Is it possible to become legitimately baptized without having to jump through hoops and/or join a Church?
The Biblical account of baptism seems simple to me - you ask to be baptized and a Christian baptizes you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. That's it. "Here is water, why can't I be baptized?"
It seems you have to jump through some kinds of hoops to be baptized today. Either you must join the church which is baptizing you or you at least must be interviewed and vetted or perhaps go through a period of probation of some sort. I don't see anything in the Bible about vetting and probation and Church membership.
So, why can't someone just become baptized without the extra added stuff?
There is a story from the synaxarium (I cannot remember the day or else I would link to it directly from one of the online editions) of a woman who was traveling by sea to Alexandria to have her child baptized in the church there. During their voyage, the weather turned bad and she legitimately feared that they may not reach their destination. In desperation, she baptized her child herself, in the name of the Holy Trinity. Miraculously, the ship did not sink but instead reached its destination. So she hurried to the church and presented the child to the priest for baptism. When the priest proceeded with the baptismal rite, he went to submerge the child in the water only to find that it had turned to stone! Perplexed, he asked the woman if there were any strange events on their trip over that might account for this. She then told him of her emergency baptism on the ship, to which the priest replied that he could not baptize the child, for the baptism had already been performed, and it is not possible to baptize twice.
This story shows, among other things, that the baptism of the believer is acceptable to God, and yet also that there is a standard way by which we do things that is also acceptable. Exceptions such as this are noteworthy (there's a reason why we remember it), but are just that: exceptions.
So I do not believe that it is that we necessarily want to put anyone "through hoops" to get baptized (though we certainly do want to make sure that they fully accept the Orthodox faith, so that they understand Who it is that they are putting on), but rather that ways have developed since the time of the Bible which mark a person as specifically having been received into a preexisting church community (no matter which type -- Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, etc.), and hence those ways have been formalized in a way that they may not have been in earlier times. There were various Jewish sects who baptized in various ways during Biblical times, and with various interpretations behind them. Some, if I recall correctly, baptized themselves at regular intervals, which would certainly seem inappropriate for a Christian to do given the particularly Christian theology involved in baptism from our view. Was Christ periodically crucified, so that we may die and rise with Him on some kind of schedule, or did He say "It is finished"? The answer is obvious, so I would not discount the very developments that mark our baptisms as being specifically Christian, even if they may seem like "extra stuff" relative to the more simple way of doing things in St. John the Forerunner's time (for instance). Were it as simple as "Here's water; someone baptize me" we would not have seen the controversy surrounding the
lapsi in North Africa (in the Latin churches there, anyway, among the Christian Berbers like Donatus), and yet that's just what history reveals to us, and that history is what sharpened our own ideas about baptism, so while the controversy itself was horrid (as all Church schisms are), I think we can look back on balance and say that it at least yielded good developments.
Anyway...that's why someone "can't just become baptized", though in a certain way they can (e.g., ecclesiastical lines do not make some sort of 'cage' for God, no matter what anyone may tell you). Honestly I think a much better reference for the reality of the situation is not in any of the discussion or examples of baptism in the Bible, but instead of one conversion that we know
did occur without baptism (at least not immediately...) -- that of Saul of Tarsus/St. Paul. We all know the famous "road to Damascus" moment of the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ to the saint, but let us not forget what happened immediately afterwards, because it is instructive:
3 As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. 4 Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" 5 And he said, "Who are You, Lord?" Then the Lord said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads." 6 So he, trembling and astonished, said, "Lord, what do You want me to do?" Then the Lord said to him, "Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do." 7 8 Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 10 Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, "Ananias." And he said, "Here I am, Lord." 11 So the Lord said to him, "Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying. 12 13 14 And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name. 15 16 For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake." 17 And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him [...]"
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That is St. Paul's conversion, which ends in his baptism (which I have excised, because it's not like you're asking why people need to get baptized period, so it doesn't really matter for this question that he was at the end baptized). But notice what comes before: he was led into Damascus, to the preexisting Christian community, and received by the hand of Ananias.
This is as we still do it, as you well know. Reception
into a community is something different than an individual's decision to get baptized, or even the manner in which it is done (as that varies according to which church you are looking at), but it is the main point of any "hoops" -- not to add anything extraneous or frustrate people, but because no one is to be alone within the Body of Christ. Whether God personally tells someone to go find you and baptize you himself or not, you're still being received into a community. And every community has some sort of standard, even if they claim they don't, or if it is much simpler than some other community, or whatever. Even the Unitarian Universalists, who don't really qualify as a religion in any kind of traditional sense and do not require any creedal beliefs or common idea about God to be expressed (that's kind of the point of why they exist: to be a kind of 'non-religion' for people who are nevertheless on their own spiritual journeys) have nonetheless developed their own sorts of rituals for the reception of new members. Here is one of their 'baptisms' (as described by the video's uploader, not me):
It seems to be mostly speeches and foofaraw, but someone could make the case that this is all "extra added stuff", too. Looking at it I see not a baptism in any kind of Christian sense (again, consciously so, from what I understand of the stances of UUs), but one reflex of the sort of primal urge of our species to gather to mark the entrance of a new member into the community (it's just that in this case it's not as strictly religious).
But we as Christians are generally not satisfied with something so general as to exclude our particular God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit +), and hence have developed rituals of varying length and complexity and character in order to do our own welcoming in exactly the right way. My own baptism took...I don't know...two hours? Something like that. (I was baptized on the same day as the newest member of the parish -- a girl of 80 days old, as is our tradition. May God keep her forever. It weirds me out to think that she must now be almost 7 years old. Time flies when you're engaged in seemingly endless worship...baptism included.
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