Sacrament or Ordinance?
Barnabas62
Shipmate, Host Emeritus
in Purgatory
I’ve set this up following a tangent in Epiphanies?
@Nick Tamen observed, as did @Gamma Gamaliel , that the low church understanding of baptism and communion was that these were more properly described as ordinances rather than sacraments.
Personally I’d always used the term sacrament, relating as it does to the term used Traditionally, but always recognised that the meanings we associated with the practices were different. But I think there may be more to the differences in the use of the terms than pure labelling.
Anyway I thought it might be worth a separate discussion, recognising that not all Protestants see these sacraments (ordinances) in the same way.
Views encouraged.
@Nick Tamen observed, as did @Gamma Gamaliel , that the low church understanding of baptism and communion was that these were more properly described as ordinances rather than sacraments.
Personally I’d always used the term sacrament, relating as it does to the term used Traditionally, but always recognised that the meanings we associated with the practices were different. But I think there may be more to the differences in the use of the terms than pure labelling.
Anyway I thought it might be worth a separate discussion, recognising that not all Protestants see these sacraments (ordinances) in the same way.
Views encouraged.
Comments
In my experience, Baptists in the United States avoid and reject referring to baptism and the Lord’s Supper as “sacraments” out of a conviction that the term “sacrament” assumes, or at least implies, that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are “means of grace.” Most Baptists in the U.S. reject the idea that baptism or the Lord’s Supper are means of grace, as well as the idea that God acts through them in any way different from how God acts in life generally.
Rather, both baptism and the Lord’s Supper are viewed as symbolic only and as being about what believers do. Baptism is the symbolic way in which believers obey and testify to their faith in Christ. The Lord’s Supper is the symbolic way in which believers obey Christ and remember his sacrifice.
So, for most Baptists in the U.S., referring to baptism and the Lord’s Supper as “ordinances” (because Jesus “ordered” or “ordained” them) and not referring to them as “sacraments” is a choice made in order to reflect a specific theological position.
This distinction underscored both the different nature as far as being commanded by Christ, and the different understanding in terms of God’s promise to act, as we view God as being the primary actor in the sacraments.
That is historical practice; I rarely if ever hear “ordinances” used this way in the PC(USA) anymore.
I suppose my puzzlement comes from the way these were explained in my local church, that baptism and communion were thought to be outward and visible signs of an inner and spiritual divine grace. Which is the prime definition in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Breaking of bread was both a memorial and a blessing, not just a matter of obedience. The bread and wine weren’t changed but we were by our obedient practice. Analagous arguments were applied to baptism (in our case believers’ baptism).
In short, there was an acceptance that God was present, but we didn’t need a priest to somehow “make” him present. So yes, my part of the Protestant tradition was quite anticlerical, but definitely pro-presence of God.
I suppose looking back at it nobody would have minded calling them divinely ordained ordinances as opposed to the Traditional use of the word sacrament. But I guess the view was that our understanding of sacrament was itself reformed (like lots of other things).
The other thing I’ve realised by doing some research is that there is quite a lot of lower candle variation in how these things are viewed. Some folks seem to see ordinance and sacrament as broadly interchangeable terms, others see them as not the same.
There is a specific issue I'd like to explore in the course of this one if I may and that's the link between sacraments or ordinances and pneumatology.
Why do I say that?
Because it seems to me that sacraments can be a 'meeting point' as well as a bone of contention [/i]if we see them as conduits of grace and places of 'encounter'.
As 'means of grace' to borrow a Reformed phrase.
Hence, with due respect to @Barnabas62, I bristled when he said that in his tradition the 'water doesn't change anyone' in baptism.
Well, in my Big T Tradition it doesn't either. If anyone's changed it's by the Holy Spirit working through the water, or the chrism oil or the preaching or the Gospel readings or the hymnody or the iconography, or the architecture or the beauty of nature or ...
It's not as if the water has intrinsically salvific properties I'm and of itself.
Also, the sacraments aren't magic.
On the catechesis thread @Jengie Jon and @Nick Tamen explained something of the Reformed understanding of confirmation and how it's linked to church membership. I imagine they would both say that it's not just ablit that. It's not like signing up to member of the local golf club.
They wouldn't sacramentalise it in the way RCs, Orthodox and Anglo-Catholics do but I'm sure it's seen as 'more' than simply receiving a certificate to show to the elders of another Presbyterian church.
