The Doctrine of Baptism

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  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Forthview wrote: »
    Eutychus I would never think of any of your attitudes as 'cavalier'. You have your own ideas and understandings of piety, just as I have mine. Underneath all the externals I think that they are ultimately the same.

    I think this is true inasmuch as one applies the "Sabbath for man not man for the Sabbath" reasoning outlined above. There has to be some pragmatism involved for everybody.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited February 8
    I confess I was taken aback by the idea that anybody (a synod, board, council, or what have you) needed to sign off on someone's baptism. I've never encountered that idea anywhere before. It seems to me rather like signing off on childbirth. Do you have any grounds on which such a group might actually refuse baptism?
    Sorry to be a while getting to this, @Lamb Chopped, but I think you may have largely answered the question for me, when you said:
    The only way anyone else's faith plays into the whole baptismal scenario is that we are pastorally reluctant to baptize an infant who has no further access to Christianity once he or she is carried out the church door, because there are no Christians in the family, and no friends, relatives, or godparents willing to take responsibility for nurturing the new young life. But of course in our context (American and especially Vietnamese immigrant) such a thing rarely happens. There is no cultural expectation of baptism as a thing that one does quite unconnected to faith. At the worst there might be a Christian grandmother lurking in the background who wants the baby baptized, while the parents and everybody else are unbelievers. In that case, we have a serious discussion about what they're letting themselves in for, as well as requiring them to commit to providing the child with access to the church and with sponsors (godparents) who will take responsibility for raising the child in the faith. But we won't say no.

    As for an unchurched person rocking up to the font and asking for baptism out of the blue, we would first ask him "Why?" and listen to the answer. If it becomes clear that he is doing this because some nut has told him that the Lutheran Church will give him ten thousand dollars (don't laugh, that rumor has gone around!), we will disabuse him of the notion, which usually takes away the desire for baptism as well. If it turns out he is grateful for our help in some difficulty (illness, immigration problem, whatever) and has seized upon baptism as a way of repaying us, we will disabuse him of this notion as well (I usually take care to express a craving for jasmine tea to forestall things like this!). If, however, he shows the slightest desire for baptism as connected to Jesus, we will sit him down in the nearest pew and do a real quick catechesis with the goal of making sure he has in fact heard the Gospel--from us then and there, if not previously. And then we'll baptize him. He's a human being in need who wants it. We have no grounds for refusing him. We cannot judge his faith, and we aren't called to do that. The mere request (with obvious freakiness ruled out) is sufficient to show something is going on between God and him. And I don't want Jesus giving me the hairy eyeball for turning one of his sheep away. We'll do the in-depth catechesis afterward.
    That's very much what I'm talking about when I say the Session must authorize the baptism. You say "we" a number of times to describe how you'd talk with the person requesting baptism or what you'd do and how you'd let them know the expected commitment. In our case, the "we" is, specifically, the Session—the elders responsible for the spiritual life of the congregation.

    In our system, which has a fundamental preference for shared, conciliar leadership rather than individual leadership, it is the Session, not the pastor, that has primary responsibility for providing for administration of the sacraments in any church and for the nurture, catechesis and care of the congregation, including the newly-baptized. (Indeed, there are lots of matters that in other traditions would be in the pastor's purview that in our system are committed to the Session, of which the pastor is the presiding member.)

    In addition, as I've noted and as @demas has alluded to, the participation and commitment of the community is integral to our understanding of baptism. Baptism, as we understand it, is not just a matter between God and the baptized; it actively involves God, the baptized, and the community. The involvement of the Session at the outset gives a face, as it were, to that community aspect. I can say that every elder I've ever known considers this responsibility to be one of the most joyful and moving parts of the "job."

    So what we do is really not that different at all from what you describe. We just place responsibility for the kinds of conversations and follow-up that you've described with the Session rather than with any one individual. And 99% of the time, that conversation is framed by "How wonderful! Let's plan this!" In the remaining small fraction, the conversation perhaps leads to more conversation.


    Forthview wrote: »
    I had always thought that almost all Christians believed that the effects of baptism washed away our 'sins', however or wherever baptism was administered. It is interesting to find that this is not the case.
    In our (the Reformed tradition's) case we would phrase it that baptism is the sign or seal of, or testament to, the reality that our sins have been washed away. We see the two—forgiveness and baptism—as integrally connected, but not in the sense that baptism accomplishes the forgiveness.

    KarlLB wrote: »
    A whole bloody can of worms.
    For a Diet of Worms, perhaps?


    Sorry. I'll go sit in the corner now.

  • Forthview wrote: »
    I had always thought that almost all Christians believed that the effects of baptism washed away our 'sins', however or wherever baptism was administered. It is interesting to find that this is not the case.

