7 O'clock News / Silent Night

Not “calm,” not “bright”...

A wondrous Christmas hymn, “Silent Night” was written by a German priest Josef Mohr in ( maybe before) 1816.
Needless to say, northern Europe in the early 1800’s was neither calm nor bright, nor holy, nor at peace, nor filled with love’s pure light, nor redeemed by grace.

There was a high infant mortality rate, crop failures, ravaging disease, and horrendous slaughter. Europe had had almost continuous, calamitous war for 25 years! No “calm” there.
Nothing bright or holy!

Napoleonic troops and anti-French troops had ravaged back and forth. 558,000 French-lead soldiers died during the campaign into Russia. In 1813, over 600,000 soldiers fought in one battle alone at Leipzig, Saxony. As many as 110,000 were killed or wounded.

Approximately 1 million or more civilian died from that war. Total deaths reached between 3 to even 6 million! Then Germany as a confederation was created from parts of the former Holy Roman Empire, but German nationalists assassinated leaders… Speaking of assassinations, that takes us back to the time of Jesus’s birth in Roman Palestine under Herod the Great in about 4 B.C.E.

Not a time of love, peace, goodness, Godliness, or light either.

Nor was Britain at the birth of the Quaker movement in the 1600’s. Strangely, not even the early Quakers waged peace, contrary to many Friends histories and popular understanding! Many of the early Quakers fought in the great slaughter of the English Civil War.

Traagically, George Fox who would later emphasize the Lamb’s War, the peaceful way of Jesus, at first urged the Puritan killer Oliver Cromwell to carry forth his holy war all the way to Rome!! “Let thy soldiers go forth…that thou may rock the nations as a cradle.”

Not at all like the cradled-manger of Jesus.

So much for “silent night, holy night”...

Instead, even with those Friends of Jesus, the Children of Light, there was an ocean of darkness at first...

Nor is there any peace and holiness in the 21st century. Multi-millions of Christian Russian Orthodox soldiers and their leaders continue to invade and slaughter thousands of innocent Ukrainians.


Hundreds of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped and taken to Christian Orthodox Russia.

Then there is the endless massacres of Palestine-Israel, the Sudan, etc.

Consider that powerful “Silent Night” meditative song by Simon and Garfunkel back in the 1960’s, also a horrific time of slaughter.

What a paradoxical contrast between the way of Jesus versus how Christians, Muslims, and Jews trash Jesus’ way now.

May we truly witness of the love and peace of God in this often Christ-less, unholy season.

Yet still hoping--despite endless despairing news--

in the Light of Care, Good, True, Just...

Daniel Wilcox

Primitivism, Radicalism, and the Lamb's War by historian T.L. Underwood

Another fascinating study in early Quaker history, especially related to the Light and the peace-making actions of early Quakers.

"By examining the Quaker/Baptist relationship in particular, Underwood seeks to understand where and why Quaker views diverged from English Protestantism in general and, in the process, to clarify early Quaker beliefs."
from Amazon review

At the start and in the midst of the tragic English Civil War, the early Quaker movement arose.
This Oxford-history deals with those early Quakers and their conflicts with the Church of England, the Puritans, and other nonconformist movements, especially the early Baptists.

from Amazon:
"At first, the Quaker movement attracted some Baptist converts, but relations between the two groups soon grew hostile. Public disputes broke out and each group denounced the other in polemical tracts...

Underwood contends that Quakers and Baptists had much in common with each other, as well as with the broader Puritan and Nonconformist tradition.
--T.L. Underwood, professor of history, University of Minnesota

Quakerism and the Rejection of the Arts

Quakerism was one of many wild flowers of an egalitarian revolution and spiritual seeking movement that sprouted and bloomed in England during the late 1640's.

It was part of the vast social, political and spiritual upheaval known as the English Civil War and the 30 Years War (on the European Continent). So much of the great change was very uncivil and drastically unspiritual, but amidst all of the bloodletting and destroying, many people also turned to the spiritual.

The vast conflagration killed millions and devastated the landscape. The main opposing movements of the Reformed/Puritans versus the Roman Catholics slaughtered many hundreds of thousands of European and English people.

Their beliefs led the soldiers to claim the predestination of billions of humans to eternal torture; they ravaged cities and countrysides, lied, stole, and destroyed thousands of works of art, sculpture, etc.