We get a certificate too. But we also get anointed with chrism oil with the congregation shouting 'Sealed!' at each application. There's a pneumatic dimension.
I'm not saying that's 'missing' in other Christian traditions but other than in charismatic settings perhaps, that may not as emphasised as much as it is in Orthodoxy.
Heck, back in my full-on charismatic days we had what might be called a fairly 'high' view of baptism - we believed it did affect us in some way. Likewise the Lord's Supper although we wouldn't have used the term 'sacrament' nor believed in Transubstantiation.
But we did believe that something happened, that we were changed in some way.
I'm surprised at @Barnabas62 using the term 'sacraments' as I don't ever remember either baptism or communion being referred to as such in any non-conformist or 'new church' setting I'm aware of.
I would say that many Methodists and URCs had a 'higher' or more 'developed' (for want of a better word) view of baptism and the Lord's Supper than you might find in many Baptist churches and among the Brethren and other independent groups.
The Orthodox would certainly see the Methodists and URC as 'closer' to us in that respect. That doesn't mean that we wouldn't find other things in common with 'baptistic' Christians or Pentecostals, say.
There are overlaps, parallels and points of intersection across all Trinitarian Christian churches.
I do tend to reserve the term Tradition with a Big T for what we Orthodox call Holy Tradition. By which I mean us. The Orthodox. We are 'part and parcel of that, if you like.
Hence my use of the term small t tradition to refer to other Christian traditions, in a similar way to how I'd use the term small o orthodox.
And because I'm not 'exclusive' I'll also use the Big T Tradition term to refer to what RCs believe. Not because Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism are identical but because we both believe in a Big T Tradition - even though we have different views on what it consists of and who it coheres around as it were. Or who coheres around it, rather.
Perhaps I ought to use the term 'Orthodox Tradition' as that way I'm not treading on the toes of anyone who uses Big T Tradition to refer to inherited common tradition in a broader sense.
A both/and thing.
Would I venerate a location, icon or relic associated with St Francis of Assissi even though he isn't part of 'Orthodox Tradition'?
Yes.
Or John Wesley, say?
Yes.
Anyhow, back to my main point ...
Matter matters.
That's why we need sacraments or ordinances. They can convey grace.
I italicised everything!
FWIW, Article VII of the Southern Baptist Convention’s “Baptist Faith and Message” says this:
You can see here the emphasis on “symbolic acts of obedience.” The emphasis is completely on what believers are doing, with nothing about what God might be doing.
Baptists in the US and Baptists in the UK appear to be different in this regard.
Unlike circumcision, bar mitzvah/bat mitzvah is not commanded in the Law, but rather is a matter of tradition. Like bar mitzvah/bat mitzvah, confirmation marks the taking on of adult responsibilities, the “coming of age,” of one who is already part of the covenant community.
On the US Baptists and UK Baptists thing ... it varies and I think you'd find a lot of British Baptists who'd have similar views to those expressed by the Southern Baptists even though they may want to 'distance' themselves from Southern Baptists to some extent.
I've never heard any British Baptists refer to 'sacraments' other than in jest about the 'church meeting'. They understand the concept of course.
Or do they?
@Barnabas62 seems to think that sacramentally inclined Christians believe that the water of baptism 'in and of itself' changes a person rather than the work of God the Holy Spirit working through the water - and through prayer and service, worship, study, care for others and everything else.
I sometimes come across the notion among less sacramentally inclined Christians that they believe we are 'restricting' God to certain ritual actions and practices as if the Holy Spirit isn't free to work wherever and however he wishes.
'The wind bloweth where it listeth ...'
The Greek theologian Romanides, arguably one of the most 'anti-Western' of recent Orthodox theologians, nevertheless believed that the early Quakers saw the 'Uncreated Light'. There were accounts of Friends' Meeting Houses glowing with mysterious light.
He didn't have an 'issue' about God working there for all his railing about 'Western Scholasticism' and so on.
I've mentioned here before how InGoB believed that priests performed 'magic' when they consecrated the elements for communion and that occult or pagan magical practices were a counterfeit of the real magic that RC clergy performed.
One of the first things I was told when I became Orthodox was that 'the sacraments aren't magic."
