BAPTISM in the Uniting Church in Australia

This article, by the late Rev Dr Robert Bos, was first published in Uniting Church Studies. Rob had been the National Director responsible for Doctrine for many years and summarised the situation very well here. It remains one of the best records we have of the foundational history for UCA understandings today.

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that other controversy: debates over baptism in the UCA 1977-2003(1)

(This article was published in Uniting Church Studies, vol 11, no. 1, March 2005, pp. 1-20.)

Baptism has probably been the second most controversial issue in the life of the Uniting Church. To revive debate about our understanding of Baptism and, moreover, to argue that a renewal of our theology and practice of Baptism can be a key to the renewal of the church, might well be a case of fools rushing in where others, whether of an angelic or other nature, fear to tread. But I reassure myself that a certain obedient and responsible foolhardiness often characterises the Christian life - and may even be a way of fulfilling one's baptismal calling!

early statements on Baptism

The Church: Its Nature, Function and Ordering was the second report of the Joint Commission on Church Union. It was one of the key documents on which three churches came together in 1977 to form the Uniting Church in Australia. This report contains a comprehensive statement on Baptism(2) covering its origins, meaning, implications for Christian living and future promise. The statement recognises that Baptism brings both gifts and obligations. 

Paragraph 7 of the Basis of Union then recognises that Baptism is a work of Christ in the church and that it “initiates people into Christ's life and mission in the world so that they are united in one fellowship of love, service and joy…” Furthermore, and crucially for the looming debate, the same paragraph affirms that “The Uniting Church will baptise those who confess the Christian faith, and children who are presented for Baptism and for whose instruction and nourishment in the faith the Church takes responsibility.”(3)

from the First to the Fourth Assemblies - 1977 to 1985

On the second day of the First Assembly, the Commission on Doctrine was created. Among the tasks allotted to it was a request for a report on the Appendices to the Basis of Union, which contained statements on Baptism and the Lord's Supper. 

When the Commission first met in October 1977, it had before it, not only the tasks given to it by the first Assembly, but also a request from the Presbytery of Barwon “for a statement on infant baptism, with particular reference to people of charismatic persuasion.”(4) Within the first few months of the new Uniting Church's life, it was already engaged in debate on issues which were to trouble the church for years to come.

The Commission set to work and brought a statement to the Second Assembly in 1979 outlining the core understanding of Baptism and acknowledging two practical issues which were the subject of lively debate: 1. How far should the church go in accommodating those who do not accept infant Baptism? 2. How can the church guard against cheapening Baptism through indiscriminate administration?(5)

At the same time, the Second Assembly also adopted An Agreed Statement on Baptism by the Roman Catholic Church and the Uniting Church.(6) The fact that such a statement could be brought indicates, somewhat ironically, that there was widespread official agreement with some of our ecumenical partners about the doctrine of Baptism, whilst within the Uniting Church itself there was deep disagreement - a state of affairs which we will encounter again. 

At the Third Assembly in 1982, the issue of Baptism continued to be on the agenda. In fact, during the intervening three years since the Second Assembly, much of the time of the Commission on Doctrine(7) had been taken up with the baptismal issue, including responses to the interim statement adopted by the Second Assembly. In an effort to quell continuing unrest, the Commission brought a set of questions and answers for consideration. Questions 6 to 14 dealt with Baptism.(9) Some ministers, contrary to the Basis of Union, had refused to baptise young children as a matter of principle. Question 9 therefore read: “Should the Church ever refuse Baptism?” - the answer to which was the longest of all, and noted “It is apparent that the Uniting Church … is divided on this issue.” Because of the actions of certain ministers on the question of Baptism, the church's understanding of ordination was also clarified.(10) The Third Assembly resolved to “receive the questions and answers Nos 6-14 … as elucidation of the Church's understanding of Baptism …”(11)

Despite the fact that the crucial question 9 left the matter open, the Queensland Synod, among others, believed the decision of the Third Assembly to be harsh and inflexible and petitioned the Assembly Standing Committee (ASC) in 1984 to further clarify the church's doctrine, foreshadowing a notice of motion for the Fourth Assembly due the following year.(12)

1982 also saw the publication of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry by the World Council of Churches.(13) As in other churches, this important and formative document was widely studied by Uniting Church members, often in ecumenical groups.(14)

Meanwhile, the Uniting Church itself continued to wrestle with the issues over which its members disagreed. In 1983 the Joint Board of Christian Education published a booklet to help parents considering having children baptised, and another to help young people and adults preparing for Baptism.(15) This was followed in 1984 by Baptism, an Evangelical Sacrament, a study book.(16)

the Fourth Assembly - 1985

Even with the documents and publications already provided, and the conversations in the church over an eight year period, the Fourth Assembly felt it necessary to make a definitive ruling.(17) It resolved, “[t]o require all Uniting Church Ministers, Elders' Councils and Congregations to preach, teach and administer the sacrament of Baptism in accordance with the Church's adopted position.” There was some subsequent confusion, however, about what was meant by “the Church's adopted position.”(18) Did this mean all the detail in every statement ever adopted? In its first meeting after the Assembly, the ASC moved to clarify the intention of the Assembly. The ASC declared that what was meant by this were two matters of pastoral practice affirmed by previous Assemblies, namely:

(i) that 'the Uniting Church will baptise those who confess the Christian faith, and children who are presented for Baptism and for whose instruction and nourishment in the faith the church takes responsibility' (Basis of Union, para. 7);

(ii) that Baptism is unrepeatable.(19)

This was communicated to the church in a pastoral letter from the President and General Secretary in October 1985. At the same time, the Commission of Doctrine was instructed “to continue to provide more adequate elucidation of the Church's doctrine of Baptism in the light of the ongoing debate…”(20)

Some within the Presbytery of Canberra found themselves unable to comply with the Assembly decision. The Presbytery asked the ASC to suspend the Fourth Assembly's resolution regarding Baptism until it could be considered by other councils of the church. The ASC recognised that it simply did not have the authority to vary a decision of the Assembly, or to interpret it contrary to the Assembly's clear intention. Sadly, some people, including some ministers, left the Uniting Church.

