Spontaneous baptisms have been receiving a lot of attention of late. With the hashtags #BaptismSunday and #FilltheTank, Southern Baptist Convention leadership have been calling on SBC churches to participate in a nationwide push for baptisms this Easter Sunday, April 12.[1] They present it as an opportunity for unbelieving attendees and unbaptized believers to respond to the gospel by taking that “first step of obedience and faith” of baptism. Some of these baptisms will happen after several weeks of discipling and deciding; many of them will happen spontaneously.
Last year, for instance, one church practiced spontaneous baptisms on Easter Sunday and baptized 586 people.[2]
What should we make of this?
WHAT ARE SPONTANEOUS BAPTISMS?
First, a definition is in order. The Oxford Dictionary’s definition of “spontaneous” fits these baptisms well: an action “performed as a result of a sudden inner impulse or inclination and without premeditation or external stimulus.”[3]
A baptism is spontaneous in when it happens without forethought or planning. They’re spontaneous because some individuals didn’t go to church that morning planning to be baptized.
CHURCH HISTORY & PRE-MEDITATED BAPTISM
Historically, baptisms have been treated as planned rather than spontaneous events. The Didache (96 AD) instructs baptismal candidates to fast
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