    I'm actually still hoping more than one or two of us will respond to Mousethief! I thought this was pretty clearly set out in Scripture, too. Though before somebody jumps on me from this angle, I'll say that I think it's a mistake to make a distinction between "baptism offers the forgiveness of sins" and "Christ offers the forgiveness of sins." In baptism, it is precisely Christ who is offering and providing the forgiveness. The whole thing works because of his promise. Without it, we'd be just going through the motions. AFAIK nobody but nobody teaches that baptism can offer forgiveness in opposition to Christ, or without Christ, or some such. Nor does anybody (to my knowledge) say that baptism is the only way Christ offers forgiveness. It's one of them.
    Forthview wrote: »
    However baptism is not a magic rite and neither are the other sacraments. It is not the saying of the words alone, but also the intention. Without the intention to baptise the words mean nothing. I think that most people would agree that if an actor played the part of a baptismal celebrant in a film and said 'the magic words' that would not be a baptism. As well as the intention there has to be faith. In a Catholic baptismal ceremony the first question asked is ,What do you ask of God's holy church ? and the second is 'Do you believe in God, the Father almighty ......etc? (I'm paraphrasing somewhat but these are the essential ideas)

    Okay, time to blow your mind! Lutherans are not intentionalists--not the conservative ones, anyway, I'll not speak for our liberal brethren. That's because a) we can find no evidence for this in the Scripture, and b) intention is impossible to prove--if baptism is only valid when the baptizer has a correct intention, then at least some of us will be left forever wondering if our baptisms were valid. I have no way of knowing whether the pastor who baptized me was having a crisis of faith, or a crisis of career, or whether he was in a "fuck it all" mood and was simply going through the motions. Assuming he did not chuck his pastoral career the very next day, I can assume he meant to do what a Christian baptizer / the Church does in baptism, but it's just that, an assumption. And I have the benefit of actually having known the man. So many of us were baptized by people we can't remember or never saw again. We don't know if they were closet atheists or what have you. Maybe they were drunk! Who knows. So any kind of intentionalist theology (such as that some people have for communion) has a difficulty baked right into it, that leads some people to painful doubt and worry.

    Now my turn to be outrageous. Lutherans (again, the old-style conservative ones) would in fact hold, or at least very very seriously suspect, that the on-stage baptism was in fact a real baptism, because the key elements (water applied to an unbaptized human being with the words) are all there. We had a legendary case where one child playing in a ditch baptized another as part of play, and it was held to be valid. If such a thing were to happen today, and the baptized person turned up to ask if it were valid, the answer he'd get would likely be "yes" with an offer of conditional baptism forthwith if he was concerned about the matter. But yes, we'd take it as valid.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    @Forthview I understand that; what is important for non-evangelicals to understand is that what can appear to be a cavalier attitude to baptism stems from piety that simply doesn't view the sacraments in the same way.

    I don't think anybody on this thread is considering it cavalier. At least, I haven't noticed any such thing. The Christian Church in general seems to have at least that as a universal--none of us regards baptism as unimportant or mockable.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    The way I would put it is that means of grace are extended from God to man, but they are only meaningful, effectual, if an individual engages in a meaningful way.

    Where does this idea come from? I search the scriptures in vain for "engage in a meaningful way" as a criteria for anything.

    @mousethief the passage that mentions remission of sins in relation to baptism (Acts 2:38) goes on to say that "those who accepted his message were baptized" (Acts 2:41). These baptisms at least are presented as an informed response on the part of the hearers to what they heard, and they are by no means the only ones presented thus in Acts.

    There are two problems here: (1) You are turning an "is" into an "ought." This happened in this occurrence, where grown people heard the message. It does not follow that this response would apply to a different antecedent (children being born of Christian parents). (2) "Engage in a meaningful way" is perhaps related to "accept" but it's not clear they are synonymous or that one can be derived from the other as a replacement.
    Taking the parallel with the Lord's Supper again, 1 Corinthians 11:29 talks about partakers "discerning the body of Christ" which to my mind suggests an informed response on the part of the communicant, and one that the context suggests is (literally) of vital importance.

    I would say "engage in a meaningful way" and "engage in this one particular way" are related but certainly not identical. But I think this thread has enough on its plate without making it also about communion.
  • Nick Tamen, you'll have to forgive my use of "we." It usually either refers to my denomination (Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod) or else to our local mission team, which is de facto my husband and me. In our set-up we have a huge amount of freedom around baptism. As long as we stay within doctrinal parameters, nobody seems to care how we baptize or whom we baptized or under what circumstances or anything else.

    It sounds like your Session must be far more flexible and responsive than our voters' assemblies, which tend to meet infrequently, have trouble finding a quorum in some congregations (because boring), and get tied up in knots over stupid stuff. Our voters assemblies do have the right to grant or refuse church membership, but that's a far less important thing than baptism, which lies wholly in the hands of the Christian-on-the-spot when the request is made. The power and authority to baptize is vested in individual believers, though usually delegated to the local pastor in non-emergency situations. The doctrine behind this is usually called "the priesthood of all believers."