Conversations with the Anglican Church had meanwhile progressed to the point where the Commission on Ecumenical Affairs brought to the Fourth Assembly a statement on Baptism, to which representatives of the Anglican and Uniting churches had agreed. This was also adopted by the Assembly.(21) Again, as when the Uniting Church and Roman Catholic Church had drafted a joint statement brought to Assembly six years earlier, the Anglican/Uniting Church Agreed Statement on Baptism demonstrated ecumenical agreement on an issue over which the Uniting Church was itself divided.

A further significant strand of the Baptism discussion arose at the same Assembly out of a report brought jointly by the Joint Board of Christian Education, the Commission on Doctrine and the Commission on Liturgy. As a result, the Assembly resolved to “declare that in the Uniting Church in Australia it is appropriate and desirable for baptised children, being members of the Church, to participate in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, including reception of the elements.”(22) To help congregations with the implementation of this, it was agreed to provide resources.(23)

In spite of the previously adopted Uniting Church statements and booklets, the discussions on the WCC document, and the conversations around the agreed statements with the Catholics and Anglicans, the Fourth Assembly called for yet another “clear statement of the Uniting Church's understanding of Baptism, Holy Communion and Confirmation and of desirable practices which flow from this …”(24) This was produced in 1988 under the title Understanding the Church's Teaching on Baptism.(25)

from the Fifth to the Sixth Assemblies - 1988 to 1991

At the Fifth Assembly (1988) it was resolved that only a specific form of words could be used in Baptism “without variation or exception”.(26)This did not arise out of the controversy in the church, but arose from the Commission for Liturgy's(27) desire to maintain the integrity of the doctrine of Baptism and the Uniting Church's relationships with ecumenical partners. 

Furthermore, with the possibility of rebaptism being definitely ruled out by the church's previously adopted position and its agreed statements with the Catholics and Anglicans, the possibility of using water in a personal re-affirmation was raised. There were those who felt that their own unremembered infant Baptism meant little and desired the opportunity for rebaptism at an older age, preferably by full immersion, and it was hoped that by providing an opportunity to use water in a reaffirmation of Baptism might help such people. The Commission on Mission(28) was asked to consider this and report back to the ASC.(29)

Even though the 1985 clear decisions required all ministers to administer the sacrament of Baptism in accordance with the church's position, the ASC, at a specially convened meeting in November 1988, resolved to appoint a task force “to consider whether a Minister of the Word in the Uniting Church may be allowed as a matter of conscience to refuse to baptise infants …”(30) This was convened by Ian Tanner. As well as the ongoing unrest in other parts of the church, a minister in Western Australia had indicated that he could no longer in good conscience baptise infants. He had asked for a Presidential Ruling, which upheld his request(31), but the ASC did not confirm this part of the President's ruling.(32)

Tanner's task force brought an interim report to March 1989(33) meeting of ASC and its final report in November 1989. This identified key passages in the historic confessions of faith and other key documents specified in the Basis of Union, par. 10 and offered an interpretation of the phrase “allows for difference of opinion in matters which do not enter the substance of the faith” in par. 14. It then stated unequivocally that “[t]he Uniting Church in Australia does not permit a Minister of the Word as a matter of conscience to refuse to baptise infants”. Some implications of this were then listed. The problems entailed in the church making a different decision, were it inclined to do so, were also spelled out. 

Some were inclined to argue that an authoritative position of the church is one thing, but the issue of whether ministers may then have a difference of opinion and practice is a different matter. It was also argued that the Fourth Assembly concerned itself only with the unrepeatability of Baptism, not infant Baptism - even though it was largely the people who opposed infant Baptism who argued that Baptism may be repeated. Yet, it is difficult to see how the task group could have come to any other conclusion, given the previous decisions of the church and its heritage in the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian traditions - each of which baptised children - as well as the statements agreed to with the Catholic and Anglican churches. 

Nevertheless, the ASC immediately resolved to appoint a new Task Group, with some members apparently hoping for a different outcome.  Its terms of reference included a consideration of “whether Ministers of the Word should be allowed, on the grounds of conscience, to refuse to baptise infants.” After some difficulty recruiting members, the General Secretary reported that the new group had been formed in March 1990, to be convened by Ian Breward.

Breward's new task force reported in September 1990. It pointed out the changed context since the Basis of Union had been drafted, outlined the biblical and theological bases for and against the Baptism of infants, considered the meaning of the phrase in the Basis of Union allowing for liberty of opinion in non-essentials, and explored some consequences of alternative courses of action. The report of that task group formed the basis of a discussion paper on baptismal practice entitled The Water that Unites, issued by the General Secretary in 1991. 