Historians write that almost a 1/3 of eastern Europe was destroyed. In England, Scotland, and Ireland so many were killed, harmed, and suffered, it changed a whole generation.

And all of them did this in tne name of Jesus giving God the thanks:-( The Puritans even marched into killing singing Bible verses.

Thankfully, most of leaders of the early Quaker movement, (at first termed the “Children of Light), turned away from all that endless savagery, slaughter, and mayhem.

Other Puritan influences on early Quakers were also negative, but most Quakers didn't go around slaughtering others as did the Puritans against the Roman Catholic Augustinians.

Quakers did adopt the rejection of artistic expression that characterized most of the Puritan/Reformed movement. They were all trying to "reform" and “purify” the Christian Church.

Fortunately, Quakers didn’t destroy thousands of works of art and beauty like the Puritan armies (which were much worse in this than the modern day Islamic State and Taliban who have blown up and bulldozed art treasures).

However, artistic expression was considered immoral. The brilliant musician and Quaker Solomon Eccles destroyed his own musical instruments:-(.

With this turning from aesthetics, drama, poetry, however, there was one wonderful counter result, early Friends turned inward to seek only the mystical beauty of the Light there.

So for a very long time Quakerism prohibited or took a dim view of artistic and literary creations, particularly dancing, drama, painting, sculpture, fiction, poetry, and architecture.

This led to a deep impoverishment toward creativity in the arts.

Even a century later, John Woolman, while so in ethics that he early on experienced from God the truth of the evil of slavery, yet he believed that poetry should be opposed.

It wasn’t until in the 1800’s that a little art in painting and in poetry bloomed in the Society’s austere desert.

Of course not all Friends or religious historians think this rejection of the arts was bad like I do.

I do need to show my cards (bad analogy since card-playing and other games were also banned by Friends).

I am an biased against all this prohibition and dismissal, because I am an artist and writer. Being an art major for 2 years at university, an oil acrylic, tempra painter, and earning my B.A. in Creative Writing gives me a very different perspective.

So, yes, I admit I am strongly against the early Friends opposition to aesthetics, and all the other bad influences from the Puritan/Reformed for that matter.

However, it is important to point out that part of Puritan reaction against aesthetics came about because of the gross immorality in Protestant and Roman Catholic culture and society, especially among aristocrats and the rich (the ones who could afford to pay for art, painting, sculpture, drama, and fancy clothes).

Look at modern western culture now. Media is often used to glorify what is base, vulgar, and even evil. Huge amounts of money--billions of dollars--are spent and made today by Hollywood and Internet for salacious and pornographic ‘art.’

Consider the amazingly creative and technically brilliant TV show, Sense8, by the Wachowskis siblings who gave the public, The Matrix.

Without a doubt, that show is one of the most creative, thoughtful, reflective, at times very compassionate, and artistic achievements in modern cinema.

But the show is also a modern paean to gross immorality, deep praise of the superficial, the untrue, the impure and the evil.

How is that possible?

Humans so often turn the very best to glorify the very worst.

On the other hand, other creative humans use the arts to bring the Good, the True, the Just, and the Beautiful to Light for all to experience.

Without the arts, we humans would be greatly impoverished.

Consider this:

Many modern Quakers emphasize silence, and most modern day Puritans (Reformed/Calvinists/Muslims) emphasize lecture.

But many, probably most, humans aren’t silent or lecture learners, but DO grow spiritually through artistic expression.

Which would most of the humans in your city or town prefer to go to a 2-hour sermon?

A 2-hour time of mostly silence?

Or a 2-hour movie?

Hmm;-)

I've spent many hours in silent meditation, prayer, open unprogrammed worship, and reflection...

and am an aficinado of long lectures on history and religion and spirituality...

but my first love is the artistic, the poetic, the visual, the creative!
--

Brief history of Quakers and their later responses to the artistic rejection:

In the early 1800's, Bernard Barton, later called "the Quaker poet", wrote an aesthetic article justifying the arts. His main poem, "The Convict's Appeal," protested against the harsh British system of criminal justice, especially its use of the Death Penalty for many offenses.

Keep in mind however, that even on ethical issues, Quakers were often uncreative and almost passive. Partially because of such intense persecution, Friends had rejected and turned away from their very early expressive, revolutionary vision and became traditional, conservative, and often rigid.

In the modern era, many look back and credit the Quakers with abolition, but that is only seeing a few Quaker peaks. Actually most Quakers until the late 18th century owned slaves or supported slavery. Many of the ships which transported slaves were Quaker owned!