    If we had a lay Christian who was going about baptizing zillions of people, the most we could do as a mission team or as a denomination would be to speak to him/her and make sure he/she was doing things properly, and beg him/her to forward the records to the appropriate authority. He/she would also be asked, as a courtesy, to NOT baptize people who were not in extremis then and there, but rather to allow the church community to do it as a joyful occasion to share (and for the sake of good order); but if the baptizer blew us off, I doubt there's a whole lot we could or would do about it.
  • If baptism is only valid when the baptizer has a correct intention, then at least some of us will be left forever wondering if our baptisms were valid. ... We had a legendary case where one child playing in a ditch baptized another as part of play, and it was held to be valid. If such a thing were to happen today, and the baptized person turned up to ask if it were valid, the answer he'd get would likely be "yes" with an offer of conditional baptism forthwith if he was concerned about the matter. But yes, we'd take it as valid.
    To those from my tradition, the whole notion of baptismal "validity" just seems - well, strange. We'd ask, certainly, about the context of the baptism, and look to the candidate to provide some explanation of why they wish to be baptised; we'd also want it done within a service (or, at least, publicly within the church community). But "validity"? - no.

  • If baptism is only valid when the baptizer has a correct intention, then at least some of us will be left forever wondering if our baptisms were valid. ... We had a legendary case where one child playing in a ditch baptized another as part of play, and it was held to be valid. If such a thing were to happen today, and the baptized person turned up to ask if it were valid, the answer he'd get would likely be "yes" with an offer of conditional baptism forthwith if he was concerned about the matter. But yes, we'd take it as valid.
    To those from my tradition, the whole notion of baptismal "validity" just seems - well, strange. We'd ask, certainly, about the context of the baptism, and look to the candidate to provide some explanation of why they wish to be baptised; we'd also want it done within a service (or, at least, publicly within the church community). But "validity"? - no.

    Am I right in suspecting that you see no supernatural action involved in baptism? Because that's where the concern for validity comes in. A valid baptism to us is one that God considers a baptism and uses to his own ends (forgiveness, spiritual rebirth, granting of the Holy Spirit if/when those gifts aren't already in place). And so you can see why we're a bit concerned to be sure that we have in fact done the thing God asked us to do. And why we are really chary of having any invisible requirements, like faith in the baptized person, or intention in the baptizer.
  • Am I right in suspecting that you see no supernatural action involved in baptism? Because that's where the concern for validity comes in.

    ...and also re-baptism. Baptists, AIUI, have no problem baptizing people who were baptized as children, and we've heard that some, but not all, Baptists want to baptize new members who have moved from a different flavour of Baptist church.

    Would Baptists, as a rule, also be happy to re-baptize someone who had previously been a baptized member of their church in good standing, but had had a few "wilderness years" where they fell away from the church, and from God, and have done some number of things that they now repent of.

    I can imagine a person in those circumstances asking for another baptism, as a "fresh start". What would a typical Baptist response to this be?
  • I'm sorry, Lamb chopped, but if someone happens to pour out some water from a sink and it happens to land upon someone's head while the first person just happens to say I baptise you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, I would not say that that is a baptism.

    If an actor on stage or on a film set takes a baby, or an adult for that matter, carries out the rite of baptism with all the words and ceremonies, I would not say that that is a baptism.

    UNLESS on both occasions the person carrying out the action intended it to be a baptism.

    The words and the actions alone do nothing, the intention must be there.

  • @Lamb Chopped - Bishop Gene Robinson said something like "as a church we are called to be God's welcoming committee, not act in judgement" at his sermon at St Mary's Putney. That has really stuck with me, as so often I see churches acting in judgement not in welcome.

    There is a similar prayer to the one quoted by @Nick Tamen in the Church of England baptism service (link):
    Loving Father,
    we thank you for your servant Moses,
    who led your people through the waters of the Red Sea
    to freedom in the Promised Land.
    We thank you for your Son Jesus,
    who has passed through the deep waters of death
    and opened for all the way of salvation.
    Now send your Spirit,
    that those who are washed in this water
    may die with Christ and rise with him,
    to find true freedom as your children,
    alive in Christ for ever.

    Both this and it's alternative are shorter versions to the original Common Worship Prayers over the Water, but that was a requested amendment, the original was a tad wordy.

    The baptismal service also asks the congregation to support the candidates in their faith:
    We thank God for N and N who have come to be baptized today.
    Christ loves them and welcomes them into his Church.
    Will you support them on their journey of faith?
    giving the adult version, rather than the children's, which is similar.

