the church would get onto a video call with you while you get into a body of water or a bathtub and you are baptized there, ideally with someone else there helping you to do that. So that's one form of it.
Mixed feelings about that and we'll talk a little bit about that. The other form I think is even more out there. But I've heard more and more people talking about this is the idea of avatar baptism, where a lot of churches, there are churches happening in the Metaverse now where there's kind of fully online or headset worn church services that are happening. And one of the things that they're doing in these church services is they're offering baptism for people's avatars. So the human being with the headset on doesn't actually get wet, but the avatar themselves is the one that goes under in a body of metaverse water that happens there. So I imagine that just our audience right now is listening to this. When I first heard about this, if you haven't heard about this before, my mouth was wide open, right? I'm just totally floored by this. It sounds out of this world and frankly a little bit nuts when I first heard about this. But there are some interesting thoughts and theology work. I think there's still more theology work to do about this, but we wanted just to give our initial reactions and some of the thoughts on that. But I don't know, what do you have to add to that? Ian, what do you say to those two ideas?
[00:03:41] Speaker B: It's really bizarre to makes the first one is a little more, I guess, normal as far as just an online baptism.
I can wrap my head around that a little bit more now being someone 44 years old, be completely upfront. I still play some video games from time to time. I do know what an avatar is, have one on my gaming.
So anyway, but without getting into too many details, the first thought that came to mind for me was know my avatar is an action hero figure on a video game named Nathan Drake who's like an Indiana Jones type guy. And I was just thinking, would it count if I wanted to rededicate myself or I've already been baptized physically, but would it count if my Nathan Drake avatar got baptized around other video game avatars that are there with me virtually or would he go to heaven? Would God bless the video game character or me? I started thinking of all these wacky funny things, so I don't know what to think about.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: It's just such a weird world we're in now.
I imagine there's people out there that it's just second nature to them and this seems like such a no brainer her I imagine they're probably younger than us in most cases, sure. But I don't know that it is a no brainer for most of us. I think it's something that needs to we need to put some thought into it. So wanted to dive in and I guess what we did, you and I, we kind of took a stab at we did some research on the biggest arguments for it, virtual baptism. And so I don't know that what I want to do is refute them. But we wanted to take some time to talk about some of those arguments, think through them a little bit, discuss them and see kind of what we think about that. So I don't know. Do you want to kick us off with what the best arguments are?
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Yeah, so the arguments four would be that it's more accessible and inclusive so things that come to mind with that is just that if someone cannot make a certain time at church to be baptized or they are driving distance, or maybe it's someone who's disabled, maybe it's an elderly person that is not able bodied. And so when I think of that, I'm like, well, okay, I kind of see that point a little bit.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Yeah, more for the second part, like for the elderly, the infirm, I can see a case for that. I can't make it to church crowd or like, hey, we have football on Sundays and can't make it for the I picture the Ethiopian eunuch right in the train with Philip there. And his quote is that he says, look, there's some water. And he points to something that's probably more like a mud pit. And he says, what's stopping me from being baptized right now? So if your reason, like, I can't really fully follow you yet, Jesus, and get into the water because Johnny has football practice on Sundays at that same that's I feel like that's probably I don't like that. That doesn't sound like a valid thought to me. Now when we're talking about people that are older or people that maybe are unable to walk or maybe they're homebound and they've made maybe a late in life decision to follow Jesus. I like the idea of virtual baptism, maybe in those kinds of situations, but probably more like the life church style of like an online baptism with someone on a computer. Although my preference would be that maybe just a pastor would physically go to them and do that with them. Like, if it were my church, I'd probably be happy to go to their house and help them with the actual baptism as opposed to doing it on a video call. But I suppose if you're processing thousands of baptisms a month, maybe that's just the only way to handle it, I guess. I don't really know that the avatar baptism. Oh, my goodness. I don't know.
First of all, to see 93 year.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: Old grandma, have you done VR? Have you done VR?
