Baptism & Vaccines
All in the name of a higher calling?
While listening to a discussion on the radio this morning about baptism, I saw a connection between vaccines and baptism — please bear with me.
I was at home working on my dragon. Yeah, I am making a Papier-mâché dragon that is going to be sitting on the world — long story.
Anyway, when I work, I like to have the radio playing in the background, I like the unpredictability of it all, not knowing what song is coming on next.
I started off listening to an 80s music channel but I just wasn’t in the mood so I decided to switch. I ended up on a channel called “Rádio Renascença” — ‘Renascença’ means rebirth. It is a private, commercial radio station in Portugal, owned by various organizations within the Portuguese Catholic Church. I found that they usually play really good music in the mornings. Maybe it was just really good this morning because they thought everybody was at church and they could get away with it.
They also have some interesting discussions, about anything from music to religion.
This morning’s discussion was about baptism. A question had been raised concerning the validation of baptism in different denominations. For example if a Catholic Baptism would stand in the Church of England, or if joining a new church required a new baptism. This is of some concern to believers it would seem as they change churches often.
I have heard about people that have changed churches. When they feel one hasn’t changed their luck or brought them the good fortune they expected, they ditch it. Does going to a new church mean you worship a different God? Would that require a new baptism? — it could get complicated jumping from church to church.
The Priest being interviewed explained that Christ is one and that any baptism in Christ will stand in any church where Christ is the figurehead. Makes sense really, considering that God is only one…erm…entity? God?
For some reason this got me thinking about the Covid Vaccines.
Some people got the Pfizer vaccine, some AstraZeneca, others got Moderna…etc…but the idea is the same. These are all vaccines against the same virus. So whether you get moderna, or Pfizer the protection is going to be more or less the same — or so they say.
It is quite normal these days to hear people asking others, if they got the vaccine and if so which one they got. Some people will tell others about their vaccines, with pride. Some don’t tell anybody and others refuse to get them point blank.
So now we are faced with two sets of people; those that are vaccinated and those that are not, and all that bit in between, which I am not going into.
The Church has a similar ‘agenda’ regarding baptism. They want to get as many Baptised into the faith as they can. If you want to get married in a Catholic Church for example, the first thing you are asked is if you have been baptised. If you want to baptise your child the same questions are ask — even to get in some Catholic schools.
So the Church makes a distinction between those who are baptised and those who are not.
So what is Baptism?
In the Christian religion it involves sprinkling water onto a person’s forehead or immersing them in water, the idea being a symbolic purification or regeneration and admission to the Christian Church, ‘any’ Christian church. Once you are baptised, that is it — you are in the club. Some Churches go as far as to baptise babies — even though there is nothing at all about this in the Bible. They also make quite a bit of cash out of it.
The Bible states that once a person becomes a believer they should be baptised, but these days it is not that simple. Not like the good old days, like when Philip was travelling along and heard a man pass by in a carriage reciting the Bible. After Philip climbed aboard and explained a few things to the man, they passed a river and the man said to Philip “Look, here is water! What is there to prevent me from being baptized?”
The answer to that was — nothing.
Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And the man answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
Phillip stopped the chariot and they both got out and he baptised the man there and then.
However, if you want to get baptised these days in most Churches, you have to basically go to bible study classes — yet the man in the story above just had to believe that Jesus was the Son of God. It is not like nobody knows who Jesus is these days. The thing is, that each church has its own doctrines, maybe these also vary in efficiency with regard to getting to heaven, like the vaccines with getting Covid…or rather, not getting it.
We seem to be heading out of the Covid pandemic now, as more and more people are vaccinated. Booster vaccines may not become ‘ a thing’ until at least 70% of the whole planet is vaccinated. Not much use in giving booster shots if a lot of the poorer countries have not even finished the first round of vaccines; that could just ‘breed’ more variants, and the whole thing would start over.
Eventually we may not even need boosters and herd immunity will come into play. To be honest, with all the ‘opening up’ I think that is the general idea and has been for some time. If you get covid after the shot, it most likely gives an even better immunity than the shots alone — it has been proven that after having Covid and then getting the shots, makes for a better immunity — so why not vice versa?
Now we have a new threat, a religious war could be rearing its ugly head as the Taliban take control. Will we see people rushing to get baptised like we saw them rushing to get the vaccines?