    And all families locally who bring babies to baptism are sent a card on the anniversary of the baptism and invitation to the Toddler Church midweek service.
  • It sounds like your Session must be far more flexible and responsive than our voters' assemblies, which tend to meet infrequently, have trouble finding a quorum in some congregations (because boring), and get tied up in knots over stupid stuff.
    This is a tangent, I suppose, though perhaps one that's worthwhile spending just a little longer on for clarity on the topic. Presbyterian churches are not congregational, and there is very little business that can be done by the congregation beyond calling pastors and electing elders and deacons. The Session of a Presbyterian church is somewhat akin to the parish council in some other traditions, though as I said, a Session has governance and responsibility over a number of things that in other traditions would be in the purview of the clergy alone. The Session is composed only of ordained elders and the minister(s) serving the congregation. (The Reformed are, so far as I know, the only Protestant tradition in which church governance is limited to the ordained, as well as the only tradition that has people who are simultaneously ordained and not-clergy.)

    For some perspective, the Session of our congregation is composed of 12 elders plus (currently) two ministers. Stated (regular) meetings are once a month, and called meetings are as necessary. And the quorum for considering requests for baptism is lower than the quorum for other business, so as to allow for situations when things need to move quickly and there may not be time to get the larger group together.

    Hope that provides a little better picture of how things work for us.

  • @Lamb Chopped - Bishop Gene Robinson said something like "as a church we are called to be God's welcoming committee, not act in judgement" at his sermon at St Mary's Putney. That has really stuck with me, as so often I see churches acting in judgement not in welcome.

    That's ...good? I'm sorry, but I'm in complete agreement with you, and I'm not sure why you are replying to me. Did I say something suggesting judgment?

    Nick Tamen, it sounds like in practice, your Session is roughly equivalent to our mission team (meaning, my congregation's, that is, Mr. Lamb and I). A small group that has pastoral care of the congregation and that can act quickly. In which case we are not so far apart.

    Forthview, no need to be sorry. We just obviously have very different views of baptism.


  • Sorry, no, I was agreeing, and more or less asking if that phrase expressed your approach
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    The argument that a baptism is only effective if it is done by someone who is baptized dances on the edge of the heresy of Donatism which says that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to be valid.

    No one can say they believe 100% what they practice--we all have doubts.

    No, what makes baptism effective is the Word " I (We) baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" (from Matthew 19:28) combined with the water.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Forthview wrote: »
    The words and the actions alone do nothing, the intention must be there.
    I think though that the relevant sense of intention isn't a private mental performance. If a priest were secretly a Satanist they couldn't make the baptisms they performed not real simply by adding an inappropriate commentary under their breath.

  • Sorry, no, I was agreeing, and more or less asking if that phrase expressed your approach.

    Ah! Yes, I'd definitely say that baptism is not a matter of judgement, unless we're talking about God judging the devil. There is that aspect to baptism--God is rebuking the devil and rescuing the new believer from his power. But in terms of judging humans worthy of baptism or not, no, that ain't happening. Christians get no say in any such thing, God has already opened the doors as wide as they'll go.
  • Every church of course has to "divide the word of truth" and decide which of any two contradictory passages it will take as definitive, and which it will explain away. The Orthodoxen do this every bit as much as the Catholics or the Lutherans or the Reform. I'm guessing then that "baptism for the remission of sins" is something that Evangelicals throw into the "it doesn't mean what it looks like it means" bucket.
  • I think I agree with what you have written ,dafyd. If a priest (ordained) were carrying out a baptismal rite,even if he himself were not truly a servant of the Lord,but only claimed to be one,then his baptismal rite would be valid.

    If he were not really a priest and was only acting out a part with no thought or intention of actually baptising, then it would not be a baptism.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    The Orthodoxen do this every bit as much as the Catholics or the Lutherans or the Reform. I'm guessing then that "baptism for the remission of sins" is something that Evangelicals throw into the "it doesn't mean what it looks like it means" bucket.
    Wheareas the Orthodoxen throw the immediately preceding words "repent and..." into that bucket, d'you mean?
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited February 9
    Eutychus wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    The Orthodoxen do this every bit as much as the Catholics or the Lutherans or the Reform. I'm guessing then that "baptism for the remission of sins" is something that Evangelicals throw into the "it doesn't mean what it looks like it means" bucket.
    Wheareas the Orthodoxen throw the immediately preceding words "repent and..." into that bucket, d'you mean?

    Not quite. Repentance is a full part of the Orthodox Christian life. Indeed I found it much easier to "repent" when I was evangelical than when I actually had to tell another human being when I was repenting of. Which is to say it mattered a lot less.

    I note that you don't answer what I said, just throw up a tu quoque. I take it from this I struck a nerve.
  • Lamb ChoppedLamb Chopped Shipmate
    edited February 9
    You know, I'm not at all sure what bits of text on the subject of baptism undermine the forgiveness-of-sins doctrine. If that's what you were alluding to with
    mousethief wrote: »
    Every church of course has to "divide the word of truth" and decide which of any two contradictory passages it will take as definitive, and which it will explain away. The Orthodoxen do this every bit as much as the Catholics or the Lutherans or the Reform. I'm guessing then that "baptism for the remission of sins" is something that Evangelicals throw into the "it doesn't mean what it looks like it means" bucket.