I don’t believe they are empty rituals either. Nor that God is restricted to them or by them.
The majority of Baptists in the UK would belong to the Baptist Union which contains both Particular and General strands and at least historically the latter would have used both 'sacrament' and 'ordinance' as here:
https://www.baptist.org.uk/Articles/714812/Baptists_and_Baptism.aspx
"The Second London Confession of the Particular Baptists (1677) has language of ‘ordinance’, but the Orthodox Creed of the General Baptists (1678) includes ‘ordinance’ and ‘sacrament’."
Although my observation is that 'sacrament' is rarely used as a descriptor and though Particularism that survived better as a distinctive theological tradition it is a real minority sport. I've only ever heard older Baptists use the term (qua Baptists), I suspect it's a minority of younger Baptists who would even think of themselves as such.
One observation I've had is that in the high church traditions, one might define a sacrament and then give baptism and communion as the primary examples, with some quibbling over marriage and others.
In the low church, it is more a case of define baptism and define communion, before then saying that collectively, they are known as the ordinances.
To give an imperfect analogy, one might try to define a Home County and then give examples, while another would list some counties and then say that between them, they are known as the Home Counties.
That much is merely semantics, and so long as you are understood without trying to insist that one terminology is absolutely correct and the other absolutely wrong, then all can get on fine.
Where there is a difference is whether they are understood to by symbolic (low church view) or functional (high church view). But this comment is plenty long enough without expanding on that just yet.
My particular jurisdiction will chrismate people who have been baptised in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I understand that some Russian jurisdictions and hardliners on Mount Athos may take a stricter view and baptise candidates 'just in case'.
And yes, the prayers over the baptismal water are certainly striking and 'powerful' as you say.
I have found a certain level of misunderstanding among some clergy who assume that a lot of evangelicals baptise in the 'name of Jesus only' - whereas only a minority do and mostly at the fringes or beyond - such as 'Oneness Pentecostals'.
The vast majority of evangelical Christians, whether in the older denominations or newer groups baptise in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Should they be baptised again if that wasn't done by triple immersion or in sanctified water? Some Orthodox say 'yes', others 'no'.
A question.
Is the Orthodox understanding of baptism the same as the Catholic understanding of baptism? In particular (with some concessions for emergencies) the Catholic position as I understand it is that form, matter and structure have to be right for the baptism to be both valid and licit.
Also the Catholic understanding is that baptism does 5 things
It forgives all sins that were committed before baptism including original, mortal, and venial sin.
It makes the baptized a new creature.
It turns the baptized into a newly adopted son or daughter of God and a member of the Church.
It brings them to share in the royal priesthood of Christ. (1 Peter 2:9)
It leaves a spiritual mark (or character) of belonging to Christ on the soul of the baptized.
Is that also the Orthodox understanding?
Leetle Meesha of blessed memory who used to post on these boards once told me that her Orthodox parish priest, paraphrasing Treasure Of The Sierra Madre would joke, 'We don't need no steenking High Church ...'
What he meant by that was that distinctions between 'low' and 'high' were meaningless in an Orthodox context. We all agree that there are seven major sacraments or 'mysteries', but we have never formally defined an exact or limited number.
There are plenty of other things that we believe convey spiritual value as it were - the Great Blessing of the Waters, monastic tonsures, icons, alms-giving etc etc etc.
We don't dissect our services and practices to determine which aspects are more or less 'sacramental' than anything else - the whole thing is sacramental. All our worship is sacramental. We tend to stick at seven for convenience and teaching purposes, not to carve everything up into lists and definitions.
@Nick Tamen raises some interesting points from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer of 1979 - about what might be seen as 'primary' and 'secondary' sacraments. We wouldn't make that kind of distinction.
He has also raised an interesting element from Reformed theology - that of the 'convenantal' aspect - or what we might by extension call the family element. Rites of passage, rituals that emphasise belonging - both to God and to one another in community.
These things are part of our heritage, our 'family silver' as it were.
The Jewish parallel is interesting in that respect of course.
It's significant that in the Orthodox Christian Tradition, the 'Sunday of Orthodoxy' is marked by an emphasis on iconography. We parade around and outside the church building carrying icons we have brought for that purpose or from around the walls of the church. Why is this? Is it because we emphasise icons over and above anything and everything else? Or because they are a distinctive feature by which we 'define' ourselves? Or is it to celebrate the Incarnation around which everything revolves?
