Young baptisms were common in my mother's generation of JWs.
So many of you are "appalled" and sickened by this push to get children baptized. I am not.
My mother was baptized when she was 6 years old, in 1939. She described it to me recently. She said that "...there were brothers from the Society sent out all across Canada to baptize everybody because we thought Armageddon was happening. I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew that it made Mum and Dad happy. Lots of kids got baptized. The parents were scared."
Historically, the push for child baptism is not new - it occurred in 1941 with the Children of the King conventions held that summer. The convention report said that children as young as six years old were baptized at the St. Louis convention:
There have been thousands of children at other Watchtower assemblies, but never before were 15,000, who had been previously registered, seated entirely by themselves in the main portion of one of the world's greatest auditoriums. Never before were more than 1,300 children immersed at one time.In 1941, the Watchtower machine had more up their sleeve than just recruiting children to sell literature. Those "Children of the King" that were baptized were recruited to challenge First Amendment rights. I wonder what the WTS is up to this time.
