Believing in Baptism

Understanding and Living God's Covenant Sign

Stephen Kuhrt, Gordon Kuhrt

• Verlag: T&T Clark
• Jahr: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780567694454
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Theology & Religion
• Thema: Theology

Including a Foreword by The Rt Revd Dr Graham Tomlin, this volume examines the theology and practice of baptism. It contains a narrative introduction that highlights the different approaches taken to baptism, and the various issues that come with them. The volume also covers how the changing cultural context within Britain has influenced responses to baptism. At the heart of the book is a detailed examination of the theme of covenant running through the Bible and how this shapes its understanding of baptism. Gordon Kuhrt and his son Stephen explore several controversial issues associated with baptism. Believing in Baptism contains an in-depth discussion of the sacramental issues surrounding baptismal 'efficacy', for instance, as well as infant or family baptism. The authors also examine the 'Baptist' view, discrimination in Baptism and the issue of 'Rebaptism'. Finally, they consider the issue of 'Baptism and its Completion?', and make practical recommendations on the ways in which baptism should be taught and lived in the local church.

1

Who believes in baptism?

Although fictional (and perhaps rather unrealistic in the fluency, never mind the collegiality, of its church leaders!), the dialogue at Melton Sudbury demonstrates something of the wide diversity across and within Christian churches regarding baptism. As the discussion at the ministers’ meeting indicated, this diversity exists in regard to both the importance and nature of baptism itself, and the importance and nature of the faith that needs to be present within it.

Believing in baptism

The most obvious issue in the theology of baptism today is still that of the necessity and nature of ‘believing faith’. All Christian churches who practise baptism at all will baptize an unbaptized adult ‘believer’ who comes from another religion or from unbelief. This will take place following a personal confession of faith. Beyond these types of baptism, however, there is significant division over the necessity of such a personal confession of faith by the one being baptized. Those from a ‘baptist’ perspective maintain that such a confession should be required from all those being baptized, with the corollary that they must be old enough to understand and express this. Once known as ‘adult baptism’, this is increasingly known as ‘believer’s baptism’ since older children are sometimes included within it. Even within such ‘baptist’ approaches, however, there is still a degree of diversity over practice here. Some churches are more cautious than others about encouraging such ‘believer’s baptism’ of children with disagreement about the age they need to have reached for this confession to be credible, personal and responsible. Another issue is whether the baptism even of a ‘believing adult’ should be as immediate as seems to have been the case in the Acts of the Apostles or whether it should only follow careful preparation over weeks or even months.

Within churches practising the baptism of infants (also known as paedo-baptism) a personal confession of faith is not required from children and is obviously not possible in the case of babies. Strong statements of belief are instead required from the parents and godparents of those bringing these children for baptism. Within the Common Worship baptism service, used within the Church of England since 2000, these affirmations are as follows:

Do you reject the devil and all rebellion against God?

(Answer) I reject them

Do you renounce the deceit and corruption of evil?

(Answer) I renounce them

Do you repent of the sins that separate us from God and neighbour?

(Answer) I repent of them

Do you turn to Christ as Saviour?

(Answer) I turn to Christ

Do you submit to Christ as Lord?

(Answer) I submit to Christ

Do you come to Christ, the way, the truth and the life?

(Answer) I come to Christ ¹

These liturgical statements are extremely strong in the faith commitment that they require and this is equally true of many of the liturgies of other churches practising infant baptism. Alongside these affirmations, parents and godparents also promise to pray for the child being baptized within the Church of England and ‘draw them by your example into the community of faith and walk with them in the way of Christ’.² Despite the strength of these promises, however, a major issue surrounds the extent to which such believing faith is, in reality, present or even expected in many infant baptisms. Citing the importance of the baptismal promises being said ‘with integrity’, some churches discourage such ‘christenings’ unless the parents are regular members of the church or at least prepared to receive some instruction regarding the promises that they are going to make. At the other extreme are churches where no such demands are made and the desire expressed to avoid making judgements upon the parents’ faith or penalizing the child for any lack of it. Such an approach is often described as ‘open baptism’ by its supporters and ‘indiscriminate baptism’ by those concerned about whether genuine ‘believing’ has any part at all in such events. For all Christians then who practise baptism today, there are issues concerning ‘believing’ in baptism with respect to its timing, its reality, its maturity, its credibility and also the generosity and charitable assumption with which these are viewed.