I'm interested in exploring the communal and pneumatic elements of these things as I believe they are closely and inextricably linked.
I attended Vespers at a Greek parish last night on the eve of their patronal festival. It was all Greek to me and I couldn't follow a great deal of it, although I pretty much knew where I 'was' in the procedings because of the pattern and because I've attended before.
They brought out the icon of one of their patron Saints - they have two - and paraded it around and venerated it in the customary way. I was struck by how this was both a familiar and customary practice but also one intended to convey grace in some way - a 'communal' and 'pneumatic' series of actions. And in Orthodox terms grace isn't 'separate' to God - it's not a 'tool' or abstract concept or created 'force' - but part of God's uncreated 'energies'.
To receive grace is to receive God himself.
That's why I've pushed back at @Barnabas62 over the way he has presented a sacramental understanding of baptism - that it isn't the water which changes us but God himself.
Yes, of course. God's grace conveyed through the water.
God's grace conveyed through the Bible reading. Through the alms-giving. Through works of mercy. Through the words and actions of liturgy. Through preaching and teaching.
The whole thing is sacramental. It is all 'mystery' all God's self-revelation and self-giving.
Hallelujah! Glory be to God in all things!
Interestingly, in the Anglican Baptism liturgy there are alternative prayers over the water. In one the water is blessed in the other it isn’t.
In the practises of those who believe in believers’ baptisms, the water isn’t blessed. We don’t believe that the water needs to be sanctified. We believe any water will do.
Which I think in Catholic terms makes my baptism both invalid and illicit. I was baptised by a minister who would be regarded as a lay person in water that wasn’t blessed and sanctified.
God’s grace is conveyed through the water? And the water must be blessed and therefore made appropriate for use? So that it can be instrumental in the baptismal changes?
I understand the “mystery”. Your strong reaction? Not so much.
As an aside about marriage as a sacrament in the seminary I wss taught that like all sacraments marriage has a form (some words) and matter (an action.) For marriage the form is the promises (making the couple the actual ministers of the sacrament) and the matter is the love making. So in that understanding sex in marriage can be a means of grace. Which I find rather wonderful.
If that's what you are saying then sorry, I don't think you do 'understand the mystery' but are taking a somewhat mechanical approach to these things.
If I misunderstood you then I apologise.
And yes, I do know what Christians of a less sacramental inclination believe as I have been one myself.
I can't answer for the RCs but Orthodox generally don't pontificate as to what is licit or otherwise in other Christian settings - or at least we aren't supposed to. Plenty of polemical Orthodox types do blart on about such things. Unfortunately. Pains in the arse.
We'd generally say that it is up to God whether this, that or the other ceremony or practice is 'licit' or otherwise.
We practice believers' baptism as well as infant baptism of course and we bless the waters when we do so. It's not for us to say whether other Christians should do that or not any more than it is up to us what hymns they sing or prayers they use.
As I wrote in response to @cgichard, in our Orthodox jurisdiction, and many if not most others, I think, we wouldn't baptise anyone who came to us having previously been baptised in the name of the Trinity. We wouldn't pry as to whether the waters had been blessed or not or whether it was an infant or believers' baptism.
I understand that some Russian jurisdictions and some hard-liner sticklers would baptise anyone who came from a non-Orthodox background, whatever form of baptism they'd received. Within the jurisdiction I'm involved with we wouldn't do that and we'd suggest that if there was anything 'illicit' or 'defective' then God is perfectly capable of putting that right - and in a sense chrismation would 'cover' that if indeed there was anything 'defective' previously.
I'm putting things 'strongly' to make a point and it's one I want to emphasise.
That point is this. Sacraments are not magic. Sacraments are not mechanical.
To some extent if we are asking what is 'licit' or 'illicit', 'valid' or 'invalid' we are missing the point of the 'mystery'. Not that those considerations aren't important. But they aren't all that these things are about.
I'm sure confirmation in Reformed terms isn't simply about church membership and getting a certificate, any more than believer's baptism is all that Baptists are about or simply something they do because that's what happens in Baptist circles.
In fact, I know it isn't as I used to be a Baptist.
I had a conversation with our Deacon on the way back from the Greek parish last night. He was telling me how an Australian evangelical is posting videos about the current influx of converts into Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy and other historic and more sacramental churches.
