Thinking about Baptism

I want to do some online ruminating on the subject of Christian baptism.

Baptism is a divisive subject in the Christian community. Some Christians think that it should be reserved for people who are old enough to make a mature commitment to Christ (usually described as 'the believer's baptism tradition'). Others believe that it is legitimate for the children of Christian parents to be baptised as a sign that the family is united in following Christ (the 'infant baptism' tradition). Most of the denominations that practice infant baptism also have a rather woolly definition of 'Christian parents', and in the past most of them practised indiscriminate baptism (any parents coming to the church and asking for the baptism of their children could have it); many still do.

Through my years as an Anglican pastor I have struggled with the issue of what exactly infant baptism means, and what should be required of those who bring children for baptism. My wife and I had all four of our children baptised; however, I have to say that the most moving baptisms I have administered have all been adult, believer's baptisms, when the candidate was making a conscious profession of faith in Christ.

Here's the issue in a nutshell. In the New Testament, baptism is about conversion and discipleship. The church is seen as a separate entity from the world, and faith and baptism are the distinguishing marks of followers of Christ. Baptism is the sign of becoming a disciple of Jesus (Matthew 28:18-20); it is dying to the old, pre-Christian way of life and rising again to a new life as a follower of Jesus (Romans 6:1-11); it is new birth into the Kingdom of God (John 3:5).

But in the Christendom era, when church and society were seen as one, baptism was seen differently. The whole society was seen as Christian, so that the idea of making a decision to follow Christ was strange. It was also not in the best interests of the empire to have a distinction between Christian and non-Christian citizens; the emperor needed a united religion around which he could gather his subjects. And so the baptism of all children born into the Christian empire became the norm. Of course, infant baptism predated the Christendom shift (there has always been a controversy in the Christian Church as to whether it can be found in the New Testament and the early post-apostolic church; the most honest conclusion, I think, is that your answer depends on whether you give more weight to the analogy between baptism and circumcision - which was of course administered to children - on the one hand, or to the conversion language most often associated with baptism in the New Testament, on the other). But it is fair to say that infant baptism did not become widespread until after the time of Constantine, and it is rather telling that it was in the Christendom era that it was made illegal for citizens of the empire not to have their children baptised.

Today, of course, Christendom is either dead and buried, or in the last stages of life support (depending on where you live). But old habits die hard; there are still grandparents who lose a lot of sleep over the issue of whether their grandchildren are baptised because 'something might happen to them, you know' (it's worth pondering what sort of god these grandparents believe in, a god who would torture little babies because their parents didn't baptise them - but that's a different subject), and there are still parents who don't come to church but still want their child baptised because they 'believe in God and want to give the child a good upbringing'.

And so, many times, we clergy still stand in front of congregations and ask parents to make baptismal promises we're pretty sure they are not going to keep, because to do otherwise would be to 'exclude' someone - and excluding someone is the one unforgivable sin. And it's very interesting to me that we see baptism as being about inclusion, whether there is faith in Christ or not, whereas in the early church it was intimately bound up with faith in Christ, not just 'belief in God' (see Galatians 3:23-29), and was all about commitment to a life of discipleship and learning to obey the commands of Jesus (see again Matthew 28:18-20).

I have said on a number of occasions, tongue in cheek, that I think the Anglican Church could benefit from a one-generation moratorium on infant baptism. The fact that this issue is such a sacred cow is a consequence of the fact that it is so tied up with the Christendom system, and the Christendom toxins (Stuart Murray's phrase) are still at work in our church's bloodstream, even today.

I think we need to ask ourselves the following questions:

• When we compare our present practice with the teaching about baptism, and about the difference between the church and the world, in the New Testament, why are we not bothered by the contradictions we see?
• How could we bring our baptismal practice more in line with something that was more obviously based on New Testament teaching and practice? And if we are going to retain the practice of infant baptism (and I think there is a good argument for doing so), how are we going to restore it to its rightful place as a sign that a family is united in following Jesus, rather than a private family rite of passage which is barely connected to real Christian faith and participation in the Christian Church?
• How could our baptismal services more obviously reflect New Testament teaching about the significance of baptism, and the relationship between faith, baptism, and discipleship, than they presently do?

More anon...