personal rambling about infant baptism, redux

couple big deals upfront

1.) I like alot of non-infant baptizers more than i like alot of infant baptizers
2.) I think many people who reject infant baptism are more faithful Christ-followers than many who accept & practice infant baptism
3.) I enjoy being in a church family and having friends who feel the freedom to disagree and live in harmony

now, a few words on why i cannot reject infant baptism:
1.) i'd lose my job
2.) kidding

I joyfully embrace & practice infant baptism because (these are NOT 'in order'):
1.) it is most consistent with my reading of the whole bible
2.) I grew up seeing it in the United Methodist church, seeing infants baptized
3.) I was converted to faith in Christ in the Presbyterian church, where I kept on seeing it (albeit with new eyes!)
4.) my understanding of the Bible's teaching on children
5.) The willingness God has to tell his New Testament church
"THINGS HAVE CHANGED, STOP DOING THAT!" (like gospel to nations, eat what you want, etc.) would beg the question why He didn't do the same with the sign of the covenant. "Stop putting sign on your children like I've had you do for few thousand years." woulda been appropriate and i struggle to see that Acts 2:38 is that.

I have always been very very sympathetic to my baptist friends (both in CCC and elsewhere) who "just can't see it" in the Scripture. J.I. Packer's words resonate deeply with me:

Certainly, all adult church members should have professed faith personally before the church, and communities that baptize infants provide for this in a rite of confirmation or its equivalent. The Christian nurture of baptist and paedobaptist children will be similar: dedicated to God in infancy, either by baptism or by a dedication rite (which some will see as a dry baptism), they will then be brought up to live for the Lord and led to the point of publicly professing faith on their own account in confirmation or baptism (which some will see as a wet confirmation). After this they will enjoy full communicant status, unless indeed they come under discipline for some lapse. The ongoing debate is not about nurture but about God’s way of defining the church.