According to the Deacon, this fella's conclusion was that they are being attracted by 'continuity' and the apparent stability of the 'institutional' aspects through Apostolic Succession. Over and against that he was proposing a 'succession' based on the work of the Spirit in individuals rather than through an 'institution.'
The Deacon observed that he's met very few converts to Orthodoxy who seem attracted by the 'institutional' aspects - the sense of 'continuity' perhaps but not the institution in and of itself.
Sure, the 'institutional' aspect is involved and invoked in the 'licitness' of 'mysteries' carried out in an Orthodox context - chrism oil has been blessed by a bishop for instance - but that's not seen as applying to Christians outside the 'boundaries' of our own confession.
We don't go round saying that Methodist prayers are 'invalid' or that if a Baptist is praying in their bedroom God doesn't hear their prayer because it doesn't come from one of our service books. That would be absurd.
It's not about whether there are two, six, seven, 18 or 25.652 'sacraments' or 'ordinances' or whether God chooses to work through this, that or the other one over here but not over there.
That's not the point.
I know I keep saying this and I may get 'pilloried' for doing so - but all this 'minimalist' stuff - what's the bare minimum I have to do to be saved? - what observances do I really have to observe and which ones can I jettison? - is a very 'Western' way of thinking and alien to an Orthodox understanding of these things.
Heck, most 'Western' Christians I know are far from 'minimalist' in practice and want to do what's good and right to please their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. They just don't approach 'sacraments' and 'ordinances' in the way that we do. That doesn't mean they aren't 'proper' Christians or aren't 'saved' and so on.
A Russian speaking friend once translated for a Russian Orthodox Bishop at a conference. 'The Baptists pray better than we do and preach better than we do,' he said.
It's not up to me to say whether this, that or the other person's baptism is 'licit' or not or whether God is somehow 'present' or 'at work' through their communion services or whatever else.
Our concern as Orthodox Christians is to observe and 'guard' our own holy 'mysteries' and not sit in judgement on what other Christians may or may not do. To their own Master they stand or fall as indeed do we.
One of the earliest practical guidance I know of was in the Didache, where a preference for living (i.e. flowing) water was expressed, followed by immersion in still water, with sprinkling only being used if the first two means were unavailable. That dates back to the late 1st century or possibly early 2nd century and has no mention of blessing, though it does ask for fasting in the run up period to the baptism for all involved.
I do rather like the ethos of "[Here's a preferred way of doing something, but if that's not possible, do your best]".
Why that should kick-start the practice, I have no idea. The Orthodox (and RCs?) bless rivers, streams and holy wells and so on so it's not as if we restrict such practices to indoor settings.
The earliest written records of blessing waters comes from St Ambrose and other 4th century sources, which doesn't necessarily mean it wasn't done earlier.
Ok, I'm not sola scriptura but these days I don't quite 'get' the apparent obsession in some Protestant circles - I'm not accusing you of this mind - of trying to find out if some practice or other is only legitimate if it can be shown to have carried out before a particular Thursday afternoon in the late 1st or early 2nd century.
Conversely, tell it not in Gath
Any more than what goes on in synagogues is identical to Jewish practice many centuries ago.
Of course, any mention of the 4th century raises the spectre in many Protestant minds of Constantine and everything going badly wrong ... whilst at the same time accepting the Nicene Creed ...
Anomalies all ways round.
However we cut it, though, the bottom line for me is:
Sacraments aren't magic.
Sacraments aren't mechanical.
Sacraments are 'mysteries' - things revealed (or developed) through Holy Tradition and which have echoes/parallels across the Christian spectrum however they are understood, practiced (or not practised) as the case may be.
I think the emergency provision is a merciful exception, primarily for use when a priest is not available and an unbaptised person (infant) is on the point of death. That’s a good thing.
But it is not normal Catholic practice. Which I am pretty sure would regard my full immersion baptism as an adult as being invalid and illicit.
By the way, I’m not offended by that! What mattered to me was that it was an obedient and public acknowledgement of a conversion. I believed and got baptised, as a proper response within my tradition.
@Pomona
Pleased to hear that. I hoped it would be so.
@Gamma Gamaliel
I thought that was your point! I really wasn’t implying that sacraments were magical. Simply trying to understand whether there were boundaries in Orthodoxy as there are in Catholicism.
