I was baptized when I was a child, but I drifted away from the faith for a long time when I was younger.
Now that I feel His love renewed in my life, can I be baptized a second time? I don’t want to dismiss what happened when I was a kid either. Maybe that faith counted for something, even if it was small and borrowed from the people around me.
Whether you can be baptized twice depends on your tradition. Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, and most mainline churches teach that baptism is a one-time sacrament, valid because of God’s faithfulness even when ours wavers. Baptists and many evangelicals see it differently. To them, a childhood baptism without your own faith didn’t count, so this would be your first real baptism.
I wouldn’t say your childhood faith was borrowed. My congregation does something called reaffirmation of baptismal vows. Someone in your situation stands in front of the church, touches the water, and publicly claims the promises made over them. It doesn’t erase what God already did.
Talk to your pastor first.
You could be baptized every Sunday for a year and Jesus wouldn’t love you one ounce more. The real question is whether your childhood baptism counts as baptism the way your church understands it, and what you’d be expressing by doing it again.
What happened back then still happened, even if you drifted away later. Ask whether a public reaffirmation or renewal of baptismal vows would fit better than a second baptism.
If your church decides the first one wasn’t Christian baptism in the full sense, then getting baptized now is an honest act of obedience.
Short answer: yes. Some churches will baptize you again if you ask. But I don’t think that fits what you’re describing.
I can’t find anywhere in Scripture where someone gets Christian baptism twice. The closest is Acts 19, and those people only had John’s baptism before being baptized into Jesus. Getting baptized a second time says the first one didn’t count. I walked away for a long time myself. I wanted the water again, because those years made me feel like I’d wrecked the first one. Looking back, that was guilt. My childhood baptism was fine. Coming back after drifting is real; mine was. You don’t have to start the thing over to mark it.
The reaffirmation of baptismal vows you mentioned is a solid option, and most Lutheran and Methodist worship books include a short liturgy pastors can use.
Grace first is the right starting point. Repeated baptism can’t make Jesus love someone more, and that truth helps quiet the fear that coming back to faith has to be earned through another ceremony.
The distinction you drew between a second baptism and reaffirmation matters too. Talking with a pastor helped me see how reaffirmation could publicly mark repentance and renewed faith (more on that here).
The reaffirmation of baptismal vows part is what I want to highlight. Someone who had wandered for years stood up to touch the water and claim those promises out loud. It gave them the public moment they wanted, a fresh start, while still honoring the original baptism.
You explained what each side teaches and let the person work from there. The line about baptism being valid because of God’s faithfulness even when ours wavers is the part I’d underline. If the baptism depended on the strength of a kid’s faith, none of us would be safe.
At my congregation they also invite the family and sponsors from the original baptism to stand with the person if they can.
Thanks, that’s encouraging. I like that it would connect back to my childhood baptism while marking where I’m now in my faith.
My church is nondenominational, so I’m not sure my pastor would be familiar with it. Is this something I could ask about, or would I need to bring the liturgy to them myself?
You can ask, and you don’t have to show up with a finished service in hand. Most nondenominational pastors have freedom in shaping worship, so if they’ve never done a formal reaffirmation they can still put one together once they understand what you’re hoping for.
It might help to start with your story instead of the liturgy. Tell your pastor you were baptized as a child but drifted away, and now you want to mark your return publicly without treating the first baptism as if it never happened.
Bring a sample. Look up the Affirmation of Baptism in Evangelical Lutheran Worship or the reaffirmation material in the United Methodist baptismal covenant services.
Many nondenominational churches practice believer’s baptism and do baby dedications instead of infant baptism. Your pastor might suggest you be baptized now. Know ahead of time what you believe about your childhood baptism so you can have that conversation.
If your first baptism was valid, you can’t be rebaptized into the same family, though you can be reconciled to it.
Scripture doesn’t give us examples of anyone getting baptized twice, but there’s plenty of New Testament teaching on believers who wandered (sometimes pretty far) and came back.
You were set apart already.
You probably don’t need another one. If your childhood baptism was done in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it was valid. “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Ephesians 4:5 still holds.
Ask your parents or check church records to find out how the first one was performed before deciding anything.
It depends on what happened the first time. If you didn’t understand it, like getting baptized at 5 just because your church friends were doing it, then rebaptism makes sense.
But if you understood it and it’s been a season of disobedience and distance from the Lord, there’s no real need. The original still counts, even through the wandering years.