Rector’s Reflections
Tuesday 14th January 2025
Baptism in Today’s Church: Time for a Change?
Today, I am beginning a new series of reflections on the subject of the role of baptism in today’s church. In order to make the subject a little more manageable, I will be focussing mainly on baptism in the Church of England. I will use the word “baptism” as this is the word used by Christians around the world. Sometimes English people are more familiar with the term “christening”. A “christening” is the same as a baptism, but it is often used in England when referring to the baptism of an infant.
I am going to begin by setting out the traditional role of baptism within the life and practice of the Church of England. In tomorrow’s reflections, I will look at the reality of baptismal practice in today’s Church of England. Subsequent reflections will explore some of the current debates and options.
To start with, let me outline the traditional understanding of baptism within the Church of England. The Church of England has always contained a variety of opinions on virtually any matter which you can think of, and so the following sketch of the “traditional understanding” is an attempt to outline the practice of baptism as it has been accepted by approximately 80 per cent of the Church of England over the last couple of hundred years.
The Church of England has seen baptism as a very important element in the life of a Christian. It is the starting point of the “sacramental system”: the belief that a life in communion with Jesus Christ is usually nurtured in and through the sacraments of the Church. The Church of England inherited the idea of the “sacramental system” from the Roman Catholic church. At the Reformation, the Church of England retained the idea of the sacraments, but reduced their official number from seven to two: the sacraments of baptism and holy communion.
Because of its retention of the “sacramental system”, the traditional Church of England view is that no one is entitled to play a role in the life of the church unless they are a baptised member of the Church – either a baptised member of the Church of England or a baptised member of some other church recognised by the Church of England.
In short, the Church of England has traditionally believed that baptism really matters: it matters for an individual’s relationship with God in Jesus Christ, and for the life of the church as a whole.
The Church of England has also retained the tradition of infant baptism. The practice of infant baptism has been an accepted part of Western Christianity since the 4th Century AD. At the time of the Reformation, some Christian groups reacted against the widespread use of infant baptism on the grounds that our relationship with Christ through the sacraments needs to involve some sort of declaration of faith in Jesus Christ, and it is hard to see how a baby or child is able to make such a declaration of faith. This in turn has led to an emphasis on what is called “believers’ baptism”: in other words, baptism is limited to those individuals who are able to make a personal statement of faith in Christ. Such a belief is characteristic of churches which identify as “Baptist” Churches.
I would add that there would those who would argue that the baptism of an infant is also a “believer’s baptism”, because it takes into the account the faith of the infant’s family and godparents, and the faith of the wider Church.
As well retaining infant baptism, the Church of England has traditionally seen baptism completed by the sacrament of confirmation. In the old days, it was usual for most babies to be baptised as infants, almost as a matter of course, and then for a large proportion of those baptised as infants to be confirmed when they reached the age of say 12 or 13. There has been debate over the precise theological significance of confirmation, but it has generally been held that confirmation is a normal thing to do, and a good thing to do. The traditional view has usually been that baptism by itself is not enough to constitute some one as a full member of the Church: it needs to be baptism plus confirmation, and the confirmation itself needs to have been administered by a Bishop recognised as being within the Apostolic Succession. In other words, any old bishop doesn’t count: it has to be what the Church of England considers to be a “proper” bishop.
So much for the traditional view. What of the reality in today’s Church? We shall look at this in tomorrow’s reflections.