    Could you fill me in?

    I'm really quite surprised at the general silence on the subject. I had thought it inarguably true.
  • What do you need filling in on? If someone thinks baptism is a declaration of one's decision to follow Jesus, or whatever the wording is up above, then it's not remitting sins it's just a bit of theatre.
  • Well, I assume someone could think of baptism in both ways, though I confess I don't do it myself. We've got a massive emphasis on God's action as opposed to human action in our synod, and so baptism is just never presented that way. If ever, the time for such a thing would be confirmation. Though even there, the focus is primarily on God and what God is doing. We're extremely wary of language like "decided" or "accepted" or "chose" when the subject is "I" and not God.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Luther once said even the Devil could baptize as long as he used the right words.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited February 9
    mousethief wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    The Orthodoxen do this every bit as much as the Catholics or the Lutherans or the Reform. I'm guessing then that "baptism for the remission of sins" is something that Evangelicals throw into the "it doesn't mean what it looks like it means" bucket.
    Wheareas the Orthodoxen throw the immediately preceding words "repent and..." into that bucket, d'you mean?

    Not quite. Repentance is a full part of the Orthodox Christian life. Indeed I found it much easier to "repent" when I was evangelical than when I actually had to tell another human being when I was repenting of. Which is to say it mattered a lot less.

    I note that you don't answer what I said, just throw up a tu quoque. I take it from this I struck a nerve.

    I have risen to one of your provocations and of this, I repent.

    How denominations or their members view or experience repentance doesn't take away from the fact that in the Acts 2 passage, the repentance mentioned forms a piece with the baptism mentioned, in that order, and it seems to me that the "remission of sins" part of the sentence hinges on both those things, not just the baptism part. You have not answered that objection.

    In addition, the instruction is incontrovertibly to individuals who are being invited to respond individually. Only those who accepted the invitation are said to have been baptised (nothing about their households, for instance). More generally, granted that reptenance is an ongoing process, not a one-off one, it still starts with the individual, not with their parents or any other third party. In terms of salvation, you can't repent on behalf of another's sin.

    What the "remission of sins" part of this verse means exactly is indeed a puzzle to me, but taking it to mean (definitively and with far-reaching consequences in terms of church order and doctrine) that the act itself has some intrinsic value in remission of sins regardless of the baptisee's understanding, disposition, or volition appears more problematic to me in the light of the NT overall.

  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Luther once said even the Devil could baptize as long as he used the right words.

    I think that Luther, along with a great many people since, confused the signifier and the signified. The words point, inadequately, to an intangible reality with an independent existence. They don't produce it or circumscribe it.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    What do you need filling in on? If someone thinks baptism is a declaration of one's decision to follow Jesus, or whatever the wording is up above, then it's not remitting sins it's just a bit of theatre.

    It's a pity Janine is not around these days - she represented the Churches of Christ on these boards, and in a previous discussion around this topic, years ago, we learnt that this denomination really does combine both these approaches - for them baptism is a conscious decision for an individual, but it is also the means of regeneration/remission of sins .

    I remember somebody drew it out in a 2 x 2 table with columns for paedobaptism/believers baptism and rows for baptismal regeneration/symbolic act . There is at least one church group in each of the 4 boxes. (this is when I wished we could do graphics on here!!)
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 9
    mousethief wrote: »
    What do you need filling in on? If someone thinks baptism is a declaration of one's decision to follow Jesus, or whatever the wording is up above, then it's not remitting sins it's just a bit of theatre.

    It's a pity Janine is not around these days - she represented the Churches of Christ on these boards, and in a previous discussion around this topic, years ago, we learnt that this denomination really does combine both these approaches - for them baptism is a conscious decision for an individual, but it is also the means of regeneration/remission of sins .

    I remember somebody drew it out in a 2 x 2 table with columns for paedobaptism/believers baptism and rows for baptismal regeneration/symbolic act . There is at least one church group in each of the 4 boxes. (this is when I wished we could do graphics on here!!)

    I wish I could understand how people can think they actually know, and how they know that the other people, who are just as sure they know, are actually wrong, and it's not the other people who are right and they the ones who are wrong.

    I do however strongly suspect that everyone's so wide of the mark that it looks bloody funny from Heaven.

  • DavidDavid Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I wish I could understand how people can think they actually know, and how they know that the other people, who are just as sure they know, are actually wrong, and it's not the other people who are right and they the ones who are wrong.

    "Great is the mystery of faith"!
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Well said, KarlLB. I've wondered that, too. We are talking about the ineffable. That's why I don't sweat whether I've got it all correct. I don't. I doubt anyone on earth does. I entrust myself to the Godhead's mercy on matters of theological details and do the best I can.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I wish I could understand how people can think they actually know, and how they know that the other people, who are just as sure they know, are actually wrong, and it's not the other people who are right and they the ones who are wrong.
    Knowing what one believes, and why one belives it, and airing those convictions to see how they stand up to debate, doesn't say anything about whether one is claiming to "actually know", or anathemise anybody who thinks differently. And opens up the possibility for one's beliefs to be adjusted.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 9
    But that's the problem. We don't have a solid basis for believing any of it. What bases we propose appear to be axiomatic but I don't see the reasons for accepting those particular axioms and not others.