Everyone else
I’m convinced by this discussion that my prior relaxed use of sacrament to describe our practices of baptism and communion is confusing!
There are boundaries in all Christian churches. I would be surprised if your independent non-conformist assembly would accept JW or Mormon baptism, for instance.
@Pomona's example of an Orthodox priest accepting a friend's baptism in the bath as 'valid' or otherwise isn't the right question to ask - on one level.
They were certainly accepting it as having been conducted using a Trinitarian formula, but that doesn't necessarily imply they accepted it as 'valid' or 'invalid'. That's not the kind of value judgement the priest would make.
Yes, they were making a distinction between a Trinitarian baptism and a non-Trinitarian one but that doesn't necessarily mean the priest believed the baptism in the bath was 'kosher' or not.
They might have thought it was, they might have thought it wasn't but that 'chrismation' would sort it out or they might have been agnostic about it.
I wouldn't know how they regarded it unless I spoke to the priest myself and asked him.
Incidentally, I wasn't accusing you of suggesting that sacraments were 'magical' - if anything I was suggesting that you may be taking a somewhat 'mechanical' approach.
Otherwise you wouldn't be overly concerned whether there were two 26 or 37,538 sacraments or ordinances. 😉
The Orthodox position on your baptism wouldn't be that it was valid, invalid, good, bad or indifferent. That's for people within your congregation and tradition to decide, not us. It makes sense within your credo-baptist context of course and that's fine. You seem to be doing well on it. Your faith has stood the test of time.
We can't judge other people's practices. We can only operate in the context of our own. We aren't God. We can't determine what was 'going on' in your baptism and if you don't believe it confers any special grace, as it were, but was 'simply' a sign of obedience and of conversion then that's what it is according to your understanding.
That said, I wouldn't have liked to have been told that I needed to be baptised when I became Orthodox.
When the priest asked me whether I'd been baptised, I replied. 'Yes. Twice.'
He rolled his eyes and chuckled.
I was baptised/christened as an infant and also at the age of 19 as an earnest young evangelical.
I don’t go round wondering whether either of those were 'valid' or 'invalid'. Perhaps both of them were. Perhaps neither. Perhaps one and not the other.
It's not a question I tend to ask.
I don’t remember the first. The second was more dramatic and memorable. Which is great. Glory be.
If I'd died as an infant God is still God. If I'd died in a serious car accident I had in my 20s and from which I and those with me emerged remarkably unscathed God would still be God.
If I'd never existed in the first place God is still God.
Do I regard you as a brother in Christ? Yes. Do I go round wondering whether your conversion happened on the date or time you believe it did or whether it happened on another occasion or whenever else? No.
John Wesley gave all sorts of apparently contradictory accounts of when he was 'awakened'. As a teenager, much later, his 'Aldersgate experience' of 1738 (depending on how we interpret that) or even not at all ... he sometimes claimed he'd never truly been converted.
Which date do we choose?
Or how about the Desert Father who distressed his fellow monks by crying out to God for mercy on his death-bed? When they remonstrated with him on the grounds that he was such a godly and holy man, he replied, 'My brethren, I have not even begun to repent!'
An RC priest friend back in my evangelical days didn't seem to regard my baptism as 'invalid' or 'illicit' and even observed that my 'tradition' was clearly very real and that I 'came alive' when I spike about it.
So perhaps assumptions about what 'boundaries' traditions or Traditions other than our own my or may not have about these issues aren't the right place to start?
I've often said things like 'RCs believe X' only to be told by RC Shipmates, 'No we don't..' or 'It's not as simple as that ...'
Total immersion is not common in the RC Church but it is important that the sprinkling of the water should be done on the head,so that the newly baptised person appears to rise out of the water as would be the case if the person had been fully immersed and the 'risen to new life'
A sprinkling of water such as happens sometimes in Catholic churches (as a reminder of baptism) would not constitute a 'valid' baptism.
In preVatican 2 times the main Sunday liturgy began with the 'Asperges me' a weekly reminder of baptism .
I was once taken round Brompton Oratory by a catholic friend and afterwards I quipped (I have a good relationship with this person) that if someone knew vaguely of the idea of trinity, but not the specifics, that based on the objects of veneration within the Oratory, one could easily be forgiven for thinking that the trinity consisted of Jesus, Mary and John Henry Newman.
