Convergence At The Font

The actions of Christian initiation seem to be growing toward an ecumenical shape as some major traditions shift their traditional baptismal customs and do so along broadly similar lines.

History By the time of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, the Western church had developed a two-stage pattern of Christian initiation. Infants a few days old were baptized by the local priest; in later childhood, after at least rudimentary education in the faith, they were confirmed by a bishop. Since the late Middle Ages, admission to the Holy Communion followed confirmation. The two ritual actions corresponded with life stages—baptism with birth, and confirmation with growth. In the sixteenth century, this two-stage rite of becoming a Christian was all that anyone knew. The Reformers accepted the first stage, infant baptism. However, they rejected, sometimes sarcastically the bishop's postbaptismal anointing. Yet they saw value in this second initiatory action insofar as it was an opportunity for the church to instruct and for persons baptized in infancy to own their baptism. The Reformation was an educational, catechism-writing movement—as, indeed, was the Counter-Reformation. Some radical parts of the Reformation broke with the two-stage pattern of Christian initiation. They saw baptism as a sign of one's faith, and since infants cannot have a confessing faith, infant baptism is not true baptism. The church should consist of persons who had separated themselves from the casually Christian population by an act of conscious faith. Baptism, as the Anabaptists saw it, was not meant to consecrate a Christian society, but to identify a distinct, intentional believers' church. Thus, children were not baptized until they came to an age of accountability and could enter the faith community on an adult basis when they professed their faith. The churches of the West have continued these patterns with a few modifications. The Roman Catholics in the nineteenth century introduced a first communion prior to confirmation. And many churches in the believer's baptism tradition introduced a service of thanksgiving and dedication for the birth of a child. Problems These traditions were not without critics. Scholars lamented the loss of the early church's coherent way of initiating Christians. Many persons in the infant-baptizing traditions deplored the privatization of baptism, which commonly took place in an empty church or even in the family home. Moreover, baptism had become separated by several years from first Communion. Confirmation, by contrast, had become an important congregational event, culminating an educational program and marking entry into communicant life. Theologians accorded primacy to baptism, recognizing that all the meanings assigned to confirmation were meanings derived from baptism. However, popular church members saw baptism as a private, family affair, while they saw confirmation regrettably as "?joining the church.?" The sacramental tradition has associated confirmation with the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit was also associated with baptism. What is the role of the Spirit in these two events? Is the second event redundant? Do they differ? If so, how? Problems arise from the extended process of coming of age in modern society. Children begin separating themselves from parents earlier and earlier; but they are not independent adults until later and later. The act of confirmation seems to expect that one moment in this decades-long, difficult process represents the passage into Christian adulthood. In the believer's baptism system, when it stands on its own, parents and congregations show a demonstrable tendency to baptize children at a quite early age; thus, risking making it as predictable as baptism is at infancy in other churches. As many self-critical Baptists have observed, the adult, self-determining character of baptism becomes qualified. Despite questions, most churches retained their inherited customs—customs devised for generations which took for granted a Christian society. New Rites In the 1960s and 1970s, Western churches undertook the most extensive reshaping of Christian initiation since the sixteenth century. The revision of service books drew on historical study and on the ecumenical thinking that emphasized the foundational place of baptism in the church and in the Christian life and that produced the influential Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry statement in 1982. A few of the resultant revisionist texts are following. After the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), the Roman church developed two rites for baptism, a rite for children (1974) and the influential Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) (1974; revised ed., 1986). Liturgical work in the Episcopal church produced a revised Book of Common Prayer which was authorized in 1976 and 1979. A similar process led to the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), The United Methodist Book of Worship (1992), and the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship (1993). All of these rites are equally prescriptive in the churches they represent, although the texts may be modified by practice. Thus, these official service books indicate the directions being taken in the major traditions. One should note that these instances from the major