Baptist churches of the Old South had a lovely image for describing entrance into church membership. They would announce that a door of the church was open. Anyone who came forward was asked to give a verbal confession of “their experience of grace.” When everyone was satisfied, “the right hand of fellowship” was extended to the new members.
In those days church membership was open to those baptized as believers only, by immersion only, and into churches of like faith and order only. Unlike our forebears, we accept fellow Christians as co-laborers in the extension of kingdom work. Yet for many Baptists the church door remains just as tightly closed as it was 200 years ago.
Conventional wisdom holds that opening up the door to membership leads to a watering down of baptism. But in fact the main source of a watered-down baptismal practice is not open membership. The more serious problem is overly zealous evangelism without a matching concern for discipleship.
For several decades “toddler baptism” (immersion of children under the age 8) has accounted for more than 10 percent of the reported baptisms in the largest Baptist denomination in the United States, blurring the line between believer and infant baptisms. Repeat “believer” baptism (or baptism as rededication) has also become common practice. The current push for reversing the statistical decline in baptisms may make it easier for people to get into the water, but that isn’t a solution. It’s part of the problem. How then can we recover a baptismal practice that holds water?
The first step is to ensure a strong and intentional connection between faith and baptism. Our Baptist forebears were rightly concerned that personal faith and baptism be tightly linked. This was their major conviction and the basis of their concern about infant baptism. They argued that the only order explicitly warranted by Scripture is profession of faith followed by baptism.
The conviction of regenerate membership, however, can be realized without insisting on that order as long as the link between faith and baptism is strong and intentional. Infant baptism aimed toward conversion of the baptized and believers’ baptism observing baptism of the converted can both share the common goal of regenerate church membership. It is then both conceivable and coherent that Baptist churches might only practice believers’ baptism but receive non-immersed, infant-baptized believers for membership.
The second step to recovering a theology of baptism that holds water is to rediscover the connection between Spirit and water baptism. We have all but lost a sense that anything might be stirring in the water besides our own feet. Our forebears rightly resisted ascribing any “magical” or “regenerative” power to the water that works ex opere operato. Yet in the New Testament, baptism in water and Spirit can hardly be separated.
I grew up among Cambellite cousins who endlessly debated the unclear grammar of “unto forgiveness” mentioned in Acts 2:38. I held firm that forgiveness of sin was a condition, not a consequence, of baptism. What entirely escaped my notice was the grammatically clear promise that baptism was followed by “the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Reading the New Testament guided by George Beasley-Murray’s Baptism in the New Testament enabled me to see more clearly this link between water and Spirit (e.g., Acts 19:6; 1 Cor. 12:13; Titus 3:5).
The journey to rediscovering the work of the Holy Spirit in baptism may be further strengthened by recovering the forgotten Baptist practice of the laying on of hands at baptism, reclaiming Trinitarian doctrinal theology, and even drawing upon the positive influences of the charismatic renewal.
What then are the options for churches reconsidering their membership policy? The first is to insist on closed membership that accepts only those baptized as believers by immersion. The major difficulty with this view is that it denies the working of the Holy Spirit through infant baptism and does not regard communities that observe this practice to be Christian churches.
A second position that attempts to recognize the validity of non-Baptist churches without compromising the practice of believers’ baptism only is semi-closed membership that regards believers’ baptism as a completion or renewal of infant baptism. This view is more ecumenically sensitive, but it is still received by infant-baptizing communions in the same way as closed membership: Infant baptism is not a churchly act, and they are not Christian churches.
A third alternative is associate membership that accepts infant-baptized believers into membership but restricts the offices they might hold and the matters on which they may vote. Associate membership is a compromise for churches that consider open membership too drastic. Yet it leaves unresolved the deeper questions of the validity of infant baptism and the ecclesial status of those who perform it.
A fourth possibility is semi-open membership that receives those baptized as believers (and by immersion) in churches of different faith and order. This view acknowledges the ecclesial status of non-Baptist congregations, but hangs up on the question of mode about which the New Testament is all but silent and would have kept from membership Roger Williams, the first Baptist in America, who was baptized by effusion (pouring).
A fifth option is open membership in which a Baptist congregation practices baptism of believers by immersion only but allows baptized believers into full membership regardless of the mode or age of their baptism. It is important to note that open membership considers infant baptism to be tacitly incomplete until a candidate gives evidence of a personal confession of faith. Churches may wish to observe a rite of remembrance of baptism during the service for receiving Christians from non-Baptist traditions.
Churches are now discerning how they can open up their membership policy without watering it down. It is a hopeful sign that Baptists are beginning to understand themselves, not as a sect, but as the church united with all Christians by “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5). It isn’t a new idea. It’s the oldest truth.
Curtis W. Freeman director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C. This article originally appeared in Baptists Today.