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Update 42 page 5.
In Update 42:
New name
Why infants?
Baptism in CW
Baptism & Fathers
Does history compel?
Is history so clear?
Baptists' integrity
Table fellowship
If God gave
Reborn again
Infant Baptism in Common Worship
Colin Buchanan's Grove Booklet (£2.50) reviewed by John Hartley
This Grove Booklet is a successor to Colin’s Infant Baptism in the Church of England which set out the texts of the canons and ASB on baptism, and provided a commentary on the legalities of the English situation. I owe a debt of gratitude to Colin’s earlier book, which was a turning point for me in showing me how to defend a discerning baptismal policy under the law of the church.
Since then the baptism service had changed, and Colin has brought his mind to bear on the new liturgy. The book abandons the earlier format of text on the left and commentary on the right on facing pages. One can see why Colin has done this: the earlier format had the feeling that “in a commentary you have to say something on everything”. The present booklet is more “someone to lead (us) through it, drawing upon the best that scholarship can bring to it, but offering a sort of conducted tour” (I quote from John Robinson’s preface to Wrestling with Romans).
Colin’s conducted tour starts with a defence of paedobaptism (7 pages), which is reproduced in part on the preceding pages. Its weakness, of course, is its brevity. I couldn’t fail to regret the speed of Colin’s romp through a vast prairie, stirring the dust clouds as he went - but the summary achieves its goal of bringing the reader to a tableland from which the liturgical landscape can be surveyed in perspective. (My credobaptist friends would complain that he has instead led us to a high chapparal - but Colin is no cowboy!) The footnotes of this part of the book make fascinating reading and are worth study in themselves, as Colin boxes with his adversaries in much the same way as Paul does in Romans.
I found the text and commentary part much less striking than the earlier book. Partly this is because Colin relegates the Canons to a 2-page appendix, so their impact is diminished: his book is much more about liturgy and its nuances than about the policy and practice of baptism. Partly it is because I fail to be impressed with the CW service, which seems (to me) to lack the backbone of the ASB: Colin’s wrestling style works less well on a jellyfish than on a marsupial. And partly it is because Colin leads up to CW through the history of BCP and ASB (5 pages), comparing and contrasting it with previous rites: so, in a 24-page booklet, CW actually gets only 6 pages of its own.
Yes, do buy the book. Colin’s style comes through clearly. But don’t dump his earlier book, which is still a mine of useful information.
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