This weekend at the circuit assembly, (I stayed home, thank goodness), I heard a nine year -old girl was baptized. And she seems a bit mature for her age, but hardly mature enough,in my opinion, to make such a choice on her own. It seems to be a trend in our circuit right now. I know it's nothing new. But, it seems each generation is different in the org. My friends and I waited to our mid to late teens. But, now I know of at least four children in the matter of a few months getting baptized who are 12 and under. I don't know how their parents can let them make such a serious decision, when their children are hardly old enough to understand what it all entails.
Nine year old baptized
by EmptyInside 32 Replies latest jw experiences
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AllTimeJeff
To me, this is one of the most reprehensible things that the GB allows. They know very well that according to their rules, she could be disfellowshipped forever if she really learns all the lies. And they will hold her to a decision she made as a 9 year old. Now, they hold her life hostage. It's just sick.
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BabaYaga
She will be joining us here on this forum in a few short years.
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shopaholic
Poor baby...she doesn't know what she's doing. She did it for the gold star. I knew a little girl that was baptized at 8 and df'd at 15...ridiculous.
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no more kool aid
In our circuit it almost became a social thing. So you had this elite group of 11 year olds that were baptised and wouldn't socialize much with kids that were not baptised. I noticed with this trend marriages were getting younger and younger. One young girl was getting married at barely 16, but the rationale was that she had been baptised for 6 years.
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moshe
Kids in churches get dunked at young ages, too. Catholics have a young age for 1st communion, Baptists are OK with pre-teens getting baptised. Get them while they are young, that is the way religions recruit members.
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AllTimeJeff
Most religions allow an adult to "shop around" and not be shunned by all members of the religion, and esp, the believing family. If someone leaves the religion that they were baptized into, most religions do not require that the individual be shunned.
That is what makes child baptism so insidious where JW's are concerned.
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startingovernow
9 years old, what is that, third grade age? I didn't start doing word problems in math until 6th grade. You know, where you actually had to figure things out and check your answers. At nine, the best she can do is underline the answers in a paragraph and rearrange the words so they sound like they are her own. Oh wait, that's all that adult JWs do too!
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agonus
Check out the insightful "Comments You Will Not Hear at the Watchtower" podcast. It hightlights the org's stressing young people to wait until they're "past the bloom of youth" (whatever that means) to marry, because of lack of maturity... and yet, they're encouraging kids as young as 7 to get baptized (I shit you not, this was from a D.O.).
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What-A-Coincidence
infant baptsim!