    Surely there's something stronger than "my church tradition says", "the Bible says" or "it makes sense to me that"?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    For that matter, we don't have a solid basis for believing anything. Not a few people apparently believe we're living in a simulation.

    As far as I'm concerned, Christianity makes as much sense of the world as anything else and a lot better sense than many other options. It also seems to make a positive difference as far as I'm concerned. I can't offer you any more than that.

    And if you ever find something "stronger", be prepared to be assailed by the 2021 version of yourself complaining about how sure of yourself you appear to be...
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    For that matter, we don't have a solid basis for believing anything. Not a few people apparently believe we're living in a simulation.

    As far as I'm concerned, Christianity makes as much sense of the world as anything else and a lot better sense than many other options. It also seems to make a positive difference as far as I'm concerned. I can't offer you any more than that.

    And if you ever find something "stronger", be prepared to be assailed by the 2021 version of yourself complaining about how sure of yourself you appear to be...

    Well no, because my expressed wish that I knew would have been granted.

    What would really help now would be people who are sure explaining why. But that feels very much like somewhere I've been before and it turns out no-one really is. But they sound like they are, so often.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    I think the lack of absolute certainty in Christianity, and the resulting cacophony, is a feature, not a bug.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I think the lack of absolute certainty in Christianity, and the resulting cacophony, is a feature, not a bug.

    Absolute certainty is unattainable in any field, possibly barring mathematics, depending on viewpoint.

    Perhaps it's a matter of degree, but I have reasonable certainty that, for example, there was a war from 1939 to 1945 involving amongst other things a bloke called Hitler and spitfires. I have reasonable certainty that the sun is 93 million miles away. I have reasonable certainty that there were people we refer to as the Romans whose language is the basis of particular modern European vernaculars.

    Few people dispute these. There are only the tiniest fringes who would claim that WWII never happened, there are flat earthers who claim the sun is tiny and orbits the earth, and I've come across one or two people who take the "you weren't there you don't know where Spanish came from really" line, but compare with religion - we have three large monotheistic faiths, two of whom insist God cannot possibly have a son, and one which makes the idea that he did an absolutely central plank. Within that particular faith, we have any number of conflicting and mutually exclusive ideas with adherents to them claiming varying levels of essentiality about those ideas.

    I just can't see a way of picking one of these sets of ideas and having any confidence it represents reality; anything you pick says to the vast majority "no, you got it wrong", and there seems nothing to hang that choice on.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    I think your difficulty far outweighs the issue of baptism and probably belongs on another thread.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    I think your difficulty far outweighs the issue of baptism and probably belongs on another thread.

    Probably
  • Well, I assume someone could think of baptism in both ways, though I confess I don't do it myself. We've got a massive emphasis on God's action as opposed to human action in our synod, and so baptism is just never presented that way. If ever, the time for such a thing would be confirmation. Though even there, the focus is primarily on God and what God is doing. We're extremely wary of language like "decided" or "accepted" or "chose" when the subject is "I" and not God.
    It can also be a matter not of thinking of it in both ways, but simply thinking of it in a different way. My experience with Southern Baptists, for example, is that they will rarely if ever describe baptism in terms of what God does through baptism or in terms that actually connect baptism to the remission of sins, and they will often specifically reject any such understanding.

    With the caveat that it's always risky to try to pin down what Southern Baptists as a group believe—as opposed what a Southern Baptist as an individual believes—I note that the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 of the Southern Baptist Convention says:
    Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.
    This very much comports with the understanding of all Baptists around here that I have talked with on the topic or whom I've heard talk about it. The closest they'll come to connecting baptism to remission of sins is to say baptism testifies to a believer's faith that his or hers sins are forgiven. And they will specifically reject that idea that baptism itself does anything or that God acts through baptism.

    Many years ago, I picked up a little book from the local (Southern) Baptist Book Store called Baptists and Other Denominations, by Richard W. Harmon, then assistant director of the Department of Interfaith Witness, Home Mission Board of the SBC. The "other denominations" were Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Churches of Christ and Pentecostal; the book provided some history of each denomination and compared and contrasted beliefs about the Bible, the Trinity, salvation, baptism, the Eucharist and polity.

    Contrasting the understanding of traditions that connect, in some way, baptism with the remission of sins with the Baptist understanding of baptism as a testimony of the believer is a common theme in the book.

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, ...
    Do they define what "death to sin" means? It looks as though it might have something to do with the remission of sins.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Luther once said even the Devil could baptize as long as he used the right words.