As Michael Owen has pointed out(34), this document unhelpfully opens up issues previously settled by the Fourth Assembly and presented a somewhat distorted view of the previously established position of the Uniting Church. Owen also discusses in detail the meaning and application of allowable “difference of opinion” as stated in the Basis of Union, paragraph 14.

The same ASC meeting(35) which approved the circulation of The Water that Unites also considered the report of the Commission for Mission on the issue of the use of water in the recollection of Baptism, as requested by the Fifth Assembly three years previously. Its majority recommendation was that the ASC “authorise the introduction of a liturgy in which an act of immersion or pouring is used in a service for the recollection of Baptism, but in which it is clearly stated that the intention is not to baptise …” This recommendation was referred to the Sixth Assembly, which resolved to refer the matter to presbyteries for consideration.(36)

from the Sixth to the Seventh Assemblies - 1991 to 1994

The Sixth Assembly met in July 1991. It had before it the Report of the Task Group on Ministry of the Church which had been appointed to resource the church for “a study on the changing patterns of ministry, and what is and will be required to equip the whole people of God for their ministry and mission in a changing world in the light of the gospel …”(37) The decisions made by the Sixth Assembly arising out of the discussion paper(38) resulted in the pattern of six specified ministries, two of which are ordained ministries.(39) As did the 1964 document The Church: Its Nature, Function and Ordering, Baptism is appropriately seen as the basis of ministry, but recognises that there is still a lack of clarity about how this is so. It was perhaps unfortunate that the link between Baptism and ministry was not developed more clearly in this document.(40)

The Report on Ministry in the Uniting Church in Australia also suggested that the provision in the Regulations for lay persons to preside at the sacraments (Baptism and Holy Communion) with the people with whom they are in ministry, be considered seriously. The Sixth Assembly therefore asked the Commission on Doctrine to advise on this.(41) A draft paper went to the March 1993 meeting of ASC, which forwarded it to presbyteries and synods for comments. The responses were considered and a revised draft went to the March 1994 meeting.  Guidelines were then drawn up for presbyteries which would permit them to authorise lay persons to conduct the sacraments when certain conditions were met, and the person to be authorised had completed a course of study to equip them for this ministry.(42)

The discussion paper The Water that Unites elicited 219 responses and Rod Horsfield chaired the Task Group which considered these. It reported to the September 1993 ASC meeting.(43) It found that, while individual lay persons and ministers were open to accommodating ministers who could not in conscience practise the church's stated position on the Baptism of infants, councils of elders, parish councils, presbyteries, synods and assembly agencies were overwhelmingly not in favour of accommodating ministers with such views. The ASC then reiterated the clear position of the church as stated in the Basis of Union and various Assembly and ASC minutes. It also spelled out guidelines for presbyteries as they dealt with the pastoral issues this implied.(44)

ASC met again in March of 1994 and the General Secretary reported that he had received 24 letters of concern, protest or challenge. The ASC also received three communications from presbyteries and a request from the Synod of Tasmania to delete or revise the counselling proposals.(45) Two congregations had withdrawn from the Uniting Church; O'Connor in Canberra and Churchlands in Perth, and the ministers of those congregations were in the process of resigning from the Uniting Church. Some elders also resigned their eldership. The General Secretary had issued a letter explaining why the ASC had made the decision it had and what the implications of the decision were.(46)

The Seventh Assembly met in 1994. With one amendment, it resolved in the same wording as ASC at its March 1994 meeting. It thus restated the church's position - that the church will baptise both those who profess the Christian faith and the children for whose instruction and nourishment the Church takes responsibility, that Baptism is unrepeatable, and that ministers and councils of elders are required to practise Baptism according to the church's stated position. The Assembly also offered guidelines for presbyteries in dealing with ministers unable to accept the church's position.  As Owen comments:

Baptism is integral to the life, work and unity of the Church; and it is also integral to the ministry of the Word. Contradictory practices in regard to Baptism go to the heart of the Church's membership and its unity. To refuse to baptize children as a matter of principle is to say that they are not acceptable as members of Christ's body and to call into question the membership of all children who have been baptized.(47)

underlying issues

It is likely that the simmering dissent on Baptism over two decades can be largely explained by two quite different views of the Christian life. More than forty years ago Stephen Neill characterised these as follows:

One group sees conversion as beginning when one personally encounters Jesus Christ, repents and accepts God's gift of salvation through faith. (The church is then the sum total of individuals who have passed through this experience.)

Another group sees the Christian life beginning at Baptism, when the grace of God, operating through the church, takes away sin and the divine life is sown as a seed in the person's life and the gift of the Spirit is imparted to the person in response to the prayer of the church. Subsequently, the person needs to recognise the reality of what God has done and to take that seriously.(48)

The former has a more individualistic emphasis, gives a higher importance to Christian experience and is based on a “low” ecclesiology. It received emphasis through the evangelical revivals of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. If one takes the view that a personal encounter with Jesus is necessary and that the individual needs to make a conscious decision to follow him, then to baptise infants and claim that such Baptism marks the beginning of the Christian life makes little sense.

