Premise: Nothing can stand in the way of Jesus’s saving power. If a physical ordinance is needed to connect a person with this saving power, it must be available to anyone who needs it: which is everyone past the age of accountability.
Since the Church will not baptize children of same-sex married couples until those children reach the age of majority, move out of their parents’ household, and disavow same-sex marriage, one of two things must be true:
Either getting baptized into the Mormon Church at age 8 is not necessary to salvation (or even important to it), or the LDS Church is not the only institution that has the power to bestow ordinances that connect one with the saving power of Christ.
Assuming that the LDS Church is the only authorized institution to perform baptism, it seems that nothing spiritually important is gained from baptism until the age of majority. Otherwise, the LDS Church could not be the only purveyor of this saving ordinance since it must be available to everyone who needs it.
Using the same line of reasoning, since the Church also denies these children confirmation and the gift of the Holy Ghost, the light of Christ must be perfectly well suited to guiding a person through the first 18 years of life.
Therefore, 18 must now be the age of accountability, at least in the United States, because that is when the Church is willing to offer baptism to everyone.
Stephen Carter
Stephen is the author of What of the Night?, an award-winning collection of personal essays on Mormon themes; The Hand of Glory, a young adult horror novel; and iPlates Volume I, a graphic novel based on the Book of Mormon. The Kickstarter campaign for iPlates Volume II starts November 5, 2013.
All posts by Stephen Carter
I feel there are several flaws here. In Mormonism vicarious ordinances are available to all. Saving ordinances are available to those who do not get them during mortality. You assume that if anyone is over 8 and not baptized, then their chance at salvation is gone. This is simply not true.
Baptism at 8 is the youngest that the church will allow a baptism, and this should only be when parents are strongly committed to the church. There is a reason Mormons do not go for infant baptism. The atonement covers any who fall through the cracks. Your all-or-nothing at 8 years is a forced assumption that is simply not true.
What a crock. Just looking for something to complain about. Worry about your relationship with Christ instead of finding fault with every little thing. This website should be called Rationalization of Faith.