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Update 41 pages 12-13.
In Update 41:
Burning Boats?
CW Baptism
For infants?
Not out of mind
Baptism & Unity
Praxis Pack
What is Baptism?
Initiation initiatives
What is this thing called Baptism?
Highlights and questions from a booklet by Michael Saward
“Christians in the Evangelical tradition have been, for generations, confused and embarrassed by baptism. Most of them, if they have had advanced education, have belonged to a college or university Christian Union associated with the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF). And what is UCCF’s view of baptism? ‘All Christians should be baptised but baptism does not make a person a Christian.’ This looks reasonably obvious, but sits uneasily alongside a phrase in St Peter’s first letter (3:21), namely, ‘baptism now saves you’. So who are we to trust? UCCF or the apostle Peter?”
So begins Michael Saward’s booklet, which is a summary of a four-week course on baptism which he first gave at St Matthew Fulham, and then adapted slightly (to take account of newer liturgies) for Ealing Parish Church and later for St Paul’s Cathedral.
Michael tackles a variety of questions in the four chapters (which reflect the four topics of the weeks). Looking at the origins of baptism and the meaning of bapto and baptizo leads to a discussion of how much water is needed: do you have to be baptized by immersion or will affusion do? The first Christian reference to the amount of water needed, in the Didache, is wheeled out and compared with the Jewish context for the words.
The verse from 1 Peter leads to the doctrine of baptism, which cannot be just “my witness” or a “mere sacrament”: it must, in some manner or other, affect my eternal destiny. But in what manner? Michael explores the covenant which baptism signifies and asks what constitutes our “yes” to God’s blessing? Behind this chapter lies the Charismatic movement and the question of whether there really is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”?
The extent of baptism deals with the question of infants. Did the New Testament church and the Patristic church baptise them? Did the Anabaptists of the 16th century have any grounds for their beliefs, and do Anglicans affected by the Charismatic movement have any new insights on this question?
Finally, the practice of baptism deals with the indiscriminate way in which the rite has been available to all comers. “They’ve been told by Gran that it’s time to get the baby ‘christened’. They don’t know why. They’ve hardly ever been inside a church and anything we say to them sounds like Serbo-Croat. They’ve never heard the language. Why all this fuss? They only came to ‘do the right thing’ and to put a bit of business the Vicar’s way. If he starts playing up then they will shop around elsewhere. At once we must be honest - it’s not their fault. The fault lies fairly and squarely at the door of the Church of England.” How have we got ourselves into the position of the “apparently indiscriminate” practice which is criticised by other churches, not least in the World Council of Churches’ Lima document? More to the point, how can we get out of the catch-22 situation and deal with the enquirers in a welcoming and creative manner? Michael offers a host of helpful suggestions here in his true campaigning style.
Some comments by the editor:
The booklet starts and ends with vintage Saward at his best, writing fluently and with passion about things close to his heart, and I thought it was £2 well spent for the opening page and closing chapter. The questions underlying his writing are pertinent throughout, but in the middle sections one feels that he really needs a much longer space in which to explore and expose weaknesses in others’ positions: I felt keenly that the quick sketch of history on infant baptism needed a lot more detail and some acknowledgement of the unclarity of early church practice. However, these are the points which one could expand in one’s own four-week course on baptism, and Michael has done us a great service in providing a robust framework, a survey of pertinent questions, and solid suggestions for what we do in the present day.
The 20-page booklet, consisting of four chapters each of about 800 words, costs £2 including postage and packing, and is available directly from Canon Michael Saward at 6, Discovery Walk, London E1W 2JG.
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