The latter is the more traditional or orthodox view and emphasises the gracious initiative and action of God through the church and is somewhat suspicious of individual experience. The baptised person is a full member of the people of God, just as a person is a member of his or her birth family and a citizen before any conscious decision is made about that. (The person may subsequently decide to withdraw from the relationship with God and God's church and thus, presumably render the Baptism ineffective, although not invalid.) This view recognises that, in the Bible, God's relationship with humans is often more of a corporate one, expressed in covenants. Those who support this latter view can appeal to the Reformation confessions, and gain support from our Anglican, Catholic and Lutheran partners, as indeed they did in the many statements and documents which the Uniting Church produced.

Clearly one of the difficulties faced by the Uniting Church is that, while it recognises that “Baptism into Christ's body initiates people into Christ's life and mission in the world”,(49) it is the experience of many ministers that they get requests to baptise children from parents who have no personal allegiance to the Christian faith or affiliation with the church. While these parents may, or may not, see Baptism as signifying the grace of God, it is unlikely that they see this as becoming a member of the church or issuing in life-long active discipleship, and are therefore at odds with the church's position. It is therefore not surprising that some ministers find it easier to simply rule out infant Baptism altogether.(50) Nevertheless, the fact that pastoral problems arise is not a reason to change doctrine.

Others, on the other hand, see the Baptism of infants from non-church families as pastoral opportunities to explain the Christian faith and to express God's gracious hospitality. 

The Reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries expected at least one of the parents to be a believing, practising Christian.(51) The Uniting Church does not specify this in its official documents, although it does ask parents to say, together with the congregation, the Apostles' Creed. Furthermore, it puts a considerable responsibility for teaching and nurture on the congregation, as par. 7 of the Basis of Union and many of the subsequent statements make clear. Without the active cooperation of the parents, however, it becomes extremely difficult for the congregation to fulfil the vows it makes, apart from explaining the church's understanding as clearly and carefully as it can as requests for baptism are made.

the proposal for a Catechumenate

What the debates in the Uniting Church over a twenty year period demonstrate is the aptness of the statement from the task group which considered the responses to The Water that Unites:

The Assembly must be willing to accept nothing less than a long term commitment to the renewal of the sacrament of Baptism in the Church. The establishment of a practical catechumenate or time of preparation for Baptism may well be considered by the Uniting Church at this time when the renewal of the catechumenate is proceeding in the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches.(52)

The Task Group on Baptism and Related Matters was appointed in November 1994 under the convenership of Robert Gribben. It considered especially how the commitment in the above paragraph might best be implemented.

This task group brought a comprehensive interim report to the September 1996 meeting of the ASC(53) which included a detailed rationale for the establishment of a catechumenate, including its nature and origins. This was supported by anthropological theory about initiation practices. Essentially the catechumenate is a process, first used widely in the third to fifth centuries, to prepare candidates for Baptism. The document described the contemporary revival of catechumenal processes in the Catholic Church and in many Protestant Churches.(54) The catechumenal process centres both on Christian living, as well as belief. It takes the candidate through four phases: 

Inquiry. Friendship and hospitality are offered to persons not currently Christians or members of the church. They are encouraged to explore their life questions in relation to the Christian faith.

Formation. Once the person commits to exploring the faith in depth, they are welcomed into the Christian community, given a sponsor or companion, and engage in reflection and study on Christian behaviour and belief.

Candidacy. At this point (usually the six weeks of Lent) the candidate engages in an intensive period of preparation, including prayer, fasting, spiritual retreat, and examination of conscience. This culminates in Baptism (or Confirmation) at the Easter Vigil.

Integration. During the season of Easter, the newly-baptised reflect on their Easter experience of dying and rising with Christ as the core symbol, principle and motivation in their lives and engage in active ministry.

These stages must not, however, be seen as a rigid program, but need to be offered to each candidate with sensitivity to the Spirit's working in the person's life. The rate and manner in which a person moves through the process will vary considerably from individual to individual.

Suitable liturgies act as rites of passage as candidates progress from one phase to the next: the Rite of Welcome to mark the transition from Inquiry to Formation; the Rite of Calling to mark the transition from Formation to Candidacy; and Baptism (or Confirmation, or Personal Reaffirmation) to mark the transition from Candidacy to Integration.

This task group continued to meet until 1999, when it brought its final report to the ASC. It again stressed the helpfulness of a revised form of the ancient catechumenate, adapted to the current social situation, and outlined the kinds of resources which would be helpful for effective implementation. Its key recommendation was to “commend the formation of a catechumenate as a mission strategy, and ask Theology and Discipleship to oversee its development within the Church as a whole.”(55)

the discussion paper leading up to the Tenth Assembly

Theology and Discipleship was a new agency in 1998. In preparation for the Tenth Assembly in 2003, with the approval and authority of the ASC, it circulated a discussion paper entitled Becoming Disciples. This attempted to resolve some difficulties surrounding the issue of church membership (including its relation to Baptism) and presented a concrete proposal for the catechumenate to the church at large. 

The discussion paper elicited just over 300 responses. These made it clear that there was still some unrest in the church over the baptismal issue. The responses also revealed that many people in the church had little understanding of the centrality of Baptism in the church or the Christian life and, in particular, the connection between Baptism and church membership. This meant that the changes to membership regulations which Theology and Discipleship hoped for were unlikely to gain widespread support. Rather than seek to impose them on a reluctant church, these were reserved for further discussion. With hindsight, it may have been helpful had the discussion paper included in more detail the theological rationale for the membership proposals, rather than to have presumed that the councils and members of the church were thoroughly conversant with the Uniting Church's already adopted position.

