The Associated Baptist Press has an interesting article by Ken Camp titled What Happens When Baptists Cannot Agree About Baptism?
Believer’s baptism by immersion represents an act of obedience to Christ’s command, not just a Baptist prerequisite to church membership, said Karen Bullock, professor of Christian heritage and director of the Ph.D. program at the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute.
“There are young people in all of our churches who say they want just to ‘love Jesus’ but don’t want to be a member of a community of faith or to be baptized. These individuals reason that they can go to heaven and be a Christ-follower without baptism since, they argue, it does not convey salvation, and it is not necessary for salvation,” she observed.
“They don’t like having to think about being ‘dunked’ in water in front of a bunch of people they don’t know or care about. They don’t think Jesus’ command to be baptized should be applied to them and don’t know the biblical link between believer’s baptism and the local church.
“But at its root, many who work with young people who talk like this say that this may be an authority issue for them. They just want to pick and choose what parts they will do and will not do. Believer’s baptism is a matter of obedience to Christ, not just an outdated and meaningless churchly act. Baptists have not historically adjusted our theology to make it more palatable to culture.”
I found the bolded sentence above to be just a bit odd. I was baptized by my father in a church that I had faithfully attended for several years. I wasn’t dunked in front of a bunch of people I didn’t know and didn’t care about. Quite the opposite. I wonder how many people who get baptized believe they are getting “dunked” in front of a bunch of strangers?
Also, the suggestion that we Baptists have not adjusted out theology “to make it more palatable to culture” is a bit baffling. I’m pretty sure that the influence of culture played a role in moving Baptists away from their support of slavery and defense of segregation. Baptist theology has helped shape culture and culture has helped shape Baptist theology. Historians are in agreement on that point.
Bullock concludes:
“But I don’t think abandoning or compromising the basic fundamental New Testament teachings about salvation and discipleship and obedience and the nature of true faith — all portrayed by believer’s baptism — will help us to become more vital as a distinctive people of God.”
This is strong language – similar to the arguments of SWBTS theologian Malcolm Yarnell which received much attention in the Southern Baptist blogosphere a while back. No room for diversity when it comes to this distinctive. To accuse a Baptist church that has adopted a more inclusive approach to baptism of abandoning or compromising fundamental teachings about salvation, etc. is a serious charge in my opinion.
“To accuse a Baptist church that has adopted a more inclusive approach to baptism of abandoning or compromising fundamental teachings about salvation, etc. is a serious charge in my opinion.”
As far as I can tell, no one has put Baptist as a fundamental teaching about salvation. That wouldn’t be Baptist, that would be Church of Christ. However, it would be a fundamental distinctive to being Baptist. It is sort of where our name came from.
“I wonder how many people who get baptized believe they are getting “dunked” in front of a bunch of strangers?”
I was dunked in front of a bunch of strangers. When I was baptized, I didn’t even know that I was also joining FBC of Palacios. I was just convinced that I was being obedient to Jesus. I had gone to a retreat at the behest of my brother, who had been attending FBC for a while. That is where I first heard about baptism. Before that, I had been a member for FUMC of Palacios for about a year.
Tim
I’m sure there are some folks like yourself who were indeed baptized in front of a bunch of strangers. I would contend that this is closer to the exception rather than the rule. From my experience, Bullock is making a rather significant generalization with the stranger comment.
I agree that Believer’s Baptism by immersion is a distinctive. Although, Baptist distinctives have historically been in tension with other Baptist distinctives. I do not think anyone has argued that Baptists should be sprinkling babies. What is under consideration (and discussed by Curtis Freeman in this article though not really addressed by Garrett/Bullock) is not whether a new Christian should receive Believer’s Baptism but whether a Baptist church should grant membership to a believer from a different Christian tradition who has not previously received adult baptism by immersion.
Bullock and Garrett seem to suggest that there is only one Baptist position here with regards to baptism/regenerate church membership (as those two distinctives are certainly tightly linked). Meanwhile, Freeman points out that a minority of Baptists have practiced open membership. You have here the distinctive of baptism in tension with other distinctives such as ecumenical cooperation and liberty of conscience. Those distinctives do not exist in isolation of one another. Is there one single Baptist Way or are there Baptist Ways?
And Bullock does draw a clear connection between baptism as a basic fundamental teaching (an act of obedience) that has implications for salvation. How else do you interpret her concluding quote? See below:
“But I don’t think abandoning or compromising the basic fundamental New Testament teachings about salvation and discipleship and obedience and the nature of true faith — all portrayed by believer’s baptism — will help us to become more vital as a distinctive people of God.”
Thanks for posting this. I wasn’t aware of the article. My church struggled with this issue over the past couple of years. In the end, we decided that we would only baptize believers by immersion, but would not require the baptism of prospective members who had already been baptized by other means.
Early Baptists saw baptism as the expression of “a sober, sacred vow with heavy expectations for church membership and a life of selfless service to Christ,” Bullock added. So, they insisted candidates for baptism possess the maturity to make that kind of serious commitment.
bapticus hereticus: In this conversation, this is, in my estimation, the central issue. It also points to a dilemma of commitment to Christ as being point or process. If point, then more formal processes for assuring a reasonable motivation for commitment is necessitated, but which are lacking in probably most baptist churches. If process, then commitment will be facilitated by informal interactions and renewed over time due to cognitive and faith development. As cognitive and faith development reach higher levels of maturity, many issues that were once of major concern are reconceptualized and relativized. Whereas one will, highly likely, affirm a particular faith tradition, one will, however, affirm it as adequate and inadequate, relevant and irrelevant. One will become more open to the truth claims of other traditions and allow them to critique his own as his offers others. When the one perceives the other as other and can affirm such, differences divide less and facilitate more appreciation for and insights into the richness and mystery of being. Thus the parochial, still manifest to the latent universal, will be valued appropriately for its internal consistency and openness to deeper and richer understandings of truth. The rub: if extant research on faith development is our guide and past is prologue, very few people achieve this level of maturity. Thus our concerns will continue to be lower-order stuff that will divide and promote adherence to a faith tradition that values a type of commitment that, unfortunately, attenuates one’s ability or desire to advance it.
If Baptists continue to receive members from other Baptist churches “by letter,” and wish to have only members having had believer’s baptism by immersion, then Baptist churches practicing the “open” membership will necessitate additional questioning by the receiving church. “By letter” can no longer be assumed to ensure a traditional church is receiving a qualified member.
A monkey wrench, indeed.