#157-Passing New Babies like they're Hot/Not Crying Babies/Backroom spankings

(Caption: Yes, that's Chris Brown with a baby...and yes I think it's funny).

Babies in church are almost as popular as a testimony of a formerly trinitarian pastor coming to believe in a oneness position. 

While I personally can't stand babies in their lack of self-reliance and inability to be self-aware, and thus have argued so in my post about baby dedications, I will choose to remove whatever bias I have against these strange creatures in order to analyze their purpose amidst our church bodies. 

The Good of the Babies

In short, the babies allow former mothers of babies, potential mothers, and expectant mothers to practice their maternal instincts. It is for this reason that babies get passed back and forth among the hungry arms of church females like it was 2003, and the babies were the atkins diet. Baby Holding Hunger (BHH) amongst apostolic females is quite a funny site for the outsider looking in. Because BHH sees this trend: 

-Woman walks over to mother holding 4 month old baby after church. 

-Woman talks to mother about how cute the baby is and pinches baby on face.

-Woman asks if she can hold baby

-Mother fears that woman has contagious disease but folds under the pressure and give up possession of baby.

-Woman stares into babies eyes deeply as she holds it. 

-Baby doesn't understand it's self existence let alone the existence of the crazy women who is staring at him.

-Woman starts making all kinds of obnoxious noises  "goo goo" and "gah gah" out of her mouth as if to attempt to speak "baby language" Which is completely non-existent (unless you have seen Baby Geniuses).

-Baby gets freaked out and starts crying

-Baby thus induces the power to go back to his true mother 

-Next Step: Trend repeats for the evening except with a new woman each time going through the same process. 

And all this baby-passing stuff generates within the mind of "potential mother" in apostolic teenagers is the following:

MUST HAVE OWN BABY BY WHATEVER MEANS POSSIBLE!

And thus all endeavors are put on hold in a apostolic teens life other than: 

GO DO WHATEVER PROCESS MUST BE DONE TO HAVE BABY. HOPEFULLY THE BABY WILL HAVE A FATHER WHO IS A PREACHER.

And the cycle continues, ad infinitum. 

And behind this trend, is that of BHH....

Should we fight it? 

No! For the woman in relation to desiring a baby is the most unstoppable force in the world. 

Crying Babies

Ah the crying baby during church service. What a paradoxical event. For as much as we apostolics love babies, we equally love the sermon. So when these two passions find themselves on a crash course for who is truly in power within the church, nothing but confusion and awkward silence usually ensues.

Has anyone noticed that babies only cry during the most silent and intense parts of the preaching? And at no other time? This surely is not a coincidence. And here I suspect that babies can have more intelligence than we had initially thought possible in consideration of the small cranial capacity. 

For surely the baby is lying in wait during the entirety of the service looking for the opportune time to attack to assert their dominance over the preacher. And thus at the precise moment that the congregation has gone on forgetting about the love of baby, and has thus focused all energies on the preacher, the baby rears itself head with a heart-pounding sob. 

Much to the embarrassment of parent.

But alas, the baby is winner. As heads will turn. And pastor will stand awkwardly because he knows you can never get mad at a baby. Ever.


that is until....

The Backroom Spanking during service

To a child, there is one thing worse than a parent who is set on punishing their child for wrongdoing: A parent who is embarrassed  who is set on punishing the child for wrongdoing.

And thus when a baby cries during service, he not only demands punishment, but also will be reaping the punishments from a parent who is embarrassed of the crying during service.

In my church, spanking happened in the kitchen. I don't know where it happens at your church. But I assure you whichever room it happens in, will cause the child years of traumatic spite and fear of that room that will take years of adolescence to fully recover from (I am thankful that the kitchen in which I was frequently spanked during in service transgressions was destroyed shortly after the age of 10).