On the other hand, there was a good response to the proposal for the implementation of the catechumenate, to be known as the Becoming Disciples process.(56) This process is designed to support congregations in their ministry of evangelism and making disciples so as to culminate in Baptism, confirmation or reaffirmation of faith. The first national consultation on the Becoming Disciples was held in Adelaide in August 2004 with two  experienced resource persons from other denominations, Daniel Benedict from the United Methodist Church USA and Pat Strong from the Anglican Archdiocese of Brisbane. 

While the Becoming Disciples process is not primarily designed to overcome any lingering theological qualms on the part of some about the Uniting Church's oft-debated position on Baptism, it will help the church to practise the sacrament with more integrity. It aims to help congregations to take the formation of disciples much more seriously, and thus to establish more firmly the connection between evangelism, the sacrament of Baptism and the Christian life as one of active discipleship.

renewing our theology of Baptism

I suggested that behind the twenty years of debate about Baptism were different views of the Christian life. As often happens in the heat of an argument, different sides are forced to clarify their positions and, in the process, come to emphasise and elaborate the distinctive features of their own position. Attitudes harden. Polarisation increases. Like-minded cliques form and re-enforce each other. Dialogue becomes more difficult. On the other hand, a more sober and disinterested view may lead one to suspect that both sides are right, and both sides are wrong - in that their positions are incomplete. Was it Mark Twain who quipped that people are usually right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny?

A careful reading of the biblical documents would tell us that the New Testament has various images associated with Baptism. These include (a) being washed clean  in 1 Cor 6:11; (b) dying and rising with Christ in Rom. 6:3-5; Col. 2:12; (c) reclothing  in Gal. 3:27, (d) being born again in John 3:5; (e) enlightenment in Eph. 5:14. Furthermore, the water bath of Baptism is likened to a birth bath in John 3:3-5 and Titus 3:5-7, to a funeral bath in Romans 6:1-11 and a nuptial bath in Eph. 5:26(57). This rich flourishing of imagery, when placed alongside the numerous more discursive statements on Baptism, point to a whole complex of meaning linked with the central notion of new life or salvation. God's grace, repentance and faith, forgiveness, the water bath, participation in Christ's baptism, participation in Christ's death and resurrection, purification, being adopted and becoming heirs, the gift of the Spirit, being incorporated into the body of believers, maintaining unity of fellowship, finding a new orientation with all its ethical implications - all are intimately part of the conversion process. Sometimes the New Testament writers explore some aspects; at other times other aspects. Sometimes they make connections between two or three of these; at other times they make other links.(58)

Furthermore, the New Testament is not overly concerned with the chronology of the Christian life. The Spirit may work differently in different circumstances and with different people. Sometimes repentance comes first, sometimes the gift of the Spirit and sometimes belonging to a fellowship. There is no “right order,” no immutable programmed script, and the fact that the events may be separated in time and space is immaterial.

Perhaps we may see this as resonating with the fact that past, present and future are somehow collapsed when the Reign of God breaks into our world, when eternity invades time, when heaven meets earth. In baptism we become children of Abraham and Sarah, we pass through the sea with Moses, we are baptised with Christ in the Jordan, we are crucified, buried and rise with Christ, we are present at Pentecost - all in the here and now, while at the same time becoming citizens of the age which is yet to come. In the same way  the “remembering” of the Lord's Supper is not simply casting our imaginations back to the upper room or Jesus' other meals and celebrations; it is a making present again; it is re-presentation, more than representation. While this may be difficult to comprehend from a linear (and limited?) post-Enlightenment scientific world-view, it presents far fewer difficulties for people in other cultures.(59)

It is therefore easy (but wrong) to fix our attention onto one or two favourite images or a few aspects of the whole baptismal meaning-complex and fail to see the overall message. It is also easy (but wrong) to focus on one or two conversion stories in the New Testament and claim for them a mandatory pattern for all. Taking the New Testament seriously means seeing that it all belongs inextricably together. Baptism (and the Lord's Supper) is the effective sign of all that the New Covenant entails - salvation in Christ.

renewing our practice of Baptism

As we have noted, the church of the first few centuries developed the practice of very careful and thorough preparation for Baptism. The church found this necessary so that people could be well-grounded in the alternative behaviours, beliefs and practices of the Christian community. After they demonstrated that their lives were being reshaped by the Spirit, i.e. that they were being converted, only then were they accepted as catechumens.(60)

Once Christianity became the established religion in Europe, infant Baptism became less a sign of an alternative Christian identity and costly discipleship and more the mark of citizenship.(61) To be a citizen was to be a Christian and vice versa. Baptism was no longer a mark of cross-carrying, of living by alternative loyalties, in an alternative society with alternative values; Baptism largely degenerated into being simply a naming ceremony marking a rite of passage for a family which had changed through the addition of a new member. Alongside of this developed the superstition that the sprinkling with water in a liturgical context was to purchase a ticket to heaven, and fire insurance against the other place.

Emerging from the Christendom era,(62) the Christian church in the twenty-first century has the opportunity to find its own particular identity as people who are deeply formed by the Spirit in the central stories of the gospel. This means rediscovering what God has done in Jesus, what the church is, and the nature of discipleship in the current context. My thesis is that this task of ecclesiastical renewal and theological rediscovery is best, or perhaps can only be, grounded in a renewed theology and practice of Baptism. That would mean ensuring that adults being prepared for Baptism or confirmation have thorough preparation, and that adults bringing children for Baptism are also required to undergo a careful preparation and have at least one parent committed to the way of Jesus and a member of the church, so that parents and congregation can cooperate in fulfilling the vows that are made.