Even worse, a Massachusetts Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends "in 1837 voted not to permit anti-slavery lectures at Quaker Meeting Houses...!"

The rising poet, John Greenleef Whittier said "he could never again be the representative to the Yearly Meeting...Although he did not believe Quakers should sing in Meetings, he wrote over 100 hymns, mostly for other denominations, many of which are still sung in Protestant churches today."
North Shore Community College
http://myweb.northshore.edu/users/sherman/whittier/quaker/

"George Fox had a very definite 'puritan' view of the arts. To him these 'jests and toys' were nothing but a distraction from God and Truth and as such were to be entirely avoided by Friends. The only purpose of sports, games, poetry, plays and music as far as he and other early Quakers were concerned was to while away time that should be dedicated to a higher and more serious end."

"Another objection to the arts was that they were not true. Plays were particular offenders here as not only was the story being told not real but actors dressed up and pretended to be someone else!"

Some serious religious poetry was allowed for private personal devotion.

In 1799, Elizabeth Fry, the Quaker prison reformer, wrote,
"How much my natural heart does love to sing: but if I give way to the ecstasy singing sometimes produces in my mind, it carries me far beyond the centre; it increases all the wild passions, and works on enthusiasm."

"Many say and think it leads to religion, but true religion appears to me to be in a deeper recess of the heart..."

However later she did write,
"My observation of human nature and the different things that affect it frequently leads me to regret that we as a Society so wholly give up delighting the ear by sound."

"Surely He who formed the ear and the heart would not have given these tastes and powers without some purpose for them."
--

"Paintings were seen as superfluous decoration and portraits were particularly frowned on as leading to personal vanity. This is the reason why there are so few contemporary representations of Quakers in the 17th and early 18th centuries."

"In 1846 for example London Yearly Meeting minuted 'We believe [music] to be both in its acquisition and its practice, unfavorable to the health of the soul. . . .'"
http://stumblingstepping.blogspot.com/2013/01/quaker-alphabet-week-2-for-arts.html
Quaker and retired librarian, Gil S.

Some Quaker thinking showed the anti-humanistic influence of the Reformed and the Augustinian views (even though all Friends rejected those horrific theologies). In regards to paintings of families and portraits:

"Sorrowful it is...Shallow indeed must be the religion of him who knows not that in himself, as a man, dwelleth no good thing."
from The Friend, Philadelphia

Such an extremely negative view of humanity and the arts started to gradually change. Consider the beautiful painting, The Peaceable Kingdom , by Edward Hicks, 1830:

And by 1895 Quaker leader William Charles Braithwaite wrote,
"It needs to be recognized that our Society has not escaped the tendency to narrow down spiritual action to certain prescribed ways as a substitute for the reality of the spiritual life."

"For example, while Friends have been among the pioneers of modern science they have, until recent years, repressed all taste for the fine arts."

"These, at their greatest, always contain some revelation of the Spirit of God, which is in the fullest harmony with our spiritual faith."

"In the fields of music, art, and literature, as in others, Friends may witness to the glory of God and advance that glory by their service."
--

At present, we have fine Quaker organizations who support the arts such as the Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts and the Quaker Arts Network.

Also some contemporary Friends leaders such as Jan de Hartog and Chuck Fager have written fiction.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Did the Quakers' Fox Escape or Overcome the Dogs of War?

"Our principle is, and our practices have always been, to seek peace and ensue it; to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God; seeking the good and welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of all. We know that wars and fightings proceeed from the lusts of men, as James iv. 1--3...All bloody principles and practices, as to our own particulars, we utterly- deny; with all outward wars and strife, and fightings with - outward weapons, for any end, or under an pretense whatsoever; this is our testimony to the whole world."
"That the Spirit of Christ, by which we are guided, is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil, and again to move unto it; and we certainly know, and testify to the world, that the Spirit of Christ, which leads us into all truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world."
George Fox, 1660

However, the excellent biographer H. Larry Ingle said the Quakers' ethical view, Fox's in particular, was ambiguous and may have been politically motivated: "George Fox’s role as first among Friends was never more clearly evident than in the evolution of his sect’s witness for peace. Not only did he refuse to participate in the civil wars that wracked the Midlands countryside that was his home, he also specifically rejected a captaincy in the New Model Army offered to him while he was in Derby jail in 1651. Citing the apostle James epistle, Fox answered that he knew wherein wars arose, "Lust," and added that he "lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars."5 On another occasion he rejected a similar request by saying that he had been "brought off outward wars."