They kind of wrinkled their nose at me in annoyance but admitted it was a valid point.
Roman Catholicism is a deeply bodily form of Christianity. It doesn't bother me at all that they are not all explicitly based in scripture because, you know Tradition.
Re the acceptability of my baptism.
The article on Baptism in the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia suggests otherwise
Specifically, there would be no need for the rite of conditional baptism unless there was at least doubt in the matter for those switching to Catholicism from a Baptist background.
I was indeed baptised “in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”. But the water was not blessed and the person who baptised me would definitely not have been recognised as an ordained priest
I’m unlikely to convert to Catholicism but if I did I would indeed assert that I had been baptised. But from the New Advent article that might not be enough. I guess conditional baptism is a kind of “just in case” provision!
If you were baptised with the pouring of or immersion in water and words which mean 'I baptise you in the name of the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit' then you are validly baptised ,at least from a Catholic point of view. The water does not have to have been blessed and the person doing the baptism does not have to be an ordained priest. (in extreme conditions does not even have to be a Christian)
However there is one other condition,perhaps not already mentioned,namely the person carrying out the baptism has to be intending to baptise.
In any case the Catholic Church also recognises the 'baptism of desire' and the 'baptism of blood' but I won't take that any further.
It also may be worth noting that the Catholic Encyclopedia was published over 100 years ago, before Vatican II and greater ecumenical openness in the Roman Catholic Church.
The doubt, as I understand it, wouldn’t be related to the Baptist background. It would be related to whether there is confirmation, other than memory, that a water baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit had already been received.
@Forthview, who is Catholic, has said he sees no reason from a Catholic point of view to doubt the validity of your baptism. You seem to be imposing on the Catholic Church requirements for “validity” that the Catholic Church itself doesn’t impose.
More generally, there was a Hell thread where, oddly enough perhaps, a discussion developed about windows that open on public transport with us each assuming that what we were used to on our respective sides of the Atlantic applied on t'other side.
The same applies to our respective Christian traditions, of course.
I've come across Orthodox people who make odd assumptions about Protestant or RC Christians - and vice-versa.
Imagine trying to 'explain' iconography for instance to an Anglican church-warden in an attractive historic church who believes that church buildings should be plain perspex boxes so as not to 'distract people from God'. I could see I wasn't going to get very far when I got onto eucharistic theology and the sacraments.
The Orthodox and RCs are on the same page when it comes to the 'embodied' aspects of the sacraments as outlined by @Alan29. But we still 'talk past' each other to a certain extent.
I was surprised when an RC friend who'd become Anglican told me that the Orthodox clearly don't value Christ very highly as she only saw one icon of him in a Greek Orthodox church she visited on holiday but there were lots of icons of Saints.
A friend who grew up in a snake-belly low Anglican parish in the north-east of England told me that one of the regulars wanted the flowers removed from the building lest visitors think they were worshipping them.
Would we say that any of these ideas were 'representative' or reflected a prevailing view of some kind?
I don't think so.
I'd have got a pretty skewed idea of Orthodoxy if I'd only encountered it online. Roman Catholicism the same. The same applies to any other Christian tradition.
Speak to people. Visit their churches. The internet will only take us so far.
I think the conditional baptism is to cover where people cannot produce a baptismal certificate for whatever reason, mainly.
I’d be delighted if my view is out of date and there is a more open view of others’ ordinances or sacraments these days.
[@Alan29
I don’t have a baptism certificate. I didn’t know there were such things! ]
So in my experience, unless the person seeking to convert actually has their certificate, what happens is an appropriate person at the Catholic parish involved writes to the church where the person seeking to convert was baptized and asks for confirmation of the baptism.
If confirmation cannot be obtained, then a conditional baptism is probably in order.
In some Pentecostal circles baptism is closely associated with 'baptism in the Holy Spirit'.
Chrismation in Orthodoxy is associated with the reception and 'sealing' with the Spirit.
How is this aspect understood where you are?
Some evangelical churches will not have such records and this can cause
'problems' should someone wish to be admitted to the RC Church without being able to show on paper that they were already baptised.
We had such a case this Easter where the person in question was sure that they had been baptised in an English Methodist church but didn't know where it was (that's the church,I mean).
