This is the second part of a two-part posting of a paper that I had prepared
for a seminary course on pastoral theology this spring dealing with the issue
of the theology of baptism. The first post (which can be found here) deals with
an academic survey of the doctrine of baptism from biblical, theological and
historical perspectives, whereas this post explains what I have come to believe
personally about baptism through my research and contemplation. It bears
mentioning that this is my personal theology and should not be seen as the
official position of either Estevan Alliance Church where I serve as the Lead
Pastor, nor should it be understood to be the official position of the
Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada, the denomination in which I am
ordained for ministry. It is my belief that four of the five points in this
paper are fully-congruent with accepted C&MA positions on the topic and
that the fifth and final point, while at odds with the letter of the law in
today’s constitution, more accurately reflects the traditional position of the
Alliance.
In the interest of preserving the integrity of the paper as
submitted I will reserve additional comments on the theological dissonance
generated for a future post on the topic. It is my hope and earnest prayer that
as I, and others within our movement, begin to speak up about our concerns
regarding our current policy of rebaptism within the C&MA that a healthy
and constructive dialogue may begin, that one day may find its way onto the
agenda of a General Assembly. Thanks for taking the time to hear me out. Enjoy
the paper.
Chris
_______________________________________
Personal Theology of Baptism
1. Believers’ baptism as best practice
I was raised in a tradition that practiced believers’
baptism as the normative ordinance of the church and nothing that I have
learned in my study of this doctrine has led me to any other conclusions.
Firstly, I affirm with Bruce Ware that there is no clear evidence of
non-believer's or infant baptism anywhere in the New Testament[i]
and with Bernie Van De Walle that the only baptisms mentioned explicitly in
Scripture are those of adults.[ii]
I reject the notion that the household baptism texts in the book of Acts (11:13-14, 16:14-16,
32-34 and 18:7-8) provide clear evidence of the practice of baptizing infants
based on both the textual and contextual evidence that implies that those in
the household who responded and were baptized demonstrated belief in some way.[iii]
Faith is a necessary antecedent of proper baptism for “[b]aptism can be given only when the recipient has
responded to the word in penitence and faith.”[iv]
We are not saved by baptism in an ex
opera operato sense, but rather we are saved by grace through faith (Eph
2:9). That is not to say that baptism does not play a role in the drama of
salvation but it is in an evidentiary role as Lane describes it: “Salvation is
received by the faith that expresses itself in baptism and by the baptism that
is an expression of faith.”[v]
It seems clear to me that the biblical expression of the call to baptize is to
baptize individuals upon their own profession of faith and desire to obey
rather than to impose the rite upon those who lack the capacity to seek it for
themselves.[vi]
That does not mean however that I embrace the evangelical tendency to
indefinitely delay baptism until the candidate has reached some point of
heightened understanding of the theology of baptism; rather what I understand
from scripture is that baptism is something that should follow faith
immediately.
2. The immediacy of baptism upon the profession of
faith
“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). If
we are to maintain the position that baptism needs to come out of a conscious
decision to respond to Christ and believe on him, then we must be clear to
define those crucial terms 'believe,' 'decide' and 'respond?' Do we mean to say
that to believe means to understand and that to decide means
to have all the relevant information to make an informed choice and
that to respond means to undertake a fully thought out and rationalized
action based upon the empirical data that we have processed? My
experience in Evangelical churches throughout most of my life reflects that
approach to this quandary. We want to ensure that people understand fully the
commitment they are making when they go through the waters of baptism and we
want them to have a fleshed out understanding of salvation with at least a
rudimentary understanding of Christian theology, so we have developed
complicated and lengthy systems of checks and balances to ensure that is the
case.[vii]
In the Bible however we get a very different picture
of baptism. We get a picture of a rite that comes from God, is enacted by God
and that we play our part by responding to him out of obedience. It is not a
rite that is always (or even often) preceded by understanding; it is not a rite
that marks the completion of a long season of preparation and study, it is not
even explicitly confessional in nature. Witherington makes the
case that baptism is not so much a statement as it is an appeal.[viii]
It is an appeal to God in obedience that we would be counted with Christ in his
death and resurrection and would receive the baptism of fire and Spirit
promised by John when he was awaiting Jesus. Belief, in that sense only need be
as robust as is required to call out to God who can save us.
I am convinced that our common evangelical baptismal
practice runs contrary to our biblical convictions that baptism is the
immediate and non-negotiable response to the call of God on the life of the
believer. One cannot separate coming to faith in Christ from the divinely
ordained act that serves as the legitimate manifestation of that change in the
life of the convert as Smith reminds us, “[b]aptism and conversion are linked,
and the church is most effective in its witness to the meaning of baptism and
the power of conversion when baptism is very intentionally spoken of as integral
to rather than subsequent to conversion.”[ix]
Certainly faith precedes baptism in some way, but it does not thrive, blossom
or grow when separated from it. Too often we make
faith into some sort of unbiblical abstraction that stands on its own, as James
reminds us faith without a manifestation in action is no faith at all, baptism
is the manifestation of a saving faith. What are we to say about a faith that
refuses the gift of baptism? Or even one that delays it without good cause? Is
it really faith at all or are we fooling ourselves with religious platitudes of
belief that aren't any deeper than the words that encapsulate them?
All of that has been said however demands an answer to
the larger question of what actually qualifies as saving belief in the
Christian church? What do believe that makes us Christian? Or
more specifically, to what extent to we have to believe to be saved?
Michael Root gives a helpful explanation when he says:
Baptism requires no prior physical, intellectual, moral or religious attainments. The membership of the church is not made up of an elite who have successfully undergone some kind of initiatory ordeal. If we can boast of baptism, we can only boast of The Lord, not of anything we brought to it or achieved within it.[x]
While the problem of adults indefinitely delaying
their baptism for fear of not being ready or worthy of the rite is a very real
one in most evangelical churches, the question behind the question when it
comes to baptismal readiness is in what ways can a child respond to
God?
I am convinced that Jesus holds us accountable for
what we can understand, and expects us to respond according to what he has
revealed to in the capacity we have been given to understand. So when a young
child asks Jesus into their heart because that is the extent of what they can
comprehend, I am convinced that they are fully in the family
of God. God accepts their confession of faith, as simple as it may be, as a
full commitment of all that they are. And when a child asks, as the Ethiopian
Eunuch does in Acts 8, “why can't I be
baptized?” then we should do all that we can to help that child respond
to God in obedience, instead of stifling them in their relationship with Christ
by imposing impossible requirements upon them. Anything less than this sort of
acknowledgement of child-like faith puts we learned Christians in the awkward
position of wearing millstone shaped pendants.[xi]
3. The inextricable link between baptism and church
membership
When one is baptized, “[i]t is generally agreed
ecumenically that baptism is always both into a particular local church and
into the church universal…One cannot belong to “the church in general” without
belonging to some concrete, historically particular body.”[xii]
Thus it is right to understand that to be baptized by a congregation is to also
be baptized into that congregation; into fellowship, into commitment, into the
life and membership of that specific local expression of the church universal.
As Smith reminds us, “[b]aptism is the act by which the new believer is
incorporated into the church, thus it is right to link baptism with church
membership.”[xiii]
Debates over whether formal
membership in a Christian church is a biblical mandate or not have obscured the
vital spiritual reality at play in the act of baptizing; when we are baptized
into Christ we are united with Christ and in being united with Christ we are
also united with all the others who have been drawn into him through baptism. “To
assume one can be Christian without attending church and participating in the
life and mission of the fellowship is to misunderstand the meaning of being
joined to Christ.”[xiv]
It is impossible therefore to live in the baptismal reality without a vital and
intentional connection to the local assembly of believers. As Purves reminds
us, “the communion of the Holy Spirit is a dynamic and living relationship with
Christ that can never be separated from that fellowship that being in Christ
creates.”[xv] To
do baptism properly in my local context then I must also be prepared to draw a
line in the sand that to be baptized is to come into church membership and a
refusal to accept the latter will then need to be understood as a refusal to
accept the full implications and responsibilities of the former.
4. The availability of child dedication only to
baptized members of the church
It is at this point that we must recognize the
inherent weakness of the believers’ baptism position – what do we do with the
children of believers? This has been postulated by many as the real reason the
practice of infant baptism began in the first place. Van De Walle makes the
point well that believers' baptism "does not, in any way, grant the
children of believers any real status in the Church or grant, to any degree,
the reality of their salvation, embryonic or otherwise."[xvi]
If baptism is to be seen as the legitimate rite of initiation into the covenant
fellowship of God’s people then what standing to the children of covenant
people have?
Traditionally this is where
paedobaptist traditions have had a more thoroughly developed theology and where
evangelical traditions have faltered in the quagmire of the substitutionary
ritual of child dedication. Many evangelicals would be proud to puff-out their
chest and affirm that they practice dedication instead of infant baptism
because they take seriously the commitments that we make before God, yet it is
frighteningly frequent in my tradition to find that we will let just about
anybody stand up in the service and make promises for child dedication without
any real assurance of what their faith and commitment to Christ is!
Evangelicals have failed to understand that our common practice of child
dedication frequently succumbs to the same faults that we have long criticized
paedobaptists of engaging in – namely we celebrate a rite of commitment without
any assurances that the commitment will be kept. Lane pointing to the problem
of indiscriminate baptisms by state churches in Europe muses about restricting
the rite to committed and active Christian families[xvii]
and I wonder if the same would reinvigorate the evangelical practice of child
dedication. How, after all, can parents raise their children to follow Christ
where they have not yet followed themselves? If we were to restrict this rite
of vicarious Christian initiation to parents (the real objects of child
dedication) who had themselves professed faith through baptism and commitment
through church membership, would we not greatly reduce the number of empty and
abandoned promises made before God and the church in these ceremonies?
5. There is one Baptism.
And lastly, while there are more right and less-right
ways to administer the sacrament of baptism within a local church, and while I
would certainly advocate a very specific doctrine and mode of
baptism, the very fact that baptism is a work of God and not humanity[xviii]
gives me great concern over my own tradition’s practice of baptism. If Paul is
correct, then baptism is supposed to be a means to preserve the unity of the
Church:
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (Eph 4:3-6).
If this is the truth of the matter and the will of God
- then what can we rightfully say about traditions that mandate rebaptism of
those who received an (improper) form of the sacrament? According to Root,
baptism fundamentally must include three things to be considered authentic. 1.)
It must be done in the triune name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; 2.) It
must be done using water (although the mode of the water baptism
is debatable); and 3.) It must be done with the intention to do what the
church does when it baptizes.[xix]
That is to say that any baptism done by members of the body of Christ, in the
triune name of God, with water are inherently legitimate so long as they
understand that their role is to mediate or administer the gift of God freely
given in Christ. To contest the spiritual validity of any baptism that
meets those very basic requirements is to inherently pass judgment not only
upon the individual, but also upon the legitimacy of
that congregation's/tradition's place in the universal Church.
When a child is born out of wedlock we may
legitimately lament the unfortunate situation into which that child is born, be
concerned for the fact that the child may not have the benefit of a traditional
home, and may desire to correct their understanding from that experience of
what is normative and healthy so that they do not make the same choices that
their parents did - but we do not declare that their birth was invalid and ask
them to do it over again! We acknowledge the legitimacy of their birth and the
reality of their life and vitality. Perhaps they will find themselves in a
healthy and stable family or perhaps they won't but the very real evidence of
their physical birth and existence is uncontested. In a similar manner, when
someone undergoes the spiritual birth of baptism - a work of God, not people or
the church,[xx] we
may rightfully acknowledge that it is not always done in the best way. The
child of God may be disadvantaged by their improper or unconventional baptism;
or there may be (spiritual) family of origin issues that will need correction
later on in their walk with Christ so that they do not repeat the same mistakes
with their children - but we should not ask them to redo what was never theirs
to do in the first place. Their baptism and place in the family of God is
legitimate and secure awaiting actualization in a personal confession of faith.
When we state otherwise through a policy of rebaptism we effectively tell the
child (of God) that they are a spiritual bastard and consequently are not
welcome in this family unless they renounce their spiritual adoption. Granted,
says Barth that baptism “must be apprehended and taken hold of ever and again
by faith,” but “it cannot be said too emphatically that the sign [baptism] has
been given to him, it cannot be taken again and he can reject faith only by
senseless contradiction of this sign.”[xxi]
Would it not be much better and theologically consistent to have that person
who wishes to make an adult declaration of their baptismal commitment undergo
some sort of rite of confirmation? Would it not be healthier to ask them to
submit to a season of catechism followed by a public confession of faith where
they take hold of their infant baptism personally? [xxii]
This would allow them to make their own conscious decision to follow Christ and
validate the work of Christ in their infant baptism regardless of how it was
misapplied by the church of their youth.
Rebaptism also hinders our efforts toward church
unity. The fact that we do not acknowledge the baptism of the great
majority of Christendom is to say that we do not have fellowship with them, for
how can we be cohorts in the body of Christ if we are not baptized into Christ
by the same Holy Spirit? To infant baptism invalid is to declare that the Holy
Spirit which that church baptizes in the name of is not the same Holy Spirit that
is at work in our tradition; that the Lord that they baptize in the name of is
not the Lord Jesus Christ whom we worship; and that the Father God who speaks
approval of the new birth and who adopts the baptized into a filial
relationship with Christ is not the same Father that Jesus speaks of in the
Gospels. And if we are not united to Christ by the same God, in the persons of
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then it is logical to conclude that either we
or they are not united to Christ at all! To outright discredit the baptisms of
so many committed Christians is to mutilate the body of Christ through careless
and unnecessary amputation. If therefore, there is only one baptism (as the scriptures
attest) then the very thought of rebaptism into the 'proper' way is an affront
against the unity of the church at best, and a sinful act being called sacred
at worst.
This final conviction, which I
feel reflects both the biblical testimony of and the historical position of my denomination,
does unfortunately bring me into conflict with its current policy. It is my
hope that this paper and the study that has birthed it will help me to begin a
dialogue with those in leadership of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in
Canada to rediscover our baptismal heritage and re-engage not only a great
number of our people who have come from paedobaptist backgrounds, but also the
other Christian faith communities that we have passed judgement on through our
misguided policy of rebaptism.
[iii] Ben Witherington, Troubled
Waters: The Real New Testament Theology of Baptism (Waco, Tex: Baylor
University Press, 2007), 61–65.
[iv] G.W. Bromiley, “Baptism,
Believers'” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology ed. Walter A. Elwell
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984).
[vi] This
does of course also have strong implications for the mentally disabled, and
those who through age or disease have lost the cognitive ability to understand
faith at a level that would seek out baptism.
[vii] In my tradition
we generally put them through baptismal classes and then have them interviewed
by the elders to make sure that they were actually paying attention in those
classes and to make certain they are good candidates for the rite. It is
virtually impossible in our polity to have someone respond immediately to
baptism upon the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
[xi] Jesus isn't
interested in how much we know, he's interested in how much of us we are
willing to give to him (Mark 12:41-44). To those who understand much, much is
expected; but those who understand less are called to the same 100% obedience.
I would hazard a guess that as a percentage of full devotion, the child who
sings ‘Jesus loves me this I know,’ at the top of her lungs on a Sunday
morning, or the new believer who is excited to give his whole life over to God
in baptism may be more committed to Christ than the seminarian in the front
pew.
[xiv] Andrew Purves, Reconstructing
Pastoral Theology: a Christological Foundation, 1st ed (Louisville, Ky:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 41.
[xx] I
recognize of course that this is an interpretive statement that will be at odds
with many others, including some of the authors referenced in this paper but it
nonetheless stands as by best understanding of the scriptural evidence.
[xxii] Although
it exceeds the scope of this paper to examine in detail, I am also becoming
convinced that a post-baptismal season of catechism is a policy that should be
instituted for baptismal candidates of all ages within the evangelical church.
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