Fox’s statement was the first we know about on English soil of what we could call "pacifism." In that context, his comment pushed the peace movement a giant leap forward in his own country, particularly in that he was rejecting participation in a conflict with whose overall aims he was in fundamental agreement."

"Many joined Friends and remained in army ranks. Both officers and recruits found that Quakerism spoke to their condition, and early Friends, including Fox, targeted them as potential converts without requiring them to give up their positions. Indeed, many early Quaker leaders were refugees from military service. Richard Hubberthorne himself and James Nayler...had held high positions in the army, and others like Thomas Curtis, one of Fox’s closest early companions...served as militia commissioner...and busily raised soldiers for the army as late as 1659; Pearson accepted the post but refused to don a sword, a kind of symbolic balancing act highlighting the tensions produced in the period."

"Committed to his own personal peace witness, Fox never, until 1661, took the kind of unequivocal position that Agnes Wilkinson evinced in 1853. In a brief epistle to "all who wear swords"..."to strip yourselves naked of all your carnal weapons..."

"The implications of the peace testimony thus stand apart from most modern Quaker peacemaking, which owes more to the aristocratic Penn than to the ruder Fox..."

The Politics of Despair:
The Quaker Peace Testimony, 1661
by H. Larry Ingle

Also, read Ingle's fine biography of George Fox, First Among Friends.


What do you think?

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Rethinking the Title of My Blog: Part #2

In the volatile, destructive 17th century, during the English Civil War when neighbor slaughtered neighbor, visionary social leveler George Fox wrote in 1646,
“I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death,
but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness…”

Do these words—“infinite ocean of light and love”--describe any aspect of existence?

Is there an “infinity of light and love” in the visible or invisible universe?

Probably not (but more on what Fox’s quote might mean further down in the reflection).

It seems fairly probable and scientifically observable that the biological world isn’t based in infinite love at all. Though many religionists from Young Earth Creationists to Intelligent Design Scientists, of course, claim otherwise. John Haught, a brilliant Roman Catholic thinker, who even accepts Darwinian evolution as fact has a different perspective yet.

According to Haught, God demonstrates his vulnerable self-emptying love toward all things and all beings because God doesn’t micromanage everything, doesn’t directly create and control life but instead lets evolution via natural selection proceed through various pathways over billions of years!

“The God of evolution humbly invites creatures to participate in the ongoing creation of the universe. This gracious invitation to share in the creation of the universe is consistent with the fundamental Christian belief that the ultimate ground of the universe and our own lives is the loving, vulnerable, defenseless, and self-emptying generosity of God.” John Haught, God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens

To many this sounds absurd.

The natural order shows Reality to be "Vulnerable? Defenseless? Self-emptying? Gracious? Generous? Loving?" Hardly!

Let’s consider again the actual facts of daily life among all sentient creatures, of the nature of biological evolution, natural selection! Face all of the pain and suffering that has gone on for at least 200 million years.
“Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw”
Alfred Tennyson

“…killer whales pluck newborn seals off the beach and viciously thrash them about…For more than 550 million years, trillions of animals — perhaps many more — have been preyed upon and parasitized, have had their offspring torn to shreds, and been abused and tortured by rapacious predators…"

"Evolution, a natural force of mutation and selection that is a powerful creative agent of design, is blind to any sense of right or wrong. Evolution is amoral. It is apathetic to a species’ quality of life, and callous towards the suffering of the life forms that it moulds…lionesses are ripping off the limbs of screaming gazelles out on the savannahs…wolves are…eating their prey alive or leaving them disembowelled to die.
Steven Hussey, PhD in genetics, University of Pretoria, South Africa

“What a book a Devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low & horridly cruel works of nature!”
Charles Darwin, Francis Darwin, ed., More Letters of Charles Darwin

And that doesn’t even begin to deal with the wreckage, savagery, intolerance and slaughter by humans since they came on the scene. Or the millions slaughtered in the wars of the last 500 years by Roman Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Hindus, etc.

On the other hand, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Roman Catholic philosopher, was a famous paleontologist and geologist who wrote that all of cosmic history is moving toward a loving Omega Point at the end of Time. No doubt as a scientist he had reflected many times on the savage face of nature, and yet he held that ultimately nature will be glorified in love.

