We are not advocating extravagant ideas of conversion, or requiring a religious experience from children of fourteen years which in the nature of the case they cannot have.  But have we a right in this crisis in the history of the child to overlook that infinitely important experience which our dogmaticians termed regressus ad baptismum? Said Professor Kaftan, in an address to a Ministers’ Conference:  “The word conversion is the appropriate term for expressing the way in which a man becomes a Christian and a believer.  Most Christians can tell you something about how it happened that they sought a new aim and chose another path in life.  Even among those who have had a peaceful and gradual development, there came a time when they reached a conscious and decisive resolution to belong no more to the world but to God. "Man wird nicht von selbst ein Christ, man muss sich bekehren um ein Christ zu werden." We do not repudiate the doctrine of baptismal regeneration as it is held in the Lutheran Church.  On this point we are in accord with our Confessions.  But before we adopt without reservation the idea that baptized children are regenerate, we must revise our practice in the matter of baptizing infants.  So long as we practice the Winkeltaufe and baptize indiscriminately the children of people who give us no guarantee that the children will be brought up in the Christian faith, so long as the Church fails to recognize her obligation to these baptized children and does not take them under her nourishing care from the time when they emerge from the family and enter into the larger life of the street and the school, we have no right to place such an emphasis upon baptismal regeneration.  It is to be feared that the Lutheran doctrine of baptismal grace has in many minds been supplanted by a mechanical, thaumaturgiel conception which differs from the Roman doctrine only in being far more dangerous.  Rome at least enforces the claims of tthe [sic] Church recognized in baptism.  We baptize them and let them run.  We corral a few of them for a few months just before confirmation and then let them run again.  So does not Rome.” [tr. note:  original has no close quotation mark for Kaftan quotation]

Dr. Cremer, of Greifswald, an able defender of the Lutheran faith, in his reply to Dr. Lepsius on the subject of Baptismal Regeneration, says: 

“It is sad indeed that in the use of the sacraments there is generally more of superstition than of faith.  This must be openly confessed, for only then can conditions be improved when faults are recognized and made known. . . .  We may continue to baptize chiildren [sic] of Gewohnheitschristen (formal Christians), but it is a question whether we ought to continue to baptize the children of those who have given up the faith and among whom there is no guarantee of a Christian training.  This means also a reformation in our confirmation practice.  Does confirmation mean a family party, or mark the time to leave school, or has it something to do with baptism?  These are rocks of offense which must be cleared out of the way if the Church is to be restored to health.”