traditions are only part of the story of contemporary Christian worship. Many churches and many thousands of Christians in the free church traditions stand outside the movement described here. For the entire picture, their ways of baptism should be included, but their modes of worship are usually maintained by custom rather than by printed texts. Consequently, changes are hard to trace. Features of a Common Shape These liturgical texts (all of them prepared and adopted within a little more than a decade) will illustrate an emerging ecumenical shape, marked by some identifiable features: (1) It hardly needs to be said that in all these rites persons are baptized with water and in the name of the Trinity. Some service books identify immersion as the preferred mode of administration and seem to have in mind much water, rather than a minimal quantity. (2) These new rites generally commend that baptism take place at a Sunday congregational service, where there will be Scripture reading, preaching, and usually the Eucharist. The congregation takes an active role in the prayers and promises, and it voices its collective welcome. No doubt there are still private baptisms, but liturgical texts and actual practice are moving decidedly away from settings that make baptism an action of the family, rather than of the ecclesia. (3) Most of these liturgies seek to link the baptismal act with important occasions in the church's Christocentric ordering of time; therefore, they commend that baptisms (to the extent possible) take place at the Easter Vigil—some allow other times, such as Pentecost. The Episcopal church's Prayer Book prints the order of baptism as part of a continuous complex of the Easter Vigil, Holy Baptism, and Holy Eucharist—suggesting the Easter-Baptismal-Eucharist pattern in the very layout of the text. (4) These new rites contain renunciations, which are not too cursory nor too detailed and explanatory. The promises consist of the Apostles' Creed—the church's ancient baptismal symbol—in interrogatory form. The creed is often associated with some carefully worded supporting promises of faithfulness in Christian life. The non-Roman rites contain a thanksgiving over the water—an action which is commonly done in Roman churches annually, rather than at each baptism. (5) In the new rites generally, signs have been added to water in churches which have traditionally rejected such signs. Of course, the water is central, and it should be seen (and if possible heard). Symbolic clutter is not edifying. But in many modern rites, the baptism in water is followed by a prayer of thanksgiving for forgiveness and new life, and by acts of anointing, laying on of hands, or the sign of the cross. (Some add the giving of a lighted candle and/or a white garment.) The postbaptismal actions, associated with a prayer or declaration speaking of the Holy Spirit, do not imply that the water rite alone is somehow inadequate. Rather, they are explicatory—making apparent some of the rich baptismal meanings that might otherwise go unexpressed and unappreciated. The point of such actions is not to compensate for the incomplete nature of baptism, but rather to exhibit how complete it is. This Spirit-act, which can be traced to the early church, had been the sacramental part of confirmation. This act and the significance it carried (anointing with the Holy Spirit royalty, priestliness, athletic contestants, and others) brought about confusion when the act became separated from baptism. Some asked what it meant apart from baptism when in fact it is intelligible only in immediate association with baptism. Because it was experienced independently, some thought that it should express independent meanings. However, confirmation had no meanings other than baptismal meanings. The initiatory significances are a unity for they cohere in Christ. When some of them came to be observed a dozen years after the others, meaning was fractured. The postbaptismal location fills out the initiatory meanings without taking on separate identities. The postbaptismal sacramental sign is no longer a life-stage rite, with a separate meaning, a separate officiating minister, and a separate time subsequent to baptism. Rather, it is part of the baptismal act no matter how old the candidate is. It is within the baptismal act, and explains the presence and agency of the Spirit with an appropriate fullness of sign. Of course, preaching and teaching will explain some of baptism. However, power is in what we see and do. Remarkably, the testy polemics of the sixteenth century suddenly seem unimportant. A mark of late twentieth-century liturgies is that churches which had condemned signs are now describing them as edifying, admissible, and even desirable. (6) The new rites generally commend that baptism lead at once to Holy Communion. The Methodist liturgy says that when there is a celebration of Communion, "?the new members, including children, may receive first.?" The two primary sacraments of the gospel are linked in theology and experience. Baptism reaches forward through the Eucharist, and the Eucharist reaches back and touches its origin in baptism. It is difficult to explain why if one is administered the other is not. The contemporary rites differ as to the immediate admission of the baptized to Holy Communion. Some seem to expect it, while some do not, or at least are permissive. Some rites admit baptized