As part of my research for the chapter on baptism in a recent book written by the faculty of Southern Seminary, one of the questions that I wanted to answer was, “When did churches leave behind the New Testament practice of immersion?” The answer is, “Far later than you probably think.”
Most of the students I teach seem to assume that the practice of immersion was already long-forgotten by the time of the Reformation—but this assumption doesn’t fit the historical facts. The facts are considerably more complex, but this much is clear: baptism by immersion was far from forgotten in the Western church in the era of the Reformation.
