Had a brief engagement the other day with a person who seemed bent on using an out of context fact about some early church baptisms among the Greek believers to deconstruct Faith and to disrupt modern Christian sensibilities around sex and modesty.
Naked Baptism? Hold the Phone
The seeming deconstructer simply dropped a sensationalized bomb saying, “FUN FACT: Christian Baptism in the early church was practiced in the nude.”
My reply was tempered. “That’s a little misleading. Jews and Christians were quite modest, male female contact highly limited. These events, when conducted this way, were done in the dark across moving bodies of water with a person in total darkness dropping old garments, passing through the water to be received into new garments waiting immediately on the other side. This was not the only way they were done and extreme modesty was always preserved.” One might add that like the Jewish mikveh, these types of baptisms were single gender events, and the words we translate as “naked” often involved no more than stripping off outer garments and leaving on “under-garments” which were NOT equivalent to our “underwear.”
I Don’t Need No Stinking Facts
The original poster did not reply, but someone else did, pushing back at both the poster and me. I’ll simply lay it out:
C*** H***: Andrew Dean Sargent yeah no one who is professing Jesus of their Lord Savior in a baptism would start it off by revealing their nakedness in front of a crowd. This guy is the demonically led to say this stuff.
Andrew Dean Sargent: C*** H*** read George Beasley Murray.
C*** H***: Andrew Dean Sargent No I’m not going to do that. Why do you bring his name up?
Andrew Dean Sargent: C*** H*** because he actually did his homework.
C*** H***: Andrew Dean Sargent No he didn’t. The church of God is not full of wickedness and ungodliness.
Reasoned And Fruitful Discussion
I could contest his final statement as inaccurate given Jesus’ own warnings about sheep & goats, edible fish & inedible fish, and wheat and tares… but that would be a side-step. The more important point in this is how hard it is to have honest conversations with people who have so little skill in thinking… and no shame over being utterly ignorant of even the most basic practices of reason & fruitful conversation.
Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right
So I end up with a malicious fool on my left with a twisted fact and a stubborn and ignorant fool on my right with a determined belief that overshadows facts. I realize that this is the plight in so many situations I encounter both inside and outside the church. Most people do not have the power of reason or any skill in rational discussion. Facts & Opinions & Beliefs, Truth, reality, wants & wishes all get muddled together even in the minds of so many well-meaning people.
This is one of the reasons people often prefer simple lies to complex or nuanced truth. They need things black and white. They need what I call toggle switch morality, ethics, and doctrine… click…right… click… wrong. And nothing in between. Who needs the headache of critical thinking, of vetting one’s own ideas? “This is my truth and nothing, especially facts, will dissuade me.”
Reminds Me of Klinefelter Syndrome
It reminds me of a young man with Klinefelter syndrome I was once attempting to mentor.
Klinefelter is one of the most common and mild chromosomal disorders. Men with this have an extra chromosome (XXY rather than XY) and women can be born with it as well (XXX rather than XX)[1]
Men with this disorder have:
- Reduced testosterone levels
- Less muscle mass and body hair
- Enlarged breast tissue (gynecomastia)
- Taller-than-average height (In a short family this might make him average height)
- Infertility (in many cases)
The psychological and cognitive effects of Klinefelter syndrome are often as significant as the physical ones, though they can vary greatly from person to person. Here are some of the more common or documented patterns:
- Language-based challenges: delayed speech development or difficulty with expressive language (putting thoughts into words).
- Reading and writing difficulties: Dyslexia or other learning differences are somewhat more common.
- Social anxiety: These often stem from feeling “different,” experiencing body-image issues, or academic struggles.
- Depression or dysthymia: Low testosterone and related hormonal imbalances can contribute to mood disorders.
- Heightened sensitivity: A tendency toward emotional reactivity or shyness is not uncommon.
- Some research suggests increased prevalence of ADHD, autism-spectrum traits, and anxiety disorders.
- Executive function issues: Trouble with organization, attention, or impulse control may appear, often leading to academic frustration or underperformance compared to intellectual potential.
- Social immaturity or withdrawal: Some may have trouble interpreting social cues or forming peer relationships, especially during adolescence.
- Fatigue, apathy, and low motivation are also reported, sometimes linked to hormonal deficiency rather than pure psychological causes.
Mentoring Dysfunction
The last three were extremely pronounced in this young man. Impulse control, failure to pick up on social cues, social immaturity, were quite pronounced. Fortunately he also had extremely low testosterone so these impulses did not drive him to rape or molestation, but they did drive him to near-stalker fixations on particular women like a runaway junior high crush. He would act out in ways that endangered himself from real men in the lives of these women.
One of the things he and I did together was to study his condition. I tried to get him to understand his own weaknesses on a reasoned level. The Seinfeld episode comes to mind here where George realizes that he makes terrible choices and begins to do the opposite of every impulse he has. And by doing so becomes a huge success for a while.
Thinking is Not for You
I tried to convince this young man that he should not try to think his way through life, but should trust successful individuals in his life to provide him with a set of rules to follow unthinkingly. The list was not long, but it cut to the core of his most destabilizing impulses.
Thinking is for Normal People
If you know me, you know how uncharacteristic it is for me to actually recommend this type of life. I favor wisdom and intellectual and spiritual wrestling. I favor wrangling with truth and history and culture and facts and theology and Scripture. I favor dialogue and critical analysis of ideas… both our own and others’. But when you have Klinefelter Syndrome that’s the worst thing you can try to do.
Many in the church have no excuse, like Klinefelter Syndrome, for being too wooden-headed for being able to handle nuances. They are self-limiting not damaged, stubborn and arrogant even in their ignorance not hardwired to mental dysfunction.
Help Wanted: Apply Within
And this is my biggest struggle in the ministry. I’m not a shepherd looking for a broken flock to tend. I’m a scholar looking for shepherds to train in biblical and theological maturity. And this demands being humble before Scripture, discerning before presented facts, and rational in wrestling for truth before a complex world with millennia of history and shifting cultures and languages.
If you are looking for that type of guidance, reach out. I want to build a team of trained shepherds and have just the place for providing you with the opportunity to practice and grow in a loving an accepting church setting.
~Andrew D. Sargent, PhD
[1] Hold the jokes please.
