Believer’s Baptism: The Problem
I can’t resolve it, and I can’t even state it properly, but it is the central theological problem for the practice of believer’s baptism: How to understand the relation between the human work of the sacrament (repentance, confession of faith, commitment) and the divine work of the sacrament (gift of grace, made one with Christ in his death and resurrection)? Is it possible to articulate a believer’s baptism that doesn’t make the sacrament a work of human hands and a sign of human interiority rather than the free gift of adoption offered by God and mediated by the church? There’s a part of me that worries that the anthropocentric and sociological reductionism* that so plagues the Mennonite church these days has its roots in thinking of baptism a sign of our commitment to God rather than God’s commitment to us. Marpeck tries to reconcile them, calling baptism a gift which demands and inaugurates our obedience: in baptism, God gives us our obedience through the Spirit. That seems quite fruitful, but I’m not sure it’s been worked out in enough detail or with enough precision. Also, is there a study somewhere that asks the same question of the New Testament: who acts in baptism, and if more than one actor, what are their respective roles?
* This deserves its own post, and soon. There’s an academic point, being made continually against Yoder these days with respect to his discussion of the sacraments—and perhaps deservedly (though I have my hesitations about the accusation). There’s also the practical and empirical point: my generation of mainstream Mennonites habitually brackets the divine in order to insist on the church as an alternative way of being-in-the-world. (I’m tempted to say something less generous: that my generation has given up Christianity for a particularly noxious form of American progressivism—noxious because this progressivism insists it is the evolution of the true church.)
18 April 2007 |
tags: Baptism, Mennonite
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You have hit upon the questions that have plagued the theological tradition on the sacraments, and especially on baptism. The problem is that people tend to go for one or the other, and seldom do you find someone who has a real sense of the sacraments being both a divine and human activity where these two are viewed as a unity in distinction.
The best thing I have read on the doctrine of baptism is Thomas F. Torrance’s article “The One Baptism Common to Christ and his Church” (in his book “Theology in Reconciliation”). George Hunsinger has an article dealing with Torrance’s understanding of the sacraments entitled “The Dimension of Depth”.
I hope this helps!
Thanks for the tip, WTM. I picked up the Hunsinger article from the library today, and will set to reading it over the next few days. I’ve done so little in theology of the sacraments that I hardly know what the conversations are, so this will be quite helpful!
Well put, Brian. I see the plague you speak of which elevates people to a false position of power: reflected many times in the usage of “co-creator” language and statements referring to our choice to follow God.
But that is part of what makes our faith: we do believe that God’s Spirit has been poured out equally on each of us. We do “choose” to follow God; though if we are clear, it is not we who decide, but the Spirit, who decides through (and in spite of) us, as Paul seems always eager to point out. But when Jesus himself calls people to himself and recognizes their faith, he tends to be quite clear: “your faith has made you well.”
So Believer’s Baptism should reflect this tension, I think; and it seems that we are in agreement. It is a symbol of the Spirit at work in a person. It is neither the beginning nor the summation of the relationship, but a public recognition of “God’s commitment to us” by giving us the Spirit.
Now, a part of me wants to be clear that the symbol of water baptism is only that – a symbol, not to be confused with the baptism of the Spirit. The latter is God’s commitment, the former, a public declaration of the latter. Clarity here is important.
Another part of me says, “this post has been rather rambly, and I do not have the same level of academic theological training as you, and maybe I’ve not provided anything worthwhile here.” But I will post this anyway, despite my misgivings.
This is an important issue, for we are but men, and not God.
Brian,
In the footnote above you say, “…my generation of mainstream Mennonites habitually brackets the divine in order to insist on the church as an alternative way of being-in-the-world. (I’m tempted to say something less generous: that my generation has given up Christianity for a particularly noxious form of American progressivism—noxious because this progressivism insists it is the evolution of the true church.)”
I am interested in hearing more about this when the semester’s ending has freed you of its grasp.
I don’t speak from the perspective of a “mainstream Mennonite”, I am quite an amalgamation, but I do feel a sting in the footnote!
The Anglican in me says, take the via media! I know this is not profound or in appropriate theological jargon, but my church practiced in effect, a double baptism. Someone becomes a member of the body of Christ at birth through the parents and the community and is given grace sacramentally, and then at an older age is able to ‘confirm’ one’s desire to remain a part of the church and commit to a life of following Christ. Does this make me an ana-baptist?
The wannabe Mennonite in me says, ouch, I think Brian is becoming Catholic in his criticism of orthopraxy. Noxious American progressivism? Misguided, erroneous or lethally poisonous?
The friend in me says, I forgot about your blog when I changed to Firefox browser. Have a great day!
Thanks, everyone, for the helpful comments. By way of brief response:
Lars, Theological training aside—and in sacramental theology we’re probably at about the same level—your comments point out exactly the right tension. What does it mean to choose such that the agency belongs simultaneously to us and to the Spirit? And this maps on to baptism: what would it mean to articulate a theology of baptism where the agency belongs to us and to God?
J. Daniel, I certainly need to flesh it out for myself as much as for anyone else, since it’s such a persistent and devastating worry for me. As I hinted over on YAR, I think it’s a question of whether our foundations have changed over the past fifty years, whether we’ve traded Christ for another norm.
Kim, your Anglican rapprochement sometimes seems appealing—except that I still can’t justify it biblically. A ritual of embrace as a sign of grace for newborns is one thing, but it looks nothing like the apostolic baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Dividing God’s gift of grace and our gift of obedience into two separate sacraments seems shifty, since the point is to show that we commit ourselves to God in and through God’s gift of grace, or that God grants us grace in and through our commitment to God. In other words, the point is still to highlight the unity in diversity of agency.
Also, I’m not trying to critique orthopraxy so much as I’m worrying that the criteria of the orthos (right) have changed. Bracketing the divine in order to speak of ethics already assumes that our ethics have their source somewhere besides the God we worship. Thus American progressivism only becomes noxious to the church when it comes to supplant the foundation of the church, which is always Jesus Christ her Lord.