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Update 46 page 1.
In Update 46:
Parents hear?
Web wanderings
Dear Archbishop
Waters converge
Videos and prep
Andrewes
Of godparents
To help parents hear the words
The Rt. Rev'd Colin Buchanan, President of BI
I suppose that Baptismal Integrity is now reaching the point of having a history. I myself dismissed MORIB when it first made a press release (see my Grove Worship Series no 98, Policies for Infant Baptism, published in January 1987). But in 1988 I was asked to address a national conference of MORIB, and this attracted clergy and laity from all over the country, even though it was held in a rather remote spot (Shrewsbury). Not least, I remember it because of the presence of Christopher Wansey, presumably in his late 70s - a link with the pre-history of baptismal reform. (He offered 'Naming and Blessing' in his Essex parish in the early 1960s - and he didn't offer much else post-natally. - see his "The Clockwork Church", Mowbray 1978.) But I also remember the conference because Alan Wright, the then chairman, was at root opposed to infant baptism.
Well, I thought I had done my bit as a speaker. But the committee pressed me to become President (which was meant to be an inactive role, but would give the Movement a bishop on its side in an honorary capacity). I replied that, as a true paedobaptist, I could not risk having to oppose the Committee if they moved (as they showed signs of doing) towards actual opposition to infant baptism. I received these assurances, and I took on the undemanding role. To be fair, the Movement never did become one for the removal, rather than the reform, of infant baptism.
My own contribution has been to urge that the key to baptismal policies will be contained in the official baptismal rites. We did have a struggle in providing this in the Common Worship services, which came into use on Easter Eve 1998. As I wrote in 1996 (Update No. 27), there were some sensitive points for MORIB members, and the initial texts seemed to set us back quite a bit from the ASB rites. But in the end the new text did not go soft on parental commitment.
The questions to the parents in the infant rite seem to me to be as searching as any interrogation in the ASB texts. The rite remains Christian, and its 'all-or-nothing' theology of discipleship provides an instant measure for parents of their own discipleship, and of their seriousness in asking for baptism for their infants. So the rite makes a loud proclamation of its own.
The question for Integrity is how we can make the applicants so hear it - perhaps at application or in preparation - that they cannot but yield to the Jesus who is proclaimed in it?
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