adults to Communion at once, but postpone admission to the Table in the case of infants. Many churches state that one is eligible for Holy Communion because one is a Christian, and one is made a Christian in baptism. The Eucharist is not reserved for an elite within the baptized community. It is one of the rights of the baptized. Other churches have not come to that conclusion, and the discussion of this matter must continue. However, until recently such discussion would not have been conceivable. (7) Many of the newer liturgies provide for the renewing of the initiatory promises in the years following baptism. The baptismal rite in the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship has a dual title: "?Baptism and Reaffirmation of the Baptismal Covenant.?" Clearly such acts of reaffirmation are not repetitions of baptism. Baptism signifies God's acceptance, and its unrepeatability implies that it inaugurates an enduring relation. Yet even though God is faithful, we are not. At times the pledges of baptism are disregarded, and at other times the meaning of our baptism is richly rediscovered. A Christian's promises may need to be reaffirmed. This reaffirmation is not initiatory; one must be a Christian in order to have baptismal promises to renew. Rather, it is a support for the life which begins at baptism. Although baptism is done once for each person and marks the beginning of one's life in Christ and the church, it is also an act of promise, signifying all that is to follow. If Christians are to grow into what they pledge at baptism, they must recall it, claim it, and draw on it. Its vows must be confessed in new situations. Some of the occasions of remembering can be built into the liturgical system—which may be thought of as an ordered system of prompts for weak memories. Each Eucharist is a renewal of baptism; each time we are present at someone else's baptism, we restate our own promises. (The new liturgies usually provide for the corporate renewal of baptismal promises on occasions when there is no baptism.) However, Christian experience in contemporary society is seldom a steady passage from strength to strength, but is marked by swings of loyalty and defection, ecstasy and dullness, departure and return. Thus the possibilities in renewing the promises of baptism were not used when the church offered this act to baptized persons once in adolescence and never made it available again. The owning of one's baptism has been made a life-stage rite, associated with an uncomfortable in-between period of maturation. But at what age is it not a good thing to recall one's baptism? Renewing one's baptismal promises is not done only once, in adolescence, but is a repeatable act, in order to interpret and support one's life in faith. This reaffirmation of our fundamental relation with God should be accessible to us through occasions of reaffirming at the unpredictable times when we need it. The personal and pastoral reality that had been represented by confirmation is now available for adult Christian life at any age, any number of times, and for a wide range of circumstances. This reaffirmation is a new pastoral opportunity, and it is being given definition. In 1978, the Roman Catholic Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, in a booklet called "?Christian Commitment,?" spoke of Christian initiation as "?the entry of a Christian into the mystery of Christ and his Church.?" After speaking of baptism, the text identified "?Ways of Renewal,?" naming Eucharist, Sunday, the liturgical year, penance, and "?moments of personal decision.?" Some "?nonliturgical events which call forth the renewal of baptismal faith?" were mentioned. The booklet documents ways that "?in preparation for and sometimes in conjunction with these … events it is very appropriate to renew formally the promises of baptism, those promises which accompanied our initiation into the mystery of Christ when we first said yes to his call.?" Several of the liturgies have identified three occasions of renewing the promises of baptism: confirmation, the first time that a person who was baptized in infancy renews formally the promises of baptism; reception, the time when a person who was baptized and came to mature faith in another Christian communion pledges to carry out the promises of baptism in a new community of faith; and reaffirmation, the time when a person makes again the foundational promises of baptism on occasions of renewal or return as they occur in any Christian's life. The Methodist liturgy at the ritual renewals of the baptismal covenant states that water may be sprinkled and that the minister may lay hands on each person saying the same words that were used after baptism: "?The power of the Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit you may be a faithful witness of Jesus Christ.?" The emerging shape described here has been worked out largely by churches which practice infant baptism. Yet it seems to reduce, rather than heighten the differences between these churches and those which hold to believer's baptism. The new rites and theologies are emphasizing the priority of adult baptism, which should gratify Baptists. The infant form of baptism is derived from the adult form, not the reverse. The meaning of baptism is more fully stated and enacted in the case of an adult than it can be in the case of a child. At the same time many Baptist churches are