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The Crisis in the Theology and Practice of Baptism

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The Crisis in the Theology and Practice of Baptism The Crisis in the Theology and Practice of Baptism JOHN H. LEITH We have come together to discuss the crisis in the church's theology and prac­ tice of baptism, a crisis that perplexes theologians, historians, and ministers of local congregations and engages them in debate. It is appropriate to remember that the beliefs and practices of Protestants concerning baptism have been under debate and challenge since the beginning. Once the debate"s were fraught with more serious consequences than now. Some died for their beliefs and practices concerning bap­ tism. Once the debates were far more lively, as is indicated by the titles of the tracts that have periodically appeared during the last three hundred years. For example: The Dipper Diet (1644) by Daniel Featley, or Spurgeonism logically developed, A Few Suggestions adapted to Mr. Spurgeon's 'Small Logical Faculty'. Certainly the present crisis does not stir the same passions that the earlier crises did. This suggests that a greater problem than the crisis of baptism that is obvious to theologians and preachers is the indifference of the church members as well as the culture to the crisis. The basic thesis of this paper is that the present crisis concerning baptism is very intimately associated with the general crisis of Christian faith and of the Christian community in the modern world. This crisis can be stated as the disparity between the Christian faith as it has been traditioned to us and human existence as we experi- · ence it in our time and place. Therefore the crisis of baptism in our time is more . serious than the arguments we may have within the Christian community about the nature and form of baptism. The crisis has to do with the legitimacy of the whole enterprise. This deep and general crisis is the context in which all the particular aspects of the crisis of baptism must be seen. In this paper the crisis concerning the church's belief and practices concerning baptism will be examined from three perspectives: (1) the crisis in the Reformed theology of baptism, (2) the crisis of the church in society, and (3) the crisis of faith. I In 1937 Emil Brunner, giving the Olaus Petri Lectures, declared that the con­ temporary practice of infant baptism was little short of scandalous. 1 It was obvious that he had difficulty integrating the traditional doctrine of the sacraments and, in particular, the baptism of infants into his theology and especially into his doctrine of the church. The theme of his theology was the "personal correspondence between the Word of God and human obedience-in-faith. " 2 In his ecclesiology structures and sacraments were subordinate to the Word and to the community of faith. Brunner was also shaken by the obvious dispairty between the historical practice of baptism 4 and the historical reality of the church. In 1938 Joachim Jeremias published hi s answer to the question of infant baptism in the early church, an answer that was later elaborated in a new edition in 1958 and published in Engli sh translation, Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries, in 1960. Kurt Aland's reply to Jeremias, Did the Early Church Baptize Infants? was published in German in 1961 and in Engli sh translation in 1963 . Jeremias replied to Aland's reply in 1962 with the Engli sh transla­ tion, Th e Origins of Infant Baptism. Historical data about early church practice is important for understanding the signifi cance and meaning of baptism in the early church. More significantly, the psychological impressiveness of a convincing case fot or against the New Testament and early church practice of the baptism of infants would be very great. Yet hi storical investigation is not likely to be finally decisive, for those who do not find the practice of the baptism of infants in the New Testament and in the church of the first two centuries nevertheless may and do vigorously advocate the practice of the baptism of infants today on theological grounds. The decisive challenge to the understanding and practice of baptism came from Karl Barth. In 1943 Barth delivered hi s lecture to Swiss theological students in which he defined baptism as a portrayal of death and resurrection. Yet baptism is no "dead or dumb representation, but a living and expressive one. Its potency li es in the fact that it comprehend s the whole movement of sacred history and that it is res potentis­ sima et efficacissima. All that it intends and actually effects is the result of this potency. It exercises its power as it shows to a man that objective reality to which he belongs in such a way that he can only forget or miss it per nefas; in such a way, at all events, that he becomes by its marks himself a marked man, by its portraiture one who is himself portrayed. ":J Baptism is the representation, the seal, the sign, the copy, the symbol of our redemption. The power of baptism li es in the free word and deed of Jesus Christ. As such, baptism belonged to the proclamation of the church. Thi s emphasis on baptism as representation and proclamation minimizes the sacra­ mental function , but enough of this emphasis remains for Barth to speak of the flat quality of Zwingli 's teaching. Immersion is a more appropriate mode of baptism than sprinkling, but Barth is not too concerned about the mode. He did , however, con­ clude that there were neither exegetical, theological, or extraneous grounds for bap­ tism of infants; and he proposed a "baptism which on the part of the baptised is a responsible act."" Barth ended hi s address with a powerful statement of the efficacy of baptism. The baptised is placed once and for all under the sign of hope. The baptised may become a Mohammedan, a National Socialist, a Bolshevik, or, worst of all , a heretic or a bad or nominal Christian, but the baptised cannot divest themselves of the sign. Brunner, like Barth, continued to have difficulty with sacramental doctrine. In hi s systematic theology the sacraments are scarcely mentioned. Yet Brunner con­ tinues to fmd a place for infant baptism. In The Misunderstanding of the Church (1951) he notes the significance of influences that are beyond our conscious aware­ ness which are operative in the child's development and which may throw light on the significance of baptism. Brunner can affirm, "Baptism is not in the first instance a 5 cognitive but a causativ e act; in baptism one received the gift of the Holy Ghost. " 5 In hi s systematic theology he places the emphasis upon the signifi cance of the parents' and the church's placing the child under the blessing of God in the context of prayer a nd preaching with the prayer that God's spirit shall work in thi s child ' s life. The decisive chall enge to the Reformed Church's understanding of the meaning a nd practi ce of baptism comes from Karl Barth's fi nal work, Church Dogmati cs 4/4. In thi s fragment of what was to be the ethical section of the di scussion of the doctrine of reconciliati on, Barth clearly breaks with traditional Refo rmed theology, or at least seems to break with it. He elaborates a new doctrine of the sacraments whi ch is based upon the study of hi s son Markus Barth (Die Taufe - ein Sakrament ?) and whi ch onl y strengthens hi s early opposition to the bapti sm of infants. Barth , in 1968; no longer regarded baptism as a sacrament but as an ethi cal acti on in response to the grace of God . He begin s hi s di scussion by asking about the origin and initiati on of the Chri stia n life, assuming there is such a reality. The presup­ positions of this life are twofo ld . The first is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as th e act of God in whi ch the hi story of Jesus Christ is revealed to be no transient thing but th e act of God fo r all men. The second presupposition is the work of the Holy Spirit by whi ch the hi story manifested to all men in th e resurrection of Jesus Christ is mani fest a nd present to a specifi c man as hi s own salvati on hi story. " It is the work of the Holy Spirit that hi s man ceases to be a man wh o is closed and blind and deaf and uncomprehending in relati on to thi s disclosure effected for him too. " 5 Barth sums up hi s unde rstandi ng of th e begin ning of the Christi an li fe under th e "slogan" of the bapti sm of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Spirit is ( I) the self-attestati on and self-impartati on of the li ving Jesus Christ to specifi c men, (2) a form of the grace of God whi ch actuall y reconcil es the world , (3) a de mand for gratitude, th at is, in thi s baptism the bapti zed receives hi s Lord and Master, (4) the beginning of li fe in the Christi an fell owship , and (5) a commencement of a life that looks toward the future. The baptism of the Spirit, Barth contends , is a sacramental happening in the current use of the term . " Baptism with the Spirit is effective , causativ e, even creativ e action on man and in man." It is " the acti ve and actu ali zi ng grace ofGod ."7 The real sacrament is " Jesus Christ Himself, fo r only in the incarna­ ti on of the Son of God in the man Jesus is there a real sacramental uni ty between God and man.
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