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By Water and the Spirit is an
official statement on baptism that was adopted by the 1996 United
Methodist General Conference.
Introduction
Contemporary
United Methodism is attempting to recover and revitalize its
understanding of baptism. To do this, we must look to our heritage as
Methodists and Evangelical United Brethren and, indeed, to the
foundations of Christian Tradition. Throughout our history, baptism has
been viewed in diverse and even contradictory ways. An enriched
understanding of baptism, restoring the Wesleyan blend of sacramental
and evangelical aspects, will enable United Methodists to participate in
the sacrament with renewed appreciation for this gift of God’s grace.
Within the Methodist tradition, baptism
has long been a subject of much concern, even controversy. John Wesley
retained the sacramental theology which he received from his Anglican
heritage. He taught that in baptism a child was cleansed of the guilt of
original sin, initiated into the covenant with God, admitted into the
Church, made an heir of the divine kingdom, and spiritually born anew.
He said that while baptism was neither essential to nor sufficient for
salvation, it was the “ordinary means” that God designated for applying
the benefits of the work of Christ in human lives.
On the other hand, although he affirmed
the regenerating grace of infant baptism, he also insisted upon the
necessity of adult conversion for those who have fallen from grace. A
person who matures into moral accountability must respond to God’s grace
in repentance and faith. Without personal decision and commitment to
Christ, the baptismal gift is rendered ineffective.
Baptism for Wesley, therefore, was a
part of the lifelong process of salvation. He saw spiritual rebirth as a
twofold experience in the normal process of Christian development -- to
be received through baptism in infancy and through commitment to Christ
later in life. Salvation included both God’s initiating activity of
grace and a willing human response.
In its development in the United
States, Methodism was unable to maintain this Wesleyan balance of
sacramental and evangelical emphases. Access to the sacraments was
limited during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when
the Methodist movement was largely under the leadership of laypersons
who were not authorized to administer them. On the American frontier
where human ability and action were stressed, the revivalistic call for
individual decision-making, though important, was subject to
exaggeration. The sacramental teachings of Wesley tended to be ignored.
In this setting, while infant baptism continued not only to be
practiced, but also to be vigorously defended, its significance became
weakened and ambiguous.
Later toward the end of the nineteenth
century, the theological views of much of Methodism were influenced by a
new set of ideas which had become dominant in American culture. These
ideas included optimism about the progressive improvement of humankind
and confidence in the social benefits of scientific discovery,
technology, and education. Assumptions of original sin gave way before
the assertion that human nature was essentially unspoiled. In this
intellectual milieu, the old evangelical insistence upon conversion and
spiritual rebirth seemed quaint and unnecessary.
Thus the creative Wesleyan synthesis of
sacramentalism and evangelicalism was torn asunder and both its
elements devalued. As a result, infant baptism was variously interpreted
and often reduced to a ceremony of dedication. Adult baptism was
sometimes interpreted as a profession of faith and public acknowledgment
of God’s grace, but was more often viewed simply as an act of joining
the Church. By the middle of the twentieth century, Methodism in general
had ceased to understand baptism as authentically sacramental. Rather
than an act of divine grace, it was seen as an expression of human
choice.
Baptism was also a subject of concern
and controversy in the Evangelical and United Brethren traditions that
were brought together in 1946 in The Evangelical United Brethren Church.
Their early pietistic revivalism, based upon belief in the availability
of divine grace and the freedom of human choice, emphasized bringing
people to salvation through Christian experience. In the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, both Evangelical and United Brethren
theologians stressed the importance of baptism as integral to the
proclamation of the gospel, as a rite initiating persons into the
covenant community (paralleling circumcision), and as a sign of the new
birth, that gracious divine act by which persons are redeemed from sin
and reconciled to God. The former Evangelical Church consistently
favored the baptism of infants. The United Brethren provided for the
baptism of both infants and adults. Following the union of 1946, The
Evangelical United Brethren Church adopted a ritual that included
services of baptism for infants and adults, and also a newly created
service for the dedication of infants that had little precedent in
official rituals of either of the former churches.
The 1960-64 revision of The Methodist
Hymnal, including rituals, gave denominational leaders an opportunity to
begin to recover the sacramental nature of baptism in contemporary
Methodism. The General Commission on Worship sounded this note quite
explicitly in its introduction to the new ritual in 1964:
In revising the Order for the
Administration of Baptism, the Commission on Worship has endeavored to
keep in mind that baptism is a sacrament, and to restore it to the
Evangelical-Methodist concept set forth in our Articles of Religion . . .
Due recognition was taken of the critical reexamination of the theology
of the Sacrament of Baptism which is currently taking place in
ecumenical circles, and of its theological content and implications.
The commission provided a brief
historical perspective demonstrating that the understanding of baptism
as a sacrament had been weakened, if not discarded altogether, over the
years. Many in the Church regarded baptism, both of infants and adults,
as a dedication rather than as a sacrament. The commission pointed out
that in a dedication we make a gift of a life to God for God to accept,
while in a sacrament God offers the gift of God’s unfailing grace for us
to accept. The 1964 revision of the ritual of the sacrament of baptism
began to restore the rite to its original and historic meaning as a
sacrament.
In the 1989 The United Methodist
Hymnal, the Services of the Baptismal Covenant I, II and IV (taken from
the 1984 official ritual of the denomination as printed in The Book of
Services) continue this effort to reemphasize the historic significance
of baptism. These rituals, in accenting the reality of sin and of
regeneration, the initiating of divine grace and the necessity of
repentance and faith, are consistent with the Wesleyan combination of
sacramentalism and evangelicalism.
United Methodism is not alone in the
need to recover the significance of baptism nor in its work to do so.
Other Christian communions are also reclaiming the importance of this
sacrament for Christian faith and life. To reach the core of the meaning
and practice of baptism, all have found themselves led back through the
life of the Church to the Apostolic Age. An ecumenical convergence has
emerged from this effort, as can be seen in the widely acclaimed
document, Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry (1982).
Established by the General
Conference of 1988 and authorized to continue its work by the General
Conference of 1992, the Committee to Study Baptism is participating in
this process by offering a theological and functional understanding of
baptism as embodied in the ritual of The United Methodist Church. In so
doing, the broad spectrum of resources of Scripture, Christian
tradition, and the Methodist-Evangelical United Brethren experience has
been taken into account. The growing ecumenical consensus has assisted
us in our thinking.