    I think that Luther, along with a great many people since, confused the signifier and the signified. The words point, inadequately, to an intangible reality with an independent existence. They don't produce it or circumscribe it.

    No, actually what he was after is that the power and the work done in baptism are 100% God's. The baptizer pours the water and says the words, but the invisible reality is completely God's--he's the one who does the forgiving and spiritual washing and spiritual rebirth, and we know this by promise--which in God's case is 100% reliable, so it is freaking easy to treat it as automatic, which it is NOT. "Automatic" is impersonal, and you don't get much more personal than forgiving and birthing someone into the kingdom. Which is what God does in baptism.

    That's why Luther could be blase about the idea of the devil or any of his earthly minions baptizing someone (in proper form, that is). Because the identity and faith of the baptizer really don't matter. It's all down to God's promise and faithfulness.
  • "Death to sin" probably isn't that far from "remission of sins". Though, it's a larger concept - not just that sins are forgiven but that the believer has entered a state where the sinful nature is dead, an ontological change from a sinner ruled by the sinful nature - though not necessarily a position where someone will not sin again.

    But, the point in the Baptist understanding is that baptism is purely symbolic, and not even a symbol of death to sin but a symbol of the faith of the person being baptised, that they believe they have already died to sin.
  • But, the point in the Baptist understanding is that baptism is purely symbolic, and not even a symbol of death to sin but a symbol of the faith of the person being baptised, that they believe they have already died to sin.
    The point is often made explicitly in baptismal services that the candidate goes down into the water (grave) and then rises to come out. This is also seen as an identification with the death and resurrection of Christ.

    BTW, earlier on there was a lot of talk about the grace conferred by baptism. Baptists would say that grace or blessing aren't conferred on the candidate through the act of baptism per se; however they would hope for grace to be given by God as a consequence of the person's decision to be baptised and obedient to Christ.

  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited February 9
    "Death to sin" probably isn't that far from "remission of sins". Though, it's a larger concept - not just that sins are forgiven but that the believer has entered a state where the sinful nature is dead, an ontological change from a sinner ruled by the sinful nature - though not necessarily a position where someone will not sin again.
    Agreed.

    But, the point in the Baptist understanding is that baptism is purely symbolic, and not even a symbol of death to sin but a symbol of the faith of the person being baptised, that they believe they have already died to sin.
    Yes. This is how Baptists I know would describe it—that their baptism is a testament to their belief and commitment that by accepting Jesus, they have died to sin.

  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    For that matter, we don't have a solid basis for believing anything. Not a few people apparently believe we're living in a simulation.

    As far as I'm concerned, Christianity makes as much sense of the world as anything else and a lot better sense than many other options. It also seems to make a positive difference as far as I'm concerned. I can't offer you any more than that.

    And if you ever find something "stronger", be prepared to be assailed by the 2021 version of yourself complaining about how sure of yourself you appear to be...

    Well no, because my expressed wish that I knew would have been granted.

    What would really help now would be people who are sure explaining why. But that feels very much like somewhere I've been before and it turns out no-one really is. But they sound like they are, so often.

    This will probably do No. Good. At. All and I am wasting your time, but you asked for it, so...

    I am old-fashioned and out of date, but I don't care. I do my best to stick to what I see in Scripture, and to that end I make myself familiar with the text, learn the ancient languages, study the cultures, etc. because though I'm going to make mistakes, I want to make as few as possible.

    But you will ask, why do you think the Bible is any authority? The lesser reason is that every time I've tested it academically, it stands up to scrutiny. I've not found anything yet that says "fabrication, lie, falsified" when I dug deeply. The greater reason gets into my personal life and goes back to my conversion (no, folks, I was NOT baptized as a baby).

    Basically I was in a very hellish situation due to a combination of severe depression and abuse, and in that darkness, I found the Bible. I started reading it as I read all fairytales, wanting and expecting nothing but a good story and a little distraction. What I got was more than I expected. Like throwing a fishing line into a frogpond and pulling up a whale. It was through that source that God made himself known to me and became the person who basically carried me through the next umpty years, which were full of all sorts of terrible stuff. I clung to that support like a drowning person, and he never failed me. I tested the various things he said in the Bible against my own life (not having any other options--you take what help you can get!) and never found him false. The fact that I'm still alive today is wholly due to God grabbing hold of me through the Bible. Realistically I should have been dead before 25.

    You may think that I latched on to the Bible because I had no exposure to other faiths. That is incorrect. I lived in an extremely multicultural Californian city, and had quite a lot of exposure to Buddhism in particular (which I found very attractive). I was the kind of kid who worked their way through the whole library, and my parents didn't care, so I got exposed to everything.

    But this is the thing that stood up to all my prodding and pounding. And all these years later, it still stands up.

