The only three things a baptism requires

Over the last few years I’ve been attending a baptist church and, unsurprisingly, they like to periodically chat about baptism.

As someone who has previously written that I would have, for the sake of employment, undergone a full immersion baptism, I am now firmly of the belief that there’s no other reason I would get baptised again.

I wouldn’t do it to join a church.
Frankly, I’d put up a decent fight before doing it to get a job.

Fortunately, I feel that both the bible and the World Council of Churches are on my side.

But, as I’ve been thinking about baptism, for me, the sacrament only requires three elements.

Confession, publicity and explanation.

Baptism requires the person being baptised, amongst a group of others, to confesses faith in Jesus and the sacrament should be explained by the person doing the baptising (personally, I’d stress the connection Paul makes in Romans 6).

If these three caveats happen, then the amount of water is arbitrary, doubly so if the explanation says that the baptism is primarily symbolic of an inward transformation (which would be confessed!).