The priest said not too bother .He would accept the person as already baptised.
Baptism by water, the norm.
Baptism by blood, where someone is martyred while undergoing preparation for baptism.
And baptism by desire, Catholic theological doctrine stating that a person can attain the grace of salvation through faith and perfect contrition (sorrow for sins out of love for God) if they sincerely desire baptism but die before receiving the physical sacrament of water. This also covers those who have never heard the gospel but have sincerely followed their consciences.
Only baptism by water is considered sacramental.
In the Reformed tradition, baptism is understood, in part, as the sign and seal of the giving of the Holy Spirit to the one baptized. And in the Reformed tradition, it is the activity of the Spirit that is understood to make Christ truly present in the Eucharist and truly received by the communicant.
In my particular branch of the Reformed tradition, both the prayer over the water at baptism and the Great Thanksgiving (aka, the Eucharistic Prayer) include an epiklesis, asking the Father to send the Spirit to be active in the sacrament.
(I could add that a standard part of Presbyterian services is the “prayer for illumination,” prayed prior to the reading of Scripture and preaching of this sermon. Similar, to a sacramental prayer, the prayer for illumination asks that the Spirit be active in the reading, preaching and hearing.)
I've only attended one Church of Scotland service and I did notice a form of epiklesis there.
I had read about it so was looking out for it.
There's also a 'communal' and indeed 'covenantal' aspect to sacraments/ordinances and this relates to pneumatology too I think. The personal and the corporate.
How does that aspect 'play out' wherever you are?
(An aside: per @Forthview - that would happen with us. If someone has received Trinitarian baptism elsewhere but couldn't produce written evidence the priest would take their word for it. Nobody asked to see any record of my infant baptism in an Anglican church nor any evidence of my 'credo-baptism' as a young man, not that there is any documentation about that anywhere).
Overwhelm us with your Spirit, O God,
that the words we hear
will speak to our hearts
as your Word,
made known to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
As for taking someone’s word that they were baptized, I think in the case of our godson, it was actually when started the path to ordination that confirmation was required, not when he converted to Catholicism. And for all I know, confirmation of baptism may have been required for all candidates for ordination, including those baptized as infants in a Catholic parish.
As Lutherans, my understanding is that the last thing you mentioned--the intention--isn't necessary. As long as "Water and the Word" is present, we consider that a baptism. (We've never been much on intentionalism in any way.)
In Lutheran circles, we figure he's the one who basically "applies" everything to us--that is, he kindles faith in us, he dwells within us, he guides us (if we're listening), and so forth. So in terms of the sacraments, we automatically look to the Spirit as the one who kindles faith in the heart of an infant (if it's that kind of baptism). If it's an adult convert, we take it that the Spirit has already created faith in that person, which is why they've asked for baptism.
Concerning the Lord's Supper, I don't think I've ever seen it spelled out, but I'd assume he's actively involved in applying the forgiveness of sins to us, as well as in strengthening our faith, helping us to grow, etc. etc. etc. Not that the other two members of the Trinity aren't also involved--they are, since you can't split the One God up. But this is how we usually look at things, IMHO.
Although the water and the words effect the sacrament there has to be the intention also
It doesn't matter whether the rites are called 'sacraments' or'ordinances'.
Neither of these names appear in Scripture,they are names given later by the 'Church'.
In the Western Church Confirmation was carried out by the Bishop.
In the really olden days the extent of the bishop's mandate would be fairly local.
(It is still the case in Italy that almost every town and even some villages will have a bishop,whereas in other countries dioceses often cover wide areas where it was difficult for the bishop to come every year)
Thus it became quite common for new Catholics ( not necessarily children) to receive Communion before they were confirmed,especially with the lowering of the age of First Communion over 100 years ago now.
Since the period after Vatican 2 the Western Church has allowed priests to administer Confirmation and new adult Catholics are often confirmed before they receive Communion.
Yes, I understand this.
I'm afraid I'm going to shock you now by saying that yes, we would consider a stage baptism valid, provided it involved the triune Name, water, and an unbaptized recipient.
In fact, there is a semi-historical legend about two children playing church in a farm ditch, where one of them baptized the other in imitation of the pastor. The issue of validity came up before the church authorities, and they held it to be a real baptism. We haven't changed our minds on that, either.