What if I am a 25 years old guy who grew up in an evangelist church and attended the service every week trying to understand what Christianity is all about? What if I’m trying to keep my intellectual integrity and trying to understand both sides (Christians and atheists) and I need time to come to a final conclusion regarding the Christian claims? (Truth be told, nowadays, there are a lot of problems one needs to address before converting to Christianity: historicity, morality, origins etc)
Well, that might be a problem and could affect other parts of my lifestyle..
For example, if I met a girl and want to merry her I could not accomplish this (in mostly all evangelical churches), because both partners must be baptized in order to take part in a marriage. So, if I’m a guy in this situation I have few options: either baptize just to be able to advance to the next level, wait some years (maybe 10?) and hope I will come to the conclusion that I should baptize and after then marry, or maybe leaving the church and marry the girl outside the church.
Anyway, this problem, let’s call it “baptize and then have sex” reveals some issues in the organization of the church, largely because the ambiguity of how things are done. And from here, things go deeper: there is no regulation or even side note about this problem, not a single person is talking about this, as if it’s assumed that any member should have already become baptized until the average age for marriage. So if the average age for marriage is, let’s say 25, this implies an unseen and untold expectation for the becoming Christians: that they should be baptized until that age. But is this natural and normal for people growing in a church?
The church should take a solid position on this issue, but first, it must admit the fact that any member who grew up in the church but is not baptized is expected to be a virgin and also that there is an untold “ideal” age period of getting baptized.
Besides the fault of not addressing this real issue, an open question still remains and needs to be answered by the church: should one remain a virgin until he understands the truth about life?
Inionul 