Douglas John Hall has helpfully written: 

[A]s the Christian religion emerges out of the constantinian cocoon in which, throughout most of its history, it has been so tightly enclosed, Christians find themselves relieved of the burden of assuming, as the raison d'être of their movement, custodianship of the random religious sentiments and moral codes that have clustered about the corpus Christianum. In short, we are free, insofar as we are courageous enough to undertake it, to contemplate and to enact in concrete ways the only biblically and theologically sound reason we have for calling ourselves Christians - which is to say our confession of Jesus as the Christ.

Can we avoid the treadmill of rehashing the old arguments by looking at Baptism in a fresh, clear way so that all the other issues which surround it are thrown into a new perspective and fall into place? My hunch is that, as we emerge from Christendom, the church must find a new identity as God's peculiar people by again placing Baptism at the heart of church life. This needs to be expressed in clear, energising theology, practised in life-changing rites and accompanied by careful, sensitive catechumenal processes. 

If my hunch is correct, then other practices we think will renew the church (from new forms of worship and sociological surveys to witty quips on church notice boards and brewed coffee), whilst not unimportant, really need to be rethought in terms of our fundamental identity as a baptised people. 

In the post-Christendom context, we can no longer rely on shared cultural understandings about basic beliefs, ethics or spirituality - these are, to a considerable extent, no longer Christian, if they ever were. These have to be inculcated carefully and thoroughly. We therefore find that the inspired wisdom of the early church about the making of Christians needs to be recovered and adapted to our contemporary situation.

In the post-Christendom context, Christians can again be assured of their unique identity as, “resident aliens”(63): people who, in theological terms, have been accepted by the Father because of the life, death, resurrection and glorification of the Son in the power of the Spirit; people who, in psychological terms, have been reborn, enlightened, refashioned, remade into the likeness of Christ; people who, in sociological terms, have now received their naturalisation certificate or their adoption papers into the reign of God and are full members of God's forgiven, but yet imperfect people - the Church, and who therefore live lives of costly discipleship.

Given the radical transformation that the person undergoes in the conversion process, we cannot take this lightly. A few conversations with the minister, or a half dozen “confirmation classes” are no longer adequate for people who have little or no knowledge of the Christian story, who have no comprehension of Jesus or the reign of God he inaugurated, who have little understanding of the church as an alternative society, who have little experience of practices to sustain the Christian life. We are again like the early church in the situation where we need to love people enough to initiate them carefully into the reign of God, to help them experience the Christian liturgy and to plumb its depths, to allow time for the Holy Spirit to do her transforming work so that people will indeed be “new creations”. In other words, we need a renewed catechumenate.

Only then will we have a church of disciples rather than consumers, a church of which offers a genuine robust alternative to the death-dealing practices and values of what Walter Wink has called “the domination system”(64) - a church which witnesses to none other than Jesus the Christ.

Such catechesis needs to include: growing into the Christian ethic, hearing the Christian story, learning the basics of Christian theology, and becoming adept at Christian practices. Responsible catechesis is nothing more simple and more complex, more joyful and more demanding than: helping the new convert to reassemble his or her personality and life around the new centre of gravity, which is God revealed in Christ Jesus; seducing the convert's initial subjective, and largely incommunicable experience of faith into the public domain; and instructing the convert in basic discipline for Christian living.(65)  

Anthropologists tell us of the importance and impact of powerful and lavish rites of passage to bring about important life changes.(66)

At the heart of the theology and practice of the early church is the powerful symbolism of baptismal practice: water for cleansing and purification, immersion as dying and rising with Christ, the font as both tomb and womb, anointing for the coming of the Spirit, the cup of milk and honey for entry into the Promised Land, reclothing for rebirth, the reciting of the story of salvation, the scrutinies and renunciations, the lighted candle - and lastly witnessing and being admitted to the Eucharist for the first time - all contribute to an awe-inspiring and life-changing experience.

This, to me, is a way that the Uniting Church can engage in the privilege of responsible evangelism, which is nothing less than, or as awesome as, “a set of intentional activities which is governed by the goal of initiating people into the kingdom of God for the first time.”(67)

conclusion

It is sad, and ironic, that the very point of our union with Christ and each other has been a point of division.

We are, by God's grace, a converted people, a transformed people, a distinctive people, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people…. once you were not a people, but now you are God's people” (1 Peter 2:9,10). Our primary loyalty is not to Australia, but to God. Our primary community is not our family, but God's family. Our values are informed, not by some insipid middle-class standards of respectability, but by the reign of God as announced, lived and proclaimed by Jesus and the apostles. We are a people shaped not by some mediocre consensus of society, but by Word, water, bread and wine. We are a reborn people, a people who know our identity. As William Willimon writes:

When you ask in desperation, “Who, in God's name, am I?”, Baptism will have you feel water dripping from your head and the oil oozing down your neck and say, “You are, in God's name, royalty, God's own, claimed and ordained for God's serious and joyful business.”(68)

Recognising that will go a long way towards fulfilling the hope of the Basis of Union that “God will use [our] common worship, witness and service to set forth the word of salvation to all people,”(69) and the vision of the task group which, in 1993, urged us towards “a long term commitment to the renewal of the sacrament of Baptism in the Church.”

