My life sucks, ups and downs.. I want to talk to someone without feeling judged for the mistakes i made. without feeling pushed to do something i dont want... please.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to make a few inferences from your mention of a pastor, a church and baptism. I'm not a lawyer, although I know several, but back in high school, I took a course in business law. I'm not a pastor, but I used to assist a couple at services at the church by my building. I've been through the lessons for confirmation, which is only necessary in churches that practise infant baptism. It is something of a coming-of-age ritual in which the contract undertaken on the infant's behalf is accepted by the teenaged and supposedly competent young person. Baptism is both a sacrament or religious ritual and a covenant or contract. It is the passage of the individual into membership of a Christian church. For our purposes, however, it is a contract between Christians and their god, purportedly brokered by Jesus of Nazareth and certainly by his representatives. One of the basic principles of a contract is that it is made voluntarily. Any undue effort to force a party to enter into it constitutes duress and voids the contract. Contracts made in bad faith, without the intention of adhering to the contract, are also void and allow the other parties to retract their consent and take back such of their contributions as can be reclaimed, like a store repossessing an appliance for non-payment. If you get baptized with any reservations, you will be dealing in bad faith. If your pastor forces baptism on you, he is guilty of duress. You won't feel a real voluntary connection to the church, which will make you a false member. Jesus understood this, as shown in the parable of the seeds. If and when you are ready for the commitment, you'll be eager for it; until then, don't do it.
I'm not a lawyer, although I know several, but back in high school, I took a course in business law. I'm not a pastor, but I used to assist a couple at services at the church by my building. I've been through the lessons for confirmation, which is only necessary in churches that practise infant baptism. It is something of a coming-of-age ritual in which the contract undertaken on the infant's behalf is accepted by the teenaged and supposedly competent young person.
Baptism is both a sacrament or religious ritual and a covenant or contract. It is the passage of the individual into membership of a Christian church. For our purposes, however, it is a contract between Christians and their god, purportedly brokered by Jesus of Nazareth and certainly by his representatives. One of the basic principles of a contract is that it is made voluntarily. Any undue effort to force a party to enter into it constitutes duress and voids the contract. Contracts made in bad faith, without the intention of adhering to the contract, are also void and allow the other parties to retract their consent and take back such of their contributions as can be reclaimed, like a store repossessing an appliance for non-payment.
If you get baptized with any reservations, you will be dealing in bad faith. If your pastor forces baptism on you, he is guilty of duress. You won't feel a real voluntary connection to the church, which will make you a false member. Jesus understood this, as shown in the parable of the seeds. If and when you are ready for the commitment, you'll be eager for it; until then, don't do it.
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