That's just the way it seemed.
People have been baptized in rivers for millenia, it's common all throughout the West.
I, myself, was baptized in a river in North Idaho, and I have never, until your post, heard it referred to as "showmanship."
Discomfort with public expressions of Christianity was the ONLY explanation I could come up with for such an egregious misreading of Believers being baptized in a river...
Ed
Up here in Connecticut, that is unheard of...in my or my parents generation anyways!...thatI know of...
we all have indoor baptismals, small pools/large tubs, 4 or 5 feet deep, 6 feet wide or so, going down to the river to us up here is something that would be considered an in your face act!
Did you see the shelacking I got from you southerners from this?? You guys act like you can swim all YEAR in those rivers! :)
Oh, good grief, you're in IDAHO??
That's colder than us!
No wonder the west is considered tougher! :)