Rob Bos

1. I am very grateful to Doug and Maisie McKenzie of Moffat Beach, Qld, for providing the hospitality and space to write the initial draft of this article. Ian Tanner offered helpful further information from his own experience, Geoff Thompson offered some helpful suggestions and Diane Bos made valuable editorial comments.

2. Joint Commission on Church Union, The Church: Its Nature, Function and Ordering, Melbourne, Aldersgate, 1964, pp. 20-24.

3. The Uniting Church in Australia, National Assembly, Basis of Union (1992 edition), Constitution and Regulations, Melbourne, Uniting Church Press, 2001.

4. Christiaan Mostert, “Is the Uniting Church Serious about Doctrine?” Marking Twenty Years: The Uniting Church in Australia 1977-1997, William W. Emilsen and Susan Emilsen, editors, Sydney, United Theological College, 1997, p. 268.

5. Second Assembly, minute 79.22. For the sake of completeness, it should perhaps also be noted that, when the Uniting Church was less than four months old, the Assembly Standing Committee (ASC), received a request from the Synod of Victoria asking that a statement of faith be added to baptismal certificates. The ASC, noting that such a statement had been deliberately omitted so that, if it was thought necessary that such a statement needed to be added, it would be one adopted by the Uniting Church itself (ASC minute 77.70). The matter was referred to the Commission on Doctrine and the Commission on Liturgy, who reported back early the following year, recommending that baptismal certificates continue to be reissued unchanged (ASC minute 78.05). (The Synod of Victoria now no longer exists. In 2002 it combined with the Synod of Tasmania to form the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania.)

6. Second Assembly, minute 79.22 (7).

7. The Commission on Doctrine became the National Working Group on Doctrine, as part of newly-formed unit on Theology and Discipleship in 1998.

8. Third Assembly, minute 82.53 (2).

9. Minutes of the Third Assembly, 1982, page 67.

10. Questions 15ff.

11. Third Assembly, minute 82.53 (2).

12. ASC minute 84.57.

13. World Council of Churches, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Faith and Order Paper, 111, Geneva, 1982. (Also available at http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/faith/bem.html.)

14. The Commission on Ecumenical Affairs brought a detailed report on the discussions across the church to the Fourth Assembly (see the minutes of the Fourth Assembly, 1985, pp. 101ff).

15. In 1988 this agency became Uniting Education which, in 2005, was taken up into Uniting Faith and Justice. John Watt, Joining the Church: Good News for Parents and Children about Baptism, Melbourne, Joint Board of Christian Education, 1983. Tony Floyd, United to Christ, Melbourne, Uniting Church Press, 1983. The Joint Board had also revised Baptism and Our Children in 1982, which had originally been published in 1977.

16. Rodney Horsfield, Baptism, An Evangelical Sacrament: A Study Book Prepared for the Commission of Doctrine of the Uniting Church in Australia, Melbourne, Uniting Church Press, 1984.

17. On the recommendation of the Assembly Standing Committee, which had considered the issue in detail at its March 1984 meeting (ASC minute 84.6).

18. Fourth Assembly, 1985, Minute 85.39.1.

19. ASC minute 85.142. For a fuller discussion, see Michael Owen, Back to Basics: Studies on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia, Melbourne, Joint Board of Christian Education, 1996, pages 216ff.

20. Fourth Assembly, minute 85.39.6.

21. Fourth Assembly, minute 85.58.1.

22. Fourth Assembly, minute 85.109.2. Many ministers now found it difficult to deny unbaptised children Holy Communion, whilst welcoming baptized children. An unintended consequence of the decision was that, increasingly, unbaptised persons received the Lord's Supper, thus weakening the historical and theological link between the sacraments.

23. Leigh Pope, Helping Children Participate in Holy Communion, Melbourne, Uniting Church Press, 1986.

24. Fourth Assembly, minute 85.109.7.

25. Uniting Church in Australia, Assembly Commission on Doctrine, Understanding the Church's Teaching on Baptism: An Expanded Statement by the Assembly Commission on Doctrine, Melbourne, Uniting Church Press, 1988. Other contributions came from Harry Wardlaw of Melbourne, who wrote to clarify the term “baptismal regeneration” and Bill Loader of Perth, who outlined the New Testament view of baptism and, in particular, the sacrament's relationship to God's action, the humanresponse and the whole concept of salvation. Both were published in Trinity Occasional Papers in June 1987.

26. Fifth Assembly, minute 88.24.3. In fact, the little known Appendix 2 to the Basis of Union already stated that “Baptism is … in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

27. Since 1998, this has been known as the National Working Group on Worship.

28. Interestingly, not the Commission on Doctrine. Note the comment on this in Christiaan Mostert, “Is the Uniting Church Serious about Doctrine?” Marking Twenty Years: The Uniting Church in Australia 1977-1997, William W. Emilsen and Susan Emilsen, editors, Sydney, United Theological College, 1997, pp. 268ff.

29. Fifth Assembly, minute 88.24.4.

30. ASC minute 88.92.2.

31. Presidential Ruling 11.

32. See Regulation 3.6.14 (a) (vi). For a fuller discussion of the complex issues here, see Michael Owen, Back to Basics: Studies on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia, Melbourne, Joint Board of Christian Education, 1996, pp. 216-240, esp. pages 221ff.

