Baptism and Citizenship, III

One final quotation:

“The creation of a plural system of Churches with their separate baptisms (Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist) implied also the emergence of a plural system of civil citizenries or communities. Therefore, in the case of States with multiple confessional communities, new systems had to be devised to test the fealty to the King of his subjects, independently from their faithfulness to one or the other of the new, confessional Churches or denominations. One such system, which overcame confessional pluralism, was to ask all subjects, including women and children, to swear an oath of fealty to the King, without reference to their diverse rituals of baptism and to their confessional identity.”

Given this, one can hardly imagine a more politically radical agenda than that of the ecumenical movement, which recognizes only one baptism. No wonder Satan has worked so hard to derail various forms of modern catholicism, and to make biblically-conscious Christians suspicious of all ecumenism. So long as the common oath is to a human king, Satan rests easy; when there is one baptismal oath to King Jesus, Satan shudders.