[00:08:00] Speaker A: I've done saber on my son's thing, which is like where you slash the things to the timing of music. That's all I've done. How about you? And I did like, a roller coaster on VR.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: My kids have one of those where you're walking in a room and there are other people and you can actually be a friend of yours that's at their house, their avatar could be standing right next to you. So my kids do that more. But I got that experience and I will say it was pretty real. And I mean, if you're in there walking and maybe the argument would be for this would be just it's me still. And though it's not physical water, there's a bathtub and I'm the one walking in the VR experience and accepting Christ and following Christ. I don't know, it's still just crazy to me, though. Yeah.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: I just think from an accessibility, I think that that's probably the strongest case for me. If someone literally cannot be at a place where baptisms are taking place, my preference would still be that someone would go to them and help them with that. But even then, there's still other concerns of maybe them getting into bathtubs or pools or whatever. They would be that kind of segues.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: To this next argument for which is safety and health. Right.
And a lot of this, by the way, has been kind of spurned and accelerated since the pandemic. But when you think of the pandemic, if someone is sick and contagious, but they're feeling compelled to get baptism baptized during that time and at that very moment, there's an argument for that. And just for safety and health reasons.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: When I was pastoring in Wisconsin, we didn't have a Baptistry at our church. There was no place that we actually could do baptism, so we did it in our local lake. But if you know anything about Wisconsin, the lakes are rock hard, frozen for like, three or four months out of the year, and then for at least nine or ten months of the year, you don't want to be in them because it's ice cold. And there's some health and safety concerns of having eight year old kids who are getting baptized, or certainly infants that are being baptized. If you're from that kind of a tradition, or the elderly or people to go into 40 degree water, it's something that it's, at a minimum, unpleasant. And there's also some real safety concerns that come with that kind of stuff. So I can see that. I see the safety concerns of that, and I can see it that way, that for those that have these kinds of issues, I look at the church as a whole. We have for centuries made accommodations for different ways of baptizing people to keep people safe. And that's kind of why infants that people are from that tradition, if you baptize infants that typically you don't dunk them in the water, as we read in scripture, but they're more consecrated or sprinkled in those ways.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Sprinkled, yeah.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: And that was primarily a safety concern, right. Because we don't want infants choking or drowning or whatever. It would be getting dunked into cold water and having a screaming baby afterwards. So I think that we've made accommodations for that. But I think in general, again, my preference still would be that a human would be there with you and would baptize your actual human body, who would be the one that gets baptized. That would be my preference, but I think that there's some cases maybe to be made in that area.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't have anything else to add there.
[00:11:37] Speaker A: It's crazy.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: But this next one argument for is just technical evolution in modernization. So for tech enthusiasts, this is a big one.
If you're already doing your workouts online.
You've seen there's a mirror, there's a mirror that actually people can work out in front of and all of that called, right.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Is that Tony?
[00:12:02] Speaker B: I can't remember it, but the trainers on will pop up on the screen. All the other people involved in the workout are like, on the outsides of this mirror. During the pandemic, as you know, I did an outdoor fitness program called Camp Gladiator, where normally we'd be all gathering outside. It was a boot camp style. You have your mat and your weights and all of that. Well, when the pandemic happened, we would actually be working out on our driveway with our mats and weights, but we would set up a computer over zoom, and the trainer would still lead the workout, and you'd still see the other people working out on there. So this stuff has been and we still got a workout in. We still got to talk the trainer would reference us. We got to talk to people. So I can see how people would think in that vein if they were all doing these types of things.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Right, but it's baptism, right?
[00:12:56] Speaker B: We're not talking about a workout again.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: That's the whole thing. Right.
Generally speaking, I think my preference is real in person, over virtual for most things. Right.
Just like you. I'm sure you preferred going to Camp Gladiator, of course, as opposed to Zoom Camp Gladiator workouts, correct?
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: In the same way I prefer going to actual I think it's better for people to go to a church service and worship with people and actually physically see people than it is to do an online service, and I think correct. Even more so, it is better for people to be baptized in the presence of their entire church and physically with your pastor, wherever it may be. I'm from a tradition that baptizes in Hawaii. Here we baptize in the ocean, but maybe you do it in your church wherever you do it, but physically baptizing people. I think there's something to that. Now, I have heard arguments on this kind of technology front that people are more willing to say yes when it is in the avatar sense. They're more willing to say yes as an avatar than they would be naturally. And I get that because it's a big commitment to stand before the world and say, I'm no longer living like I used to. The old person's dead, the new person is here. That's a big commitment. And it's easier to do that when there's a certain level of anonymity and stuff. And so I've heard some arguments that people are more open and receptive to things when they do it online. But at the same time, I feel like maybe it's not as high commitment because their physical body isn't doing it too. So I don't know. I have mixed feelings.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: They can have Superman's character baptized in the the if that's what they so that's exactly.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: My preference remains physical. But yeah, I can see the thought behind it there.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Well, this next one is the argument for is community building in a digital age. So basically just that people are watching live services and they're still feeling the presence of God, they're still feeling connected to the service, they're interacting and so why not also do this is the argument when it comes to that.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: I think for this one, it doesn't hold a lot of water for me.