33. See Document 18 of that meeting.

34. Michael Owen has discussed the controversy surrounding The Water that Unites at some length. See: Michael Owen, “At the Waters of Strife,” Trinity Occasional Papers, Vol. XI, No. 2, 1993, pp. 33-56; Back to Basics: Studies on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia, Melbourne, Joint Board of Christian Education, 1996, pp. 216-240; and “The Place and Nature of Doctrine in the Uniting Church,” Marking Twenty Years: The Uniting Church in Australia 1977- 1997, William W. Emilsen and Susan Emilsen, editors, Sydney, United Theological College, 1997, pp. 287-296.

35. ASC March 1991, minutes 91.6 and 91.32.

36. Sixth Assembly minute 91.14.19. It appears that no further action was taken until, on the recommendation of the National Working Group on Worship, the ASC in November 2004 allowed an order of service to be developed which included a limited, self-administered, use of water in the re-affirmation of Baptism.

37. ASC minute 88.27.5.

38. The discussion paper entitled A Vision for Ministry in Australia was issued in October 1990 and resulted in about 500 responses. The 61 page report to the Sixth Assembly had been drafted to take account of the responses.

39. The six specified ministries are: Community Minister, Deacon (ordained), Lay Pastor, Lay Preacher, Minister of the Word (ordained), and Youth Worker. The eldership had been an ordained ministry in the Presbyterian church, but elders are commissioned in the Uniting Church. The pattern of six specified ministries is under review at the time of writing; the Task Group on Specified Ministries under the governorship of Colleen Geyer is preparing to resource the church for an evaluation of this pattern.

40. See Uniting Church in Australia, Report on Ministry in the Uniting Church in Australia, section 1.4.1, 1991, page 14.

41. Sixth Assembly minute 91.13.11(a).

42. Documents 13 and 13A of the March 1995 ASC meeting.

43. 17 pages plus 8 pages of appendices.

44. ASC minute 93.68.2. See Michael Owen's discussion in his 1993 article: “At the Waters of Strife,” Trinity Occasional Papers, Vol. XI, No. 2.

45. The Presbytery of Tamar Esk, the Derwent Presbytery (both in Tasmania) and the Presbytery of South Moreton (Queensland) urged the ASC to reconsider its resolutions. The Synod was supportive of the decisions made regarding the policy and practice of Baptism.

46. Appendix A to Document 15, ASC March 1994.

47. Michael Owen, Back to Basics: Studies on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia, Melbourne, Joint Board of Christian Education, 1996, page 231.

48. Quoted in John Baillie, Baptism and Conversion, London, Oxford University Press, 1964.

49. Basis of Union, par. 7.

50. For an example of one Uniting Church minister who attempts to work through the impasse, albeit with what he regards as a compromise, see Nicholas Hawkes, “Uniting the Waters of Baptism,” Uniting Church Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1999, pp. 29-41.

51. See, for example Westminster Confession of Faith XXVIII, iv and especially Savoy Declaration XXIX, iv. In IV.xvi of the Institutes, Calvin is arguing against those who would deny infants Baptism, but it is clear that he presumes that the parents are Christian.

52. “The Water that Unites” Task Group Report to the Assembly Standing Committee, September 1993, par. 10.1.iv (Document 3). See also Appendix Two of the report which is the proposal for the establishment of a catechumenate.

53. Document 20.

54. In the Roman Catholic Church, the catechumenal process is called The Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (R.C.I.A.). Protestant churches many different names for the process.

55. Meanwhile, in that year the Joint Board published a user-friendly booklet about Baptism (Tumut-Gandagai Uniting Church Parish, About Baptism) and worked on the issue of confirmation (see Craig Mitchell, “Reaffirming our Baptism: A Proposal for Confirmation Reform,” Uniting Church Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1998, pp. 44-55).

56. There was strong resistance in the church to term “catechumenate”. Using the term “Becoming Disciples” for the catechumenal process after the pre-Assembly discussion paper by the same name had raised this issue, as well as the more controversial issue of membership, initially caused some confusion. Information on the Becoming Disciples process may be found at http://assembly.uca.org.au/TD. 

57. I am indebted to Kavanagh here, esp. Aidan Kavanagh, The Shape of Baptism: The Rite of Christian Initiation, Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 1978/91, p. 29.

58. Loader argued this well in his 1987 article; Bill Loader, “Baptism in Context - the New Testament Witness,” Trinity Occasional Papers, Vol. vi, No. 1, pp. 37-46.

59. Traditional Australian Aboriginal people, for example, have no difficulty understanding the Dreaming, the primordial age of the creator-beings who shaped the landscape and laid down social patterns, as being eternally present - what the anthropologist Stanner called “everywhen”. William E. H. Stanner, “The Dreaming,” Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach, third edition, W. A. Less and E. Z. Vogt, eds., New York, Harper and Rowe, 1972, pages 269-277.

60. See Thomas M. Finn, 1992a, Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate: West and East Syria, Message of the Fathers of the Church 5, Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 1992; Early Christian Baptism and the Catechumenate: Italy, North Africa, and Egypt, Message of the Fathers of the Church 6, Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 1992; From Death to Rebirth: Ritual and Conversion in Antiquity, New York, Paulist, 1997; and Alan Kreider