WACO, Texas (ABP) — After four centuries, believers baptism remains the symbol of Baptist identity, historian Bill Leonard stressed during a lecture series at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary.
But in the 21st century, Baptists must respond to two pressing “problems” with baptism — the widespread requirement that long-term Christians be immersed before joining a Baptist church and the rebaptism of church members, Leonard urged.
“Baptists were dissenters from the very beginning,” noted Leonard, dean of Wake Forest University's Divinity School. The original Baptists first rebelled against what they saw as the corruption of the Anglican Church and its affiliation with the English government. Next, they split from the English Separatists for not distancing themselves far enough from the Anglicans.
And then they even dissented among themselves, he wryly observed. By 1610, that little Baptist church had split itself over the validity of its baptism.
“Baptists understood conscience and dissent in light of the need for sinners to be regenerated — made new through conversion to Christ,” Leonard said. “Believers' baptism, ultimately by immersion, was thus a radical act of Christian commitment, covenantal relationships and anti-establishment dissent.”
They embodied their dissent by insisting on believers' — adult — baptism, refusing to baptize their infant children, he added. Their stand on baptism dissented not only from the practice of the established church, but also from the government, since at the time, English citizenship and church membership were considered the same.
“Baptism is the outward … sign that links regenerate church membership, conscience and dissent as the central witness of Baptist identity in the world,” Leonard insisted. “In short, believers' baptism does many things for the individual and community of faith.”
His list included:
• “It is a biblical act, identifying the believer with Jesus and the movement he called the Kingdom of God.”
• “Believers' baptism is a conversion act, demonstrating the new birth of an individual and incorporating that individual into Christ's body, the church…. For those early Baptists, baptism was public profession of faith. It still is.”
• “Believers' baptism is a churchly act that marks the entry of believers into the covenantal community of the church. Baptism, while administered to individuals, is not an individualistic act. It is incorporation into Christ and his church.”
• “Believers' baptism was and remains a dangerous and dissenting act that frees Christian believers to challenge the principalities and powers of church in response to the dictates of conscience.” He cited a 1660 confession, in which Baptists acknowledged the need for “civil magistrates in all nations” but pledged to “obey God rather than men” when conscience dictated.
The persistent significance of baptism for the Baptist movement presents a vital question, Leonard said: “What are we to do about it on the way through the 21st century?”
Specifically, he asked: “How will we deal with the two most pressing baptismal problems confronting many contemporary Baptist congregations — rebaptism of non-immersed, long-term Christians and the rebaptism of Baptist church members?”
The requirement of rebaptism for people who were baptized as infants and now seek membership in a Baptist church “is perhaps the oldest and most historically divisive question in the history of the movement,” Leonard said. “Baptist churches are on ‘safe' historical ground if they have either open or closed baptismal policies.”
Baptists have not always required rebaptism, particularly when the original baptism was part of the faith-life of the person's family and not a requirement of government, he reported.
Also, the common practice of rebaptism of church members in some congregations should lead Baptists to study issues such as “the baptism of children, the nature of conversion and the theology of baptism itself,” he said.
To guide a 21st-century study of Baptist baptism, Leonard presented a set of questions for churches:
• “Do those churches that accept baptism from other traditions have a way of incorporating new members liturgically and ‘covenantally' into a believers' church? Might a renewal of baptismal vows become a public profession of long-held faith in a new community of the faithful?”
• “Can churches that require immersion of non-immersed, long-time Christians articulate a clear biblical mandate for doing so, especially when ‘New Testament baptism' is given to those who have made immediate profession of faith?”
• “Does immersion given to long-term Christians on the basis of a profession of faith require recipients to repudiate at least implicitly their earlier faith and the Christian tradition that nurtured them to grace?”
• “Should immersion of long-time Christians at least be distinguished from the immersion of new converts?”
• “Given that infant baptism is no longer mandated by state-based religious establishments, are Baptist churches that require immersion of all members prepared to declare that the churches from which would-be members come are ‘false churches' or ‘mere societies'?”
• “Given that the New Testament knows nothing of child baptism, can Baptist churches that require immersion of all members claim ‘the true New Testament baptism' if they baptize children under the age of 12, when Jewish children confirm their faith?
• “Given that many Baptist churches accept children — some even in the preschool ages — as members, how will they define the nature of a believers' church?”
• “If Baptist churches baptize children, especially very young children, can they commit themselves to … helping children remember their profession of faith and baptism? Can they develop clear, intentional methods for ‘confirming' the faith of children once they confront the moral and spiritual dilemmas of adolescence and adulthood?”
• “What can some Baptist churches do to extricate themselves from the cycle of rebaptism given multiple times to professing Christians? If baptism is administered in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, when does rebaptism become an act of literally taking the name of God in vain?”
• “As Baptists lose their culture-dominant status, how does baptism become a renewed sign of conscience and dissent in the world?”
• “How might Baptist churches again become ‘a shelter for persons distressed of conscience' and a prophetic community that distresses the consciences of members and non-members alike in response to the great issues, ideas and injustices of our times?”
• “Might the early Baptists' radical understanding of conscience encourage us to an equally radical concern for voice — an environment in which everyone can speak even when the differences are vast and irreconcilable?”
• “Might a recovery of Baptist dissent compel Baptists to articulate ideas that inform and challenge the church and the culture, even when they will never secure approval by a majority?”