Water is a proper part of baptism, either by full immersion or sprinkling- however one can do it, that's how it's done. John the Baptist was doing full immersion, but the early Christians went around with buckets and spoons.
What many people today are trying to do is put everything into prayer- baptized by prayer, salvation by prayer, fruits by prayer.
This is something colloquially called 'prayerism', and dismisses the spirit and tradition of Christianity.
These people, who are largely MADists, have taken certain scriptures too far and have come to ridiculous conclusions- 'spiritual' vs 'water' is just one of those things, unfortunately. The Christian church didn't baptize people for the past nearly 2000 years just to be told they are wrong by a bunch of people who find it a lot more convenient to 'evangelize' without it.
In fact, these people's Christianity is a gigantic mass of convenience. They went from 'faith alone' to 'condemning works', from 'holy tradition' to 'no tradition', and from 'evangelizing' to 'lying to people'.
And they're going to be beamed up into the sky before anything bad happens
