An Anabaptist Theology Of Baptism

Anabaptists rejected infant baptism because they insisted that the purpose of baptism was personal transformation and conscious adult commitment to Christ. Although dependent on personal faith, baptism occurred in the church and set the person baptized on a trajectory of witness for Christ that, in the sixteenth century, often led to persecution and even martyrdom. In later centuries, this visible witness for Christ increasingly manifested itself in a sectarian distinctiveness from the dominant culture—hence, the plain dress and way of life characteristic of the Amish, most Mennonites (until the mid-twentieth century), and Hutterites.

Sixteenth-Century Anabaptists and Their Descendants The various denominations descended from the sixteenth-century Anabaptists (Mennonites, Hutterites, Amish), each developed their own organizational patterns, doctrinal statements, and worship patterns. During the early twentieth century, Mennonite leaders in Europe and North America began to study sixteenth-century Anabaptism as a means to renew their own churches. Based on this recovery of the Anabaptist vision, some scholars and church leaders have begun to employ the adjective Anabaptist as a generic label for the hundreds of distinct groups descended from the two main streams of sixteenth-century Anabaptists (the Dutch/North German/Russian Anabaptists and the Swiss/South German/Moravian Anabaptists). Some leaders among the various Baptist groups descended from the seventeenth-century English Baptists also have begun to identify with the theology of the sixteenth-century continental Anabaptist movements. The following summary of sixteenth-century Anabaptist views of baptism takes the place of the impossible task of generalizing about contemporary Mennonite, Amish, and Hutterite practices. Though the Anglo-American Baptist tradition is similar, its legacy is also found among North American evangelicals. In 1524 and 1525, scattered evangelists and preachers began calling for radical repentance and faith. They insisted that respondents be baptized. This challenged the validity of infant baptism practiced in Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed churches. For the radical preacher's renunciation of infant baptism, these churches persecuted them severely, labeling them Anabaptists—literally, those who baptize again. One might suppose, then, that this movement was chiefly concerned with this particular practice. The Anabaptist understanding of baptism, however, was rooted in a far broader vision of Christian life. Anabaptists insisted, first, that God's redemptive goal was deep personal transformation, or sanctification, not merely forgiveness of sins. Second, this could be attained only through participation in Christian community, in the church. Third, this way of life involved witness to the world, accompanied almost certainly by persecution. Baptism often referred not simply to a ceremony, but to this entire process, to these three intertwined dimensions, or phases, of Christian life. Baptism and Personal Sanctification The first phase, baptism of the Spirit, began with the call to faith, through the Word, and with the struggle of repentance. For Anabaptists, baptism's water imagery vividly expressed experiences of being overwhelmed, tossed to and fro, and drowned (Pss. 42:7; 69:1–2). The Spirit painfully dissolved one's ties to the flesh and world, submerging the old nature in death. Yet from the Spirit, a new, divine life also flowed, assuring one of God's presence. Anabaptists often called this first baptism, which continued in some measure through sanctification, an inner baptism. This phrase could refer to daily, inwardly experienced, mortification of the flesh. More often, it indicated the outer deprivation and persecution expected from witnessing to the world. This baptism could, quite plausibly, culminate in literal blood-shedding. The life process of baptism, then, involved experiences and choices of which infants were incapable. This was the Anabaptists' chief reason for refusing to baptize infants. Since this rite had been practiced universally for over a millennium, they marshaled additional objections against it. Anabaptists often insisted that infant baptism was not commanded in Scripture. They argued that it was not widely practiced in the earliest centuries. Anabaptists frequently observed that Jesus himself accepted little children; he affirmed that God's kingdom consisted of such; and he stated that children, in their humility, were examples adults should follow (Matt. 18:1–5, 10; 19:13–15). Sometimes such appeals implied that infants were guiltless. Most often, however, Anabaptists claimed that infants were free from judgment only because of Christ's atonement (John 1:29; Rom. 5:18). Yet, they still were inclined toward sin. Eventually they would choose sin. Then the Spirit's baptizing work alone could set them free. When they spoke of baptism, Anabaptists were usually articulating a radical vision of Christian life, a process of deep purgation and transformation carried out in communion with others and in tension with the world. They insisted that significant personal and communal sanctification were possible. Yet they based this hope not on optimistic opinions about human goodness, but on trust in the power and thoroughness of God's redemptive work. Baptism as Covenant and Witness The second phase, baptism of water, involved the outer ceremony, probably performed by pouring or immersion. Anabaptists regarded it as a pledge, or covenant, of the individual with God and the congregation. They insisted that this outer washing was meaningless without the pledge and the inner washing to which it testified. Luther and others protested that such a baptism witnessed merely to subjective experiences, not to God's objective, saving power. In several ways, however, their understanding of baptism was more objective. First, the baptized testified to, and in the power of, the Spirit who made the entire baptismal process possible. The Anabaptists emphasized free human response, they also stressed that God must first set the will free. The baptism of water was thus a cowitness of our spirit with God's initiating Spirit. Anabaptists could speak of it, accordingly, as conveying salvation and grace. And it was cowitness, in another sense, of inner, spiritual experience with outer, material form. To Anabaptists, infant baptism seemed one-sided, concerned only with physical form. Second, Anabaptists pledged themselves to the congregation to walk in Christ's footsteps, sharing life and goods with their brethren and submitting to discipline should they fall short. Baptism meant open identification with a severely persecuted group committing one irreversibly to the way of the cross. Third, most Anabaptists regarded such persecution as evidence that the end of time was near. Water baptism, then, constituted an eschatological sign—God's objective mark on those who would escape coming judgment (Rev. 7:3; 9:4). In this way, the baptism of water pointed not only back to the baptism of the Spirit which undergirded it, but also forward toward the third and ultimate phase, the baptism of blood (Mark 10:38–39).