    That does not mean that I live one of those obnoxious lives you see on Instagram with the #blessed hashtag. If you've seen my life as mentioned on the Ship in the past 20 years, you know it has sucked, is sucking and will continue to suck, world without end, amen. It simply means that there is a floor under me now, and I cannot fall any further, no matter what fresh hell opens up. I have something solid to stand on, which is God. And I met him through the Bible.

    So that's where my "knowing" comes from.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    they would hope for grace to be given by God as a consequence of the person's decision to be baptised and obedient to Christ.

    I'm afraid I can't get my head round this formulation either. How can grace, which is by definition unconditional (at least as I understand it) be given as a consequence of a person's decision? I think it's all about realising the grace that is already there, and acting in response in order to enjoy more of it.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    @Lamb Chopped I can't see much difference between my "intangible reality with an independent existence" and your "invisible reality" which "is completely God's", and am puzzled as to why, in view of that, you think the use of "proper form" or "the right words" is such a critical component if "It's all down to God's promise and faithfulness".
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Well, I assume someone could think of baptism in both ways, though I confess I don't do it myself. We've got a massive emphasis on God's action as opposed to human action in our synod, and so baptism is just never presented that way. If ever, the time for such a thing would be confirmation. Though even there, the focus is primarily on God and what God is doing. We're extremely wary of language like "decided" or "accepted" or "chose" when the subject is "I" and not God.
    It can also be a matter not of thinking of it in both ways, but simply thinking of it in a different way. My experience with Southern Baptists, for example, is that they will rarely if ever describe baptism in terms of what God does through baptism or in terms that actually connect baptism to the remission of sins, and they will often specifically reject any such understanding.

    With the caveat that it's always risky to try to pin down what Southern Baptists as a group believe—as opposed what a Southern Baptist as an individual believes—I note that the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 of the Southern Baptist Convention says:
    Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.
    This very much comports with the understanding of all Baptists around here that I have talked with on the topic or whom I've heard talk about it. The closest they'll come to connecting baptism to remission of sins is to say baptism testifies to a believer's faith that his or hers sins are forgiven. And they will specifically reject that idea that baptism itself does anything or that God acts through baptism.

    Many years ago, I picked up a little book from the local (Southern) Baptist Book Store called Baptists and Other Denominations, by Richard W. Harmon, then assistant director of the Department of Interfaith Witness, Home Mission Board of the SBC. The "other denominations" were Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Churches of Christ and Pentecostal; the book provided some history of each denomination and compared and contrasted beliefs about the Bible, the Trinity, salvation, baptism, the Eucharist and polity.

    Contrasting the understanding of traditions that connect, in some way, baptism with the remission of sins with the Baptist understanding of baptism as a testimony of the believer is a common theme in the book.

    It's not the emphasis I'm having trouble with--there was a parallel case when I was trying to explain the Lutheran teaching on the Real Presence to my future husband (then very CMA) and he literally kept shouting over me, "No, it means 'Remember me! Remember me!'" as if the two perspectives (anamnesis and real presence) canceled each other out. They don't. And if somebody gets spiritual oomph out of the "obedience to God's command/confess one's faith" model, I have no quarrel with that.

    But I do have a problem with the rejection of remission of sins in baptism. And that's straight out because of Scripture. I'm looking at verses like Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16, and a host of other places where it is there by implication (such as all the verses that throw "repentance" in--I'm not adducing those because I know somebody is going to tell me that the repentance produces the forgiveness completely apart from baptism).

    I'll put those two verses here so nobody has to go look them up.


    Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Acts 2:38

    "And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name." Acts 22:16

    To be absolutely clear, Lutherans DO NOT believe that baptism saves and forgives apart from Christ--there is no such thing as baptism apart from Christ, that's as ridiculous as trying to divide the Trinity. And similarly we do not deny that God forgives through repentance and prayer, through confession and absolution, through communion, and so forth. We are simply saying that baptism is one of those ways. And that's why I'm disturbed to hear people denying it. Because what then do you do with the above texts?
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited February 9
    Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Acts 2:38

    "And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name." Acts 22:16

    @Lamb Chopped What I can't fathom is how these texts can be taken as proof of remission of sins through baptism separately from the action of repentance/response on the part of the baptisees which is so explicit in both of them and so manifestly impossible in the case of an infant.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    they would hope for grace to be given by God as a consequence of the person's decision to be baptised and obedient to Christ.

    I'm afraid I can't get my head round this formulation either. How can grace, which is by definition unconditional (at least as I understand it) be given as a consequence of a person's decision? I think it's all about realising the grace that is already there, and acting in response in order to enjoy more of it.
    Point taken and perhaps I was sloppy in my language. It's just that, when interviewing people for my Master's some years ago, it became clear that most had expected "something" to happen - call it a "blessing" if you like - at baptism; indeed one person felt quite cheated because they hadn't sensed anything at all. The point I was trying to make was that any such "blessing" isn't an automatic corollary of the physical act of baptism, but rather God's response (which he may or may not choose to make) to the obedience of the person being baptised.

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