On the alternative so-called baptismal rite - the salient questions are:
1. Why is it so semi-Pelagian when it claims to be about grace? "Will you help them?" It's wet... and not in the water sense!
2. Where is the sense of their own pilgrimage which was expressed in "walk with them in the way of Christ?"
3. Where is the truth that we are rebels against God expressed?
4. Where is repentance from sin?
5. Where is renunciation of the devil and evil? ("reject" is a much weaker word - I can reject your ideas, but I need to reject and renounce the devil and evil)
6. Where is the sense that Christ is Saviour - and that we need saving?
7. Where is submission to the rule of Christ as a disciple?
8. Where is the understanding that sin, the world and the devil are all areas where the rule of Christ needs to be affirmed and lived. Not just the obviously evil bits...
9. Why is the suggested credal interrogation the weak one - when the Apostles' Creed is the place where our faith has always been affirmed in baptism?
10. "They will need to learn the story..." No, they need to *inhabit* the story, as forgiven sinners, as praying people, as those in whom the Spirit dwells (the Spirit doesn't get a mention here...)
This is crass. It's baptism lite. It will not do.
Originally published on Willesden blog and reproduced here with permission.
Rev Peter Broadbent is the Anglican Bishop of Willesden, London, England. The Bishop of Willesden is a suffragan bishop within the Diocese of London.
Evangelicals have had hang-ups about baptism for longer than I can remember. We really don’t believe most people who ask for their child to be christened (and we don’t like that term either) have a clue what they are doing in making the promises in the baptism service and have various, often heavy-handed, ways of dealing with this. And it’s our conscience and sensibilities that we are protecting, not the parent’s.
I suspect a lot of this is down to the baptism services , either BCP, ASB or CW, being over prescriptive as to what is a necessary basis for baptism and this plays into our evangelical neurosis over sin (other people’s, in this case). I can see no reason for requiring any more than a sincere declaration that ‘Jesus is Lord’ before admission to baptism. You can couple this with a declaration that they own no other lords and that they intend to follow the way of Christ but I see no scriptural warrant for going further than that
This experimental baptism rite does just that and more, so where’s the problem? . I cannot see how this is creeping Pelagianism: there is plenty of opportunity to tailor the specifics of commitment to the family in the Commision section.
We should remember that a rite in more accessible language was asked for by Liverpool diocese, a diocese with a large number of inner-city parishes who were finding the existing CW rite too wordy and full of theological language that was far removed from the experience of most parishioners.
I minister in a council estate parish and we are one of the parishes to experiment with this new rite. Obeying canon law I took it to the PCC for approval last week. They were horrified – not at this rite but at the CW one, for exactly the reasons Liverpool diocese gave. I was shocked at how unaware they were of what has been common provision for many years and slightly surprised at their enthusiastic adoption of the new rite. I look forward to using it.
Parents and godparents reject evil and turn to Christ and promise to follow him forever. All in unambiguous and straightforward language. I could have phrased a few bits better, but I could manage that with most of Common Worship!
The notes for this ‘experimental’ rite do not present a prima facie case for further revision to the language approved in 1980. They explain that catechesis for those who know little about Christ is sometimes difficult, and that the 1980 reform of the centuries-old custom of private ‘christenings’ is taking time. The local context is not my own, of course, but I do not doubt that these observations are true. The Episcopal Church is likewise learning to live with its own baptismal rite in The Book of Common Prayer adopted in 1979. Indeed, some today are still baffled by the Apostles’ Creed introduced early in the last millennium, and I think some will still wonder generations hence why children are baptised in the congregation on the Lord’s Day. Those who understand and support the logic of the liturgical reforms made in both churches a generation ago are probably not surprised by any of this.
As caustic reactions to the experiment in the press remind us, a change of rite has usually implied a change of doctrine. And Anglicans have no credible way to say to a cynical public, “not this time.” Worldwide, we avoid clear, contemporary, doctrinal confession, and the price we pay for that– happily or not– is the unusual stability, if not fixity, in liturgical language that enables our practice to lend a shape to life, generation after generation. A church can have clear doctrine and adaptive ritual, or it can have broad doctrine and clear ritual, but it cannot meaningfully inform life in Christ when its doctrine and ritual are both hazy.
