While reading this chapter, I realized that a baptism doesn't have to involve religion at all, but water is often a key factor. One of my favorite fiction works, Cormac McCarthy's The Road has a literary baptism that drastically impacts the father and son and the rest of the novel. When the father and son arrive at the ocean, they see a ship and the father swims out to it to scavenge for food and supplies. He obviously gets very, very wet. When he returns to land, he finds his and his son's shopping cart of supplies has been stolen. When they track down the perpetrator, the father takes everything back from the man, and more. He takes even the clothes from his back.
This symbolic swim changed the father. Before, he wouldn't have been so severe to someone who simply stole their stuff, he would have just grabbed it back, made some threats, and left with his son. However, after he risks his life getting to the boat, he realizes that anyone who hurts his and his son's chances of survival basically needs to die. If not by his own hand, the resulting cold from being naked will do. If the son hadn't intervened and made his father give the man his initial belongings back, he would have certainly died a slow, agonizing death.
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