Were his scientifically and philosophically grounded observations and speculations, just—deluded specks, abstract delusions that have no actual identity in real time/space?

Yes, says millions of other scientists, especially atheistic ones such as Richard Dawkins, Jacques Monad, Daniel C. Dennett, and Sam Harris. According to Dennett, Darwinian evolutionary science is like an acid which eats through every view of humans contrary to materialism.

So, again, like so many difficult studies, it’s very hard to say; after all basic evolutionary biology, (let alone paleontology), is an incredibly complex study. But common sense would seem to rule out the Fox’s and de Chardin’s and Haught’s view that nature is infused and surrounded by God’s cosmic love.

Who knows in an objective sense?

Way beyond my pay grade.

Then there’s the science of cosmology--the study of the origin, nature, and end of the universe, a highly abstract scientific enterprise dealing with billions of light years, billions of galaxies, trillions of planets…and quantum mechanics at the opposite end of size, delving down into the microcosm…

Way beyond my pay grade, too.

I don’t “know.”

But here are the measured thoughts of one physicist and Nobel laureate, Arno Penzias:
“…maybe God always reveals Himself? Again I think as Psalm 19, ‘the heavens proclaim the glory of God,’ that is, God reveals Himself in all there is. All reality, to a greater or lesser extent, reveals the purpose of God. There is some connection to the purpose and order of the world in all aspects of human experience.”
Quoted in the book The God I Believe In, Joshua Haberman, editor

That sounds almost like George Fox
.
I wish I could ask a few hard questions of Penzias and Haught, and for that matter the contrary thinkers Hussey and Dennett.

So what of George Fox’s statement, the title of my blog?

Is it true?

Or completely fallacious, delusionary, and absurd?

To be continued…

Part #3 Next time:-)

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Nature of Reality: Step #2

Our first step looked at the "ocean of darkness" of non-theism. Our second step will give an overview of the main religion that Friends rejected as evil and totally contrary to their own worshipful experience of God. (Then, hopefully, I will get to the detailed experience and faith of Friends themselves, since this series of blogs is an effort to share the nature of Reality according to Friends.)

The Society of Friends came out of the chaos of religious and social upheaval in the 17th century. In some ways human societies of the 1600's were like today: religious extremism was everywhere, and people thought it was God's will for them to kill other religious people over doctrine. However, the killing then was much worse than now. In the Thirty Years War, Catholic versus Calvinist/Lutheran armies slaughtered each other and often killed innocent civilians as well. Probably about 600,000 died in the military, but 7 1/2 million died because of the war! In the English Civil War and after (including Ireland) about 868,000 died!

Why would so many Christians kill each other? There are many factors, but the central one was disagreement over religious doctrine and theology!

No wonder that George Fox said, "I lived in the virtue and power that took away the occasion of all wars," and "We do utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons..." Instead, Quakers spoke of the Lamb's War--meaning what Jesus had said, that we are to love our enemies, are to be peacemakers.

In England, the Church of England was involved with an internal division between formalists and those who wanted to 'purify' the church. Also, various extremist sects came into being. And there was both avid hatred and secret support for Catholicism. In the English Civil War and after, Christians killed each other for Jesus. Hundreds of Quakers were imprisoned, some died. The Friend James Naylor was flogged, branded with a B on his forehead, and had his tongue pierced with a hot iron. In the New World, Puritans banished Quakers. They had a law that Quakers should have their ears cut off, and if they came back witnessing again they were to be executed. Massachusetts Bay Colony hanged Mary Dyer for the crime of being a Quaker.

Why was there such hostility by Puritans against the Friends especially? Quakers didn't even practice violence or war. So why such hatred against them? There are a number of reasons, and not all the blame is on the Puritans' side. Check out Larry Ingle's insightful biography of George Fox, First Among Friends, for a good understanding.

However, the key difference was how the two opposing religions saw and experienced God, the nature of ultimate reality. Puritans and their 'cousins' the Reformed on the European continent believed religious doctrine and theology were paramount and supreme. In contrast, Friends thought much abstract doctrine so many "notions" that had no real spiritual life in them. Puritans believed revelation came through Scripture and that revelation had ended 1500 hundred years before, but Quakers trusted God spoke to them now; that there is continuous revelation.

