What Constitutes a True Baptism?

This article makes me wonder why any church that is not credobaptist would associate with 9marks. Several presbyterian churches that seem to be firmly paedobaptist are in 9marks' church finder and am puzzled why they would associate with 9marks.

Curious if anyone else finds this puzzling.

For these reasons and many others, I’m convinced the proper mode of baptism is immersion in water. At the same time, a number of Christian traditions deviate from this norm by sprinkling or effusion. Given that baptism’s meaning lies principally in its interpretation and not in the act itself, I’m convinced a non-immersive baptism ought to be considered true, though irregular. I know many Baptists disagree with me on that point, and I’m the first to admit that they might be right. But at the end of the day, some form of water washing is necessary for a baptism to occur since the interpretation of the symbol—death in the waters of judgment, resurrection to new life in Christ—demands the actual symbol of water be present.

I like how he uses the label, "True but irregular." We were discussing this very issue at a pastor's fellowship recently. The pastors there were Baptist, yet we agreed that there are some extreme cases where it would be acceptable to practice something other than full immersion. We also agreed that immersion provided the best picture/symbolism and that we should make that the norm. I appreciate the author's openness in discussing this.

As someone whose first baptism was by sprinkling (credobaptism after salvation, not paedobaptism), I’ve always been interested in this debate. This baptism took place in a Bible-believing Methodist church.

Later in life, I joined a Baptist church, and of course, they wanted my baptism to be by immersion. I told the pastor that I would happily be rebaptized to join. I did mention that I wouldn’t consider the immersion to be my first or only true baptism, but that I certainly had no issues with giving another public testimony of my faith in Jesus Christ, and he was OK with that.

I’m sure many baptists would consider my first baptism to be irregular at a minimum, or more likely invalid, but I have never agreed with that latter term. I really appreciated reading the author’s take on “true but irregular” baptism.

Dave, I appreciate your willingness to make another public testimony of your faith. I agree with your take that your first baptism was real. I also consider it irregular in the sense that it does not "best" reflect the examples we see in scripture.

I like when the church constitution and bi-laws give the elders some flexibility on this matter while still saying that the chosen mode of baptism going forward is immersion, but the elders after meeting and consulting may make some exemptions. Your example could fall into such a category but so could major health issues. There is also the reality of people who have extreme panic over the idea of being under water. I want our churches to have a graceful way to deal with these "irregular" situations while still affirming the importance of immersion.