recognizing that infant baptism, when it is validated by a later life of faith, is true baptism and should not be held in disregard. Many (not all) Baptist churches now recognize and receive such persons as baptized Christians. Through such emphases on both sides of this ecumenical barrier, some mutual understanding, recognition, and liturgical growing together seems possible. (See the initiatory material on the unofficial A Manual of Worship [1993] by John E. Skoglund and Nancy E. Hall, prepared for "?the free churches and especially for Baptists.?") Differences Each church has worked from its own historic experience, and the resulting rites are not uniform. Differences among churches as to whether baptism admits one to the Eucharist without any further act were mentioned above. Some further differences may be noted. With Respect to Orders and Ministries. Initiatory rites which look rather similar in printed texts may in practice seem somewhat different as the acts of baptism or of the renewal of the covenant of baptism interact with differing polities and views of the sacramental and pastoral roles of the ordained clergy. In most churches, all parts of the rites—the preparation for and the celebration of initiatory acts and the postbaptismal occasions of renewal—are in the custody of the local minister often associated with lay catechists. The Lutheran and Methodist churches which have bishops assign the bishops no specific liturgical role either in baptism or in the adult reaffirmations of the baptismal vows. In the Episcopal Church, however, the bishop's visit, which is a community-forming, community-sustaining event, is the occasion for the liturgical reaffirmation of the promises of one's baptism. In the Roman Church, the local priest baptizes and anoints the child after baptism. The bishop oversees confirmation later. At adult baptism, however, confirmation is administered by a priest, unless a bishop is presiding. (A bishop may ask presbyters to assist.) In this rite (but why not in both?), it is more important that the initiatory actions be kept together than that the ancient Western prerogative of the bishop be retained. With Respect to the Functions of the Reaffirmation of One's Baptismal Promises. Reaffirmation is a new pastoral action, and its uses are described differently by different churches: The Lutheran Book of Worship speaks of reaffirmation principally as a restoration of a lapsed person to membership—reinstatement in active church membership. Many persons who begin life in the church and its faith leave, and later return. But is this single function too confining? May it give the event a somewhat penitential character? The Presbyterian liturgy has provided a number of occasions for which reaffirmation would be appropriate. They include occasions when persons are making a public profession of faith, when persons are uniting with a congregation, when a congregation reaffirms the baptismal covenant, when a person experiences growth in faith, and when a pastor counsels privately with "?persons who struggle to live up to the implications of their baptism.?" Does so full a list of occasions open possibilities? Or does it seem like an exhaustive list which closes possibilities? The Episcopal church distributed a pastoral/liturgical resource with no indication in the Prayer Book itself of the functions reaffirmation might fill, and with almost no pastoral directives to support the clergy who are responsible for developing it effectively. Is this a wise reticence—a trust in the Spirit, the clergy and the congregations? Or is it timidity? No doubt churches will work for decades to discover how to use reaffirmation in support of the often troubled, inconstant, but equally fulfilling experience that people find within the contemporary community of faith. Despite the differences, this shape of initiatory rites, worked out in the second half of the twentieth century, represents an impressive, unplanned consensus. Although these initiatory rites contain some changes for all traditions and criticizes some ineffective directions taken in previous generations, they do not repudiate large tracts of past wisdom. They will not themselves solve all the theological and practical problems that have arisen in seeking functional rituals of membership for the church in a post-Christian society. Perhaps, however, the flexibility of these revitalized initiatory rites will let it meet needs, present and emerging, rather than forcing modern experience into formal patterns that are awkward today. History has been an important guide. The early church acted to shape a community with enough interior strength of conviction to hold together in an eclectic Hellenistic society. Perhaps the modern church is closer to the early church than it is to the intervening centuries of Christendom, whose initiatory practices have, for the most part, continued from the sixteenth century through most of this century. From patristic sources and contemporary needs, a common structure of initiatory rites and supportive acts is emerging. This ecumenical convergence may be provincially American. Perhaps this common ritual structure will continue, and the pattern will become more widespread and will work with greater economy. Perhaps it will fragment in our fragmented culture and our divided churches. However, it is important enough and hopeful enough to merit some attention now.