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At 10:57 AM 10/12/99 -0500, you wrote: >being born into a Swiss Brethren or Mennonite or Hutterite family did >expose one to Anabaptist nurture and education, greasing the skids >toward an eventual adult baptism. The age of baptism gradually crept >downward into early adolescence or even into late childhood in some >Mennonite groups. From time to time they would realize that they had >fallen back into much of what they had originally rejected and a >revivalist movement would emerge. The Amish (an splinter group from >the Swiss Brethren in the late 1600s over the question of strict >church discipline) and some of the Mennonites have de facto encourage >teenagers to become at least a bit "wild" so that their eventual >conversion and baptism as young adults would be more clear-cut and >create a better basis for adherence to the group. What about early reformers like Muntzer - who as I recall recommended baptising children just pre-teens? (Seemed sensible to me - but our daughter was baptised at age 9 because it seemed the right time for her) Maddy %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%