When baptism becomes a carnival

In some evangelical circles, baptism is a spectator sport.

It’s always about which pastor or church can baptize the most people or put on the most extravagant baptismal super event.

Thus, when Mark Francey, pastor and co-founder of Oceans Church in Irvine, Calif., set out to “Baptize California,” he soon realized his ambitions were too small. In 2025, he expanded his movement to “Baptize the World.” His initiative that year involved more than 650 churches in all 50 states on Pentecost Sunday with 26,000 people baptized.

On the website of Oceans Church, there’s a large icon: “Sign Up to Get Baptized.” The 2026 event happens on May 24, Pentecost Sunday.

I clicked on “Get Baptized.” I was asked to provide my email and telephone number. I received a code to complete the process. All I was asked to do was show up with a change of clothes. No questions about following Jesus. No Scripture. Just a choice of where to get dunked.

The most significant influence this kind of baptismal fervor has is more to do with location than evangelism. Fifteen of America’s largest churches are located in California. Oceans Church is located in Orange County, where evangelicals have been making waves for decades.

In From Bible Belt to Sun Belt, Darren Dochuk documents the migration of Southern plain-folk religion from the Deep South to California. He tells the story of “how transplanted Southern evangelicalism, itself revitalized and recreated in the Golden State, moved from the margins of the Southern Bible Belt to the mainstream of America’s first Sunbelt society.”

One of the first mass baptisms in America took place at Pirate’s Cove in Southern California during the 1970s under the leadership of Calvary Chapel and Pastor Chuck Smith’s “Jesus Movement.” The 2023 film Jesus Revolution documents the movement. Oceans Church also uses Pirate’s Cove for their baptisms.

A historical analogy suggests the Burned-over District of Western New York as a connection. The term, coined by evangelist Charles Finney, suggests repeated revival efforts in the region left few unconverted souls in the 19th century.

The intense emotional fervor of the region gave birth to an array of new religious groups such the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Shakers, Spiritualists and the Oneida Community.

Southern California has provided the same emotional fervor and the founding of an array of Christian movements from Pentecostals (Azusa Street revival) to the Jesus Revolution to the spread of mostly Pentecostal, charismatic and nondenominational churches. Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral was part of this amazing variety, as is Saddleback Church.

Today, organizers at Oceans Church frame their mass baptisms as acts of unity, spiritual renewal and community support. Participants describe the experience as deeply personal and transformative, with many citing renewed faith or life changes.

There’s no denying the powerful emotions at work in these mass conversions. Pastor Francey’s own feelings deserve equal billing: “This wasn’t just about a moment in the water; it was about launching people into a life with Jesus, surrounded by a community that can help them grow.”

Participants in the baptismal service offered testimony. One of the newly baptized said his mother convinced him to attend: “If it wasn’t for her prayers and if it wasn’t for God’s grace, I would either be dead or in jail because that’s the activities I was involved with in the Middle East.”

But such mass baptism events — in contrast to the more personal baptisms that take place in churches across the world — look like carnival, spectacle and marketing. This raises issues I find impossible to avoid.

Oceans Church uses hyperbole to market baptism.

All persuasive efforts to move a large group of people are slogan-based: “Make America Great Again” and “Baptize the World” are emotionally powerful, ambiguous, yet offer a promise of the good life. There’s a deep nostalgia in the appeal reaching back to earlier revivals and to the original Pentecost Sunday (3,000 souls saved) and a desire to be like the first New Testament church.

A baptism at Pirate’s Cove? Cool! It feels like a Beach Boys concert.

The carnivalesque atmosphere suggests getting baptized is as easy as a Sunday walk on the beach. Mass baptisms provide a kind of pleasure, a spectacle merging entertainment with a sense of community and togetherness not unlike attending a sporting event.

There’s no grounding in baptismal theology in the process.

Oceans Church knows what all marketing geniuses know: Americans are particularly attracted to the “very extravagant” or the “marvelous and supernatural.” There’s the bait and the hook. There always will be people attracted to the allure of the carnival, spectacle, casino, religion and politics of deception.

A mass baptism creates the illusion of a life-changing event, a peak experience and a dramatic change. The drama of the event may be powerful but having no lasting impact on the baptized. The drama of the moment may be the end of the drama.

Salvation is offered as a deal. If baptized, a person is promised life will have meaning and eternal salvation will be guaranteed. Nothing is said about being engrafted into a series of “cross-bearing” practices that will save us from the powers who would rule our lives.

There’s little difference between “Got Milk?” and “Get Baptized.”

I am tempted to believe there’s unconscious deception involved in “Baptize the World.” No doubt this is a brilliant slogan and ingenious marketing scheme. Yet it seems built on a facile promise of national salvation. It is a puerile message of redemption making promises it cannot keep.

The invitation to “get baptized” with the click of a button sounds like a magical portal into eternal salvation. Baptism for the sake of baptism becomes the only religious experience needed. That’s not the New Testament understanding of baptism.

 

Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.