Baptism - From Death to Life

Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life
(Rom 6:4)

Perhaps nothing in the Anglican Church has undergone as much change in recent years as our attitudes to baptism. It is not hard to see why this might be so. The Church itself is learning to live in a 'post-Christendom' world. Once we used to assume that everybody in the English speaking world was a Christian, and that we lived in a Christian society ('Christendom'). More and more we are coming to realise that this is no longer the case (if it ever was). Christians are in the minority, and society at large is mostly indifferent, sometimes hostile, to the claims of the gospel. This means that our understanding of baptism, the passage of a Christian from the world into the Church, is changing as well. At the same time, there has been a great renewal in nurturing the ministry of all Christian people, sometimes called 'lay ministry', or 'the ministry of the priesthood of all believers'. Baptism is moving increasingly into centre stage, not only as the rite of admission to the church, but as the 'ordination' of every Christian to ministry.

Once upon a time a baby was brought to baptism, perhaps at a private ceremony without involvement of the normal congregation. The baby then perhaps never appeared in Church again until their wedding, or in some cases until their funeral. Or the baby might remain, and come week after week, but was not a full member, as they couldn't receive communion until they were confirmed. Only after confirmation, did the person enter into the fullness of their baptismal heritage. All of this has changed, or is changing.

These days the baptism is most likely to occur that the main eucharist of the day. The congregation have an active part to play, as they are the gathered community in a post-Christendom world, who will welcome and nurture this child. Increasingly, the person baptised will be an adult, as a smaller percentage of people are baptised as infants. The child, or person, baptised is more likely to experience the full privileges of membership in the Body of Christ, being allowed to take communion before they are confirmed, often at a quite early age. They are more likely to be encouraged into ministry as soon as they are able. Many modern baptism services follow an ancient tradition of including a 'covenant' or bargain between God and the newly baptised person, in which they promise to make responsible use of the gifts imparted to them God. Clergy have done this for a long time at their ordinations; it is good that all Christians should now do it at their first and most important 'ordination'.

These changes can be disturbing, but they are exciting as well. They proclaim a greater vibrancy amongst the whole of God's people. And as baptism is increasingly brought before the congregations' eyes again, they have occasion to remember their own baptism, and to discover again the truths that baptism teaches. For example the Anglican Church baptises both infants and adults. In the baptism of a baby, we remember that God's acceptance of us depends not on our response, but on his grace which comes to us long before we are able to respond as we ought; "You did not choose me", Jesus days, "but I chose you" (John 15:16). An infant baptism is a celebration of grace. When an adult is baptised, we remember that God's grace demands a response, that "faith without works is dead" (James 2:20). It is a celebration of commitment. We have already seen the Anglican church is a paradoxical thing; its worship is both intimate and transcendent. Here too, these seemingly contradictory truths are both part of the Christian message and our Anglican heritage.

Perhaps more strangely still, all these 'radical' new changes are really a return to the vision of Thomas Cranmer, the seventeenth century author of the Book of Common Prayer. He too regarded confirmation as a secondary thing. He did not regard it as a sacrament of the Gospel, as it had "not any visible sign or ceremony ordained by God". Some today even question, whether it has any role at all in today's church. For us, as for Cranmer, baptism confers all that is needed. It is "not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but it is also a sign of Regeneration or new Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church" (Article 27).