This is a short post on baptizing the nations. Peter Leithart has written extensively on how Jesus's command in Matthew 28 applies to whole nations. He has been criticized for lauding medieval cases where whole nations and tribes were forcibly baptized at the request of their leaders. My way of extending the discussion is to ask whether paedobaptism is necessary for a continuing people movement. I don't think that it is.
I have several cases:
1) the Mennonites (a breakoff anabaptist group from Swiss and Dutch reformed in the 1500s, with a renewal movement in the form of the Mennonite Brethren in the 1860s in eastern Europe)
2) the Lisu (evangelized mainly by the China Inland Mission, Churches of Christ, and Assemblies of God, in China and Burma from around 1910 onward, and virtually all Christian in the Nujiang region of China and in Burma)
3) the Rawang (evangelized by the Churches of Christ, Assemblies of God, and Baptists, mainly in the 1930s-60s and now those in Burma are virtually all Christian)
4) the Kachin (mainly Jinghpaw and northern Burmic speakers) (evangelized mainly by Baptists, from the 1880s onward, with a major push in the 1960s-80s that made virtually all Jinghpaw speakers in Burma Christian)
These all are predominantly anabaptist or baptistic, and yet they have experienced gospel-ward people movements and then continued on in a tradition of baptizing their children after their children have made a mature profession of faith.
In all cases, there is the danger of nominalism and formalism, just as with paedobaptism, and the church in these groups is constantly in need of renewal, just as everywhere. But I want to point out that the cultural value of solidarity vs individualism is a different axis from paedobaptism vs credobaptism.