Everything in life has kind of taken on a digital form. So there's a digital alternative for anything you can do in the church. So we started, most of us in the pandemic, we saw this giant rush of oh my goodness, we have to get our church online to keep going. And so we saw that and then that turned into doing online small groups during that, and this is coming from a perspective here in Hawaii, we were not allowed to meet publicly for a year and a half here. So it took us from March of 2020 until January of 2022. So over a year and a half that we were out of commission as like in meeting in person. So we saw this firsthand here, but home groups all went online and new member classes went online and worship nights went online and everything we did went online. And so the logical next step if we're building these communities online is why not allow people to do their baptism and communion online and confession online and all these things that we take in as sacraments. Why not do it that way? And again, I find that it is the further in the intimacy level we go, the further down that road. So like a worship service is kind of maybe medium intimacy, whereas a baptism is a very high intimacy, kind of an event, very personal. I feel like there's diminishing returns the further we get down that. So I don't know, the online small groups were really hard for me and just online church.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Me too. We weren't shut down as long here, but they began to get difficult for everyone.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: So yes, definitely.
So I feel like just the community impact, the amount of the impact it has on us as individuals has diminishing returns. The more intimate act, the deeper we get into this intimacy scale. I guess I would say for baptism. I don't feel like that's a really good or a compelling reason, at least for me, just kind of being able to build deeper online communities. I don't know if I buy.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Yeah, same here. So last one here and we kind of addressed this at the beginning. Know, the argument for it is flexibility and know, people balancing work, being busier.
We use the example little Johnny has baseball and football and all of that. I mean, again, I think though that to our point earlier, it's a little easier to that's your way out of being kind of a little lazy and standoffish in some cases. But yes, people are busy not negating that. But again, I think to me, this is kind of the poorest argument for I don't know what you think.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't really see anything here. Like, there is never a time where baptism is a convenient thing to do.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: I just don't want to get wet.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: I'm just reminded of again that Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch story, one of my favorite stories in all of scripture here is a Ethiopian dignitary riding in a procession, and he does the least convenient thing he could possibly do is stops his entire procession, points at mud, and says, hey, what's stopping me from being baptized right now? That's the question I'd have. I doubt you'd be watching this if you were someone just considering baptism, but if you are, make a point of doing it, even if it is inconvenient.
I don't think we do well to make some things in our faith the easiest way for people to do them. Like if we want to make discipleship convenient. I don't know that there's anything in scripture where Jesus attempts to do that to make he purposely says that it's costly to follow. He talks about the cost of discipleship while his yoke is easy and his burden is light. It will cost you everything to follow Jesus. So the idea of, hey, you probably can get more people to get baptized virtually or as an avatar if you do it this way, but I don't know that you have as much life change when we do these kinds of things. But you know what? Honestly, I'm happy to hear other arguments. So if you greatly disagree with us on this, that's the whole point of this episode, I think, is we'd love to hear this is something that's new to us. Here we are. I'm like right on the Gen X millennial line. I know you're deep into the Gen X side of things, one year older than me.
But in reality, if you're a millennial, if you're a Gen Z and you listen to this podcast or watch this podcast, we'd love to hear what you think. Especially if you're a builder or a Boomer or a Gen Xer, who probably I assume you probably agree with us bit more on this. I'd love to hear what you think, too, but let us know down in the comments. Have you heard about virtual baptism? What are your thoughts on virtual baptism? Is it Blasphemy? Is it a blessing? We'd love to hear what you think about that. Also, drop a like, hit that subscribe button. Thanks, guys, for being a part of the reach right family. And we'll see you next week. See you.