Yet those differences aren't the central crux. For the Puritans/Reformed, God is primarily sovereign power. There is an acronym T.U.L.I.P. which shows where their utter hatred of the Friendly persuasion comes from. Nearly all Puritan/Reformed held to this doctrinal outlook and still do today. According to statistics, Puritan/Reformed churches are some of the fastest growing and largest in the United States in the 21st century.

Total Depravity--Puritans/Reformed think all humans are born evil from birth and are so evil they cannot even seek the Good at all. Humans don't have any choice or any free will. We are like clay, dead to anything right or true or spiritual.

One of the most famous Puritan poems, "The Day of Doom" by Michael Wigglesworth, had a section dealing with why God predestines millions of babies to Hell to be tormented forever.

Such theology was reprehensible to the Friends. While the Quakers agreed we humans are bound up in the "ocean of darkness," that we often live in selfish and unloving ways, Quakers were more convinced God lightens every human who is born so every person does have a choice to turn to the light and leave the "ocean of darkness." Furthermore, no infants are predestined/condemned to Hell, nor are any babies born evil.

Unconditional Election--Puritans/Reformed think that before the creation of the Cosmos, in eternity past, God in his sovereign pleasure chose to love only some humans and save them for heaven. The rest of us--millions--were passed over, pre-damned to Hell. While God outwardly calls humans to be good, secretly in hidden decrees he wills most humans to do evil and go to hell, even secretly willed that Adam and Eve sin! It is God's will that these humans are born totally depraved, live lives of sin, and then are damned to hell for eternal torment, all for God's sovereign glory and pleasure.

As you can imagine, such thinking was totally abhorrent to Friends. D. Elton Trueblood the famous Quaker writer said in his book The People Called Quakers the central meaning of Friends was their rejection of such a terrible view of God.

In utter contrast, Friends experience God as unending eternal love.

Limited Atonement--Since God pre-selected some humans to be saved but most to be predestined to Hell, then Jesus didn't die for the sins of everyone but only for the pre-selected ones.

Besides totally rejecting such horrible theology, Friends emphasize that Christ is within us and loves all humankind. He is not a strange theological legal transaction that pays a sin debt for some humans, while ignoring others.

Irresistible Grace--Since, according to Puritans/Reformed humans are born evil and have no choice--are literally dead spiritually, then they conclude that God changes the will of some evil persons, the ones he pre-selected before time began. These individuals have no choice but are changed because of God's plan.

Again, Friends reject such awful "notions."

Perseverance of the Saints--Since God preselects some humans to become good, and changes these individuals against their evil will to become good, God is going to keep such humans from ever living for evil.

Well--very unwell--there is the second view of the nature of Reality. Definitely not the good news, not the "Ocean of Light and Love" of which George Fox experienced and trusted in.

To be continued

The Nature of Baptism

As a Friend I am convinced that baptism is primarily a spiritual reality. For one reason the physical ritual includes all sorts of Christians who claim the other brands aren't even Christians. They attack each other verbally and often have slaughtered each other in so many Christian-sponsored wars.

How can there be ONE baptism in one Spirit when that happens?

And think of the many thousands of other disagreements among Christians:
Calvinists declare there are no Gifts of the Spirit but charismatics and Pentecostals claim the opposite.
Evangelicals claim the Bible is inerrant but liberals state Scripture has many errors.
Fundamentalists argue the Bible is scientifically accurate, evolution is a satanic lie, and the end of the world is coming in this generation
while mainline Christians think those views are ludicrous.

There are many Christians who support killing unarmed civilians in war, who think that the nuclear weapons are given to the U.S. by God, that using torture is justified, that becoming wealthy doesn't mean one needs to share with the world's impoverished.

Where is the love of Christ in this? Where is the Spirit of their formal baptism?

It seems rather that true baptism is spiritual and unseen, when God's Spirit begins to slowly transform a person toward the Truth, the Good, and the Loving.

Physical acts of baptism may be used by some who derive much comfort or inspiration from outward signs, but the danger always remains.

Allegedly, most Germans of the Great War and the Nazi Holocaust War (WWII) era were baptized
yet that didn't show forth in their lives as they went out to slaughter other Christians of the Allies.

And Allied baptized Christians returned the evil favor, urged on by war promoters such as American evangelist Billy Sunday.

Don't forget the Thirty Years War, the American Civil War, and the English Civil War (where Cromwell's "New Model Army" which killed while singing Bible verses! attacked the King's forces who also killed for Jesus Christ).

Sounds more like a baptism into injustice and sin.

No wonder Jesus wept.