So the burden of proof for new baptismal language is quite heavy, especially when a rite is only a generation old. Because the notes for this proposal suppose that fidgeting with words is a default solution preferred to any others, they fail to carry that burden for their experiment. In fairness, a better case for it might have been offered, but then in the same fairness better alternatives might have been explored first. Meanwhile, implacable opposition to the suggestion that every difficulty in catechesis is to be met by fiddling with baptismal language or canons is understandable. We saw such opposition in the last General Convention, and, quite rightly, it prevailed.
Catechesis is not improved when people understand more of what we say because we are not mentioning the things that they do not know. And surely Anglicans, of all people, understand that liturgical reform takes a long time. This is not the time to go wobbly.
Toby. That is what I was saying when I said about having a linguistically split service. Children enquiring are often offered to God in Baptism and then they will go to Sunday school But they get caught up in moral arguments about people rather than learning to relate to Jesus as friend and protector or as someone who is good and has no desire to harm them. Rather than dumbing down the baptismal rite I would like to see it strengthened and reintroduced as a serious commitment. How that commitment is seen through May vary like all education the language may differ but the commitment is what enables all of us . Not only to develop conscience and moral standards but also to maintain and sustain relationships with God and with each other.God in all that would both be approachable and understandable to all. Indeed you play a vital role in facilitating that and that hopefully will not be affected by the change of the order of service or by a linguistically change because the reality is that as God’s messenger the Spirit will be with you and in your preparation and presentation of Jesus as Saviour and friend to those who accept him.
I most certainly think that the “service” of Child Baptism should be made accessible to all, The linguistical problems which arise from The ASB service format of course needed to be addressed. However whilst I believe that children are not born “sinners” and therefore can not be addressed as such, I also believe that those who are responsible for their spiritual care will be sinners and so therefore there should always be a part in the service where the appointed spiritual carers should renounce their sins and preferably before the child is baptised so that all approach God in a pure state. This is in much the same way as when we take communion at the point of repentance we are forgiven and therefore pure before God (it does not last long I know)! but never the less there is a point in time that we are free of all worldly contamination and we are “new” before God. As with all things in the Church there is space for traditional and modern language side by side there is value in actually linguistically splitting a service so that the language can be applied correctly to Age if a child is able to be baptized and receive Gods blessing then the church has a duty to record that in childrens language so it can be recorded and heard by a child as they grow and discover more of the faith. Casting out sin from children is not really appropriate language because the responsibility for spiritual guidance does not rest with the Child but with the childs mentors.
As someone who does spend time and effort preparing parents for baptism, and who also invites Godparents to preparation and makes enquiries as to their spiritual suitability, I find this all unspeakably depressing. If the existing baptism ceremony is deemed too complicated for some then surely the answer is to beef up the anodyne thanksgiving service into something meaningful rather than neuter the profound language of commitment in Baptism.
It’s actually neither one thing nor the other. It is too Christocentric for a naming and attachment to a good deity, and not Christocentric enough for the usual dogmatic claims. I wouldn’t say it, making a promise for my life length (a marriage though ends when one of them dies…) but simply make a promise. If it is broken then the reason is given. My reason is simple: I don’t believe it. I couldn’t be then told ‘Ah yes but you made a promise to the end of your life.’ It’s like the House of Commons making legislation to bind a future House of Commons: it is the one law it cannot pass.
Yes – it is Baptism lite. Trouble is, the Church of England has practiced ‘discipleship lite’ for so long in relation to baptism. All we require is the parents (or one of them) to turn up with some friends and family, go through some verbal formalities which probably don’t mean a great deal to them, and then they are only seen again when they want the next child ‘done’. I remember an Archdeacon in the Salisbury diocese taking me to task for requiring parents to turn up to church a mere three times before giving them a christening date – he told me what I was doing was unlawful and he probably thought I was raising the bar horribly high and putting people off. We must be the only denomination which thinks baptism has got nothing to do with real discipleship and the commitment to fellowship and spiritual growth which surely is part of that. Fewer and fewer people want baptism (partly, perhaps, a welcome sign people see the CofE practice as lacking in integrity). But for those declining numbers who really want baptism, surely they should be expected to make some effort to integrate into the community of faith that baptism is supposed to mark/symbolise/effect?
Screwtape will see this as a victory, particularly the removal of any mention of the devil