Believing in baptism

However, and this is the second meaning of the title, there are also Christians today for whom believing in baptism itself is (or at least seems to be) of very little importance. The Society of Friends (known as Quakers) do not practise baptism with water or Holy Communion with bread and wine as rites of material signs but seek to practise ‘a sacramental life through the living presence of Christ’.³ Similarly the Salvation Army accept as church members ‘all those who are in Christ Jesus’ without any rite of initiation by water-baptism.

Surprisingly, moreover, many Baptist Churches too make baptism an entirely voluntary and personal matter sometimes even accepting people into membership and to Holy Communion who are unbaptized. Other Christians will be found worshipping in various congregations and having a living faith in God but who cannot see the point of the sign of water-baptism when they have experienced the reality of spiritual baptism. There are African Churches which practise ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ without water, through the laying on of hands. But there are also many other Christians who do practise water-baptism but see it as much less significant than ‘conversion’ or ‘baptism with the Spirit’. The one is a sign (whether it seems to come before or after what it signifies) whilst the other is the reality! Often the sign and the reality are separated by weeks, months or many years, and it is the reality (quite understandably) that is prayed and worked for and rejoiced over in the church, whilst the sign is but a shadow in comparison.

Such attitudes are often associated with an individualistic and pietistic form of evangelical Christianity. Underlying them is often the fear that too much emphasis upon the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion will lead to nominal Christianity rather than authentic faith. At a deeper level this is often based upon suspicion of any claim that God can work through physical actions or matter and the fear of this leading to superstition and idolatry. The result is that whilst baptism and communion are usually practised within evangelical churches, they often appear to have far less importance than, for instance, listening to sermons and studying the Bible. In fact there frequently appears to be a greater confidence in describing the dangers associated with the sacraments than understanding their positive importance. A common description of the rationale for baptism and communion amongst such groupings is to call them ‘a command of the Lord’ betraying a sense that the sacraments ought to be honoured even if their provision seems a little arbitrary and makes little rational sense. The equally frequent description of baptism and communion amongst more ‘catholic’ Christians as ‘holy mysteries’ has greater depth but can sometimes appear to be serving the same purpose.

Other churches, by contrast, particularly those which are more Anglo-Catholic, Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, appear to regard baptism in theological terms as highly significant in relation to the gospel and the church of Jesus Christ. Within all of these churches, however, there are also practices rather at odds with this theological status. One example in the Church of England, less prevalent now than thirty years ago but still quite common, is semi-private services of baptism taking place when few (if any) of the church members are present. Or again, when parents and godparents make professions of faith but are never seen in the congregation again (until another baptism – or perhaps a wedding or funeral) and appear to have little intention of truly bringing the children up ‘as Christians within the family of the Church’. Another tension evident within many churches is the discrepancy between the declaration that baptized infants are members of the body of Christ and the lack of adequate provision for these children’s needs and welfare. The existence of the rite of Confirmation and the frequent restriction of Holy Communion to those who have ‘been confirmed’ also conveys a degree of ambivalence about the status of those who have ‘only’ been baptized. Is any of this really believing in baptism?

A biblical theology

The purpose of this book is to enquire carefully into the biblical theology of baptism. This will involve an understanding of the nature of conversion, repentance and faith. When Paul speaks of Christian unity in Ephesians 4 he declares ‘one baptism’ alongside ‘one body’, ‘one Spirit’, ‘one hope’, ‘one Lord’, ‘one faith’ and ‘one God and Father for us all’ (Ephesians 4.4-6). One implication of this is that there is one theology of Christian baptism which we must endeavour to clarify from the Scriptures. Having done that (and only then) we shall turn to the thorny issue of Christian family baptism (or infant/paedo-baptism) – the view that it is right to baptize the infants of Christian parents and the ‘baptist’ view that any infant baptism is misguided. One of the strange things about baptism is that many Christians can appear to approach these questions the other way around – firstly, deciding at what stage of life baptism is appropriate and secondly, and on the basis of their answer to the first question, deciding what they consider baptism to actually be. This process is often relatively unconscious but needs to be recognized and reversed if the progress needed within every church and tradition regarding baptism is going to be made.

It would therefore be a theological nonsense for readers to jump to Chapters 9 and 10 without working through the earlier chapters. However, when that point is reached, the authors believe the biblical theology points quite clearly to a particular conclusion. They are concerned though to be gracious and ‘eirenical’ to those who interpret the evidence differently and to face the pastoral questions of discipline and ‘re-baptism’ in a scrupulous and serious manner.

The book is not intended to be a piece of academic research and so notes and references will be kept to a minimum. It is intended to be a careful and clear enquiry which produces a coherent account, biblically reasoned and pastorally applicable. This point is emphasized because so much of the literature on this subject is on the one hand densely academic, technical and detailed, or on the other hand either very superficial or bitterly polemical and partisan. It is written not for the professional scholar but for clergy, ministers, ordinands, churchwardens, elders, Christian parents and that growing band of lay people who gladly help with baptism preparation, administration and the subsequent nurture of the baptized (both children and adults) but are perplexed as to the real meaning and importance of the whole enterprise.

A changing scene

Changing contexts have a marked effect on the priorities and practice of theological reflection – whether we are always conscious of it or not. It is helpful to note certain developments during the past generation or so, which have had particular significance for the discussion and practice of Christian initiation.

The Western world is increasingly seen to be a complex post-modern mission field rather than part of Christendom

In 1981 the number of Christians in Third-World countries surpassed that of the Western world and these respective trends of growth and decline have continued apace since then.⁴ The growth of Western secularization has had a crucial impact upon the decline in its churches but the situation has become further complicated over the last thirty years by the certainties of modernism becoming steadily undermined by the range of attitudes and impulses often described as post-modernism. Part of this development has been a marked upsurge during this period of the search for spirituality but with the post-modern assumptions of consumer choice shaping the (largely unconscious) selection and self-assembly of a whole variety of different beliefs and practices. Many forms of post-modernism have reflected a deep suspicion of the traditional institutions seeking to mediate spirituality leading to the rediscovery of Eastern religions and the growth of movements such as the New Age. At other levels, these developments have been more often characterized by a mildly benevolent attitude towards the church accompanied by the assumption that it chiefly exists to mediate the form of spirituality that its individual consumers have decided that they want at that point in their lives.

Particularly from the mid-1990s a decisive shift began amongst perceptive leadership within British churches from the pastoral to the evangelistic, reflected in the announcement by the Church of England of a ‘Decade of Evangelism’. The most successful examples of this and subsequent developments have tended to be those churches that have responded most appropriately to the cultural shifts reported above. Where evangelism occurred between the 1950s and 1980s, for instance, it tended to be through large evangelistic rallies, university missions, Sunday schools, youth groups and camps and special ‘guest services’ where people were invited to hear a specialist speaker and respond to their spoken message. Over the last two decades this has largely given way to approaches more grounded in local engagement with people’s search for a spiritual community that will fit their needs. The explosive growth of the Alpha course has formed part of this, as has the development of ‘Fresh Expressions of Church’ such as ‘Messy Church’ encouraged by the ‘Mission Shaped Church’ movement. Changes to the curriculum of theological courses and colleges and criteria for clergy selection have also reflected this major retooling for mission and the need for church leaders to understand something of the changing cultural context in which we are now located.

This changing context has had a significant impact upon baptism. The effects of secularism and the decline of church attendance have resulted in a steady decline, especially since the 1970s, in the number of children being baptized in churches. In many cases the continuing impetus for ‘getting the child done’ has increasingly come from grandparents (whether churchgoers or not) more familiar with infant baptism/christening as the norm than the child’s parents. One effect of the increasing non-baptism of children has been a marked rise in adult baptisms with the number of these within the Church of England frequently exceeding those in Baptist Union churches.⁵

Once again, however, the rise of post-modernism has made the situation more complex, particularly in the greater enthusiasm (however vague and conditioned by a ‘pick and mix’ mentality) that it has brought for sacramental experiences. Perhaps the most obvious example of this was when one of the most iconic figures of the early new millennium, David Beckham, announced that he and his wife Victoria definitely wanted to get their first child Brooklyn christened but hadn’t decided into what religion yet!⁶ At a more popular level, these developments have resulted in the decline of baptisms in parts of Britain being paralleled in other places by an increased appetite for ‘christenings’ sometimes resembling a quasi-wedding (particularly given the decline in actual marriages) as the family take the opportunity to put on smart clothes, invoke a sense of God and make a public statement of ‘this is who we are’. Some of the recent options introduced into the baptism services of the Church of England, such as the option to reduce what the parents and godparents promise, appear to be prompted by the desire to engage more fully with this context.⁷ So has the provision to include the baptism of a couple’s children within the marriage service.

The development of ‘Fresh Expressions of Church’ has encouraged further engagement with all of these factors. Many forms of ‘Fresh Expressions’, such as ‘Messy Church’, have particularly engaged with the variety of factors prompting new parents to be open to Christianity. These include parents’ increased need for local community and support when a child is born (particularly with many extended families living wider apart than was once the case), the desire to find the source of appropriate ‘values’ for their child and also the fresh sense of God that frequently accompanies the arrival of a baby.⁸ All of this has very obvious implications for initiation with a consequent rise in the prevalence of baptisms (both infant and adult) taking place within ‘Fresh Expressions of Church’. One of the key issues within ‘Fresh Expressions’ is the extent to which they are integrated within traditional forms of church or seen as autonomous churches and this obviously has major implications for the Christian development of those who have been baptized within these churches. All of the changing cultural factors mentioned here thus have a very obvious impact upon the way in which baptism is understood (some would say misunderstood), approached and practised.

The development of biblical theology

Biblical theology is now more influential in theological discussion and in church life than for several generations past. This is most obviously because of the dramatic decline of theological liberalism in the face of successive developments such as the ‘biblical theology’ movement, the growth in numbers, confidence and theological integrity of evangelicals, the pervasive spirituality of the charismatic movement and the continuing impact within Roman Catholicism of the Second Vatican Council. Perhaps the greatest factor bringing change within the Church of England over the last forty years has been the astonishing growth of evangelical scholarship with the work of scholars such as Tom Wright, Richard Bauckham, Tony Thiselton, Paula Gooder and Alister McGrath playing a major role in reshaping the chur...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents 
• Preface
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Baptism in Melton Sudbury
• 1 Who believes in baptism?
• 2 The Bible and baptism
• 3 God’s covenant (part one)
• 4 God’s covenant (part two)
• 5 John the Baptist and bsptism
• 6 The baptism of Jesus
• 7 Baptism in the Early Church
• 8 Baptism as a sacrament
• 9 Baptism and the Christian family
• 10 The ‘Baptist’ view
• 11 Discrimination in baptism
• 12 ‘Rebaptism’ – is it ever justified?
• 13 Baptism and its completion?
• 14 Living and preaching baptism
• Epilogue Changes to baptism in Melton Sudbury
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index of biblical references
• General index
• Imprint