No rosaries allowed

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Jim at Dappled Things doesn't have a comments feature on his blog so I'll have to comment on this here.

No Rosaries Allowed During Mass -- A lady from the parish was telling me tonight about one of her neighbors who, although she is Catholic, had started going to a Baptist church. Everything was fine until they told her (a) that she'd have to get rebaptized by full immersion and (b) that she'd have to stop saying her rosary during the services. She didn't like the first part, but it was the second part that was the straw that broke the camel's back. There's something delightful about imagining that fallen-away Catholic bringing her rosary beads to say during the Baptist "Mass" -- I guess she wasn't so fallen-away after all.
That is just so wrong! What is up with this obession with being dunked? I chose to be dunked when I made my public profession of faith as a kid because that was the way we did things at the church my family went to at the time. If we had been going to a church where sprinkling, rather than dunking, was the thing to do would that have taken away from my profession of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour?

I don't understand the bit about the rosary either. Is it really so harmful that it can't be allowed in a Baptist church? I'm no expert in Catholic traditions (feel free to correct me if I am wrong) but I seem to have gotten the idea that the purpose of the rosary is to help people learn, remember, and meditate on bits of scripture and certain truths and ideas about God. I can't think of a better time or place to learn, remember, and meditate on God and scripture than during worship and fellowship with other believers.

Anyway, that just really irked me. I've seen far too many Christians express some really un-Christian attitudes (I think) towards their Catholic brethren and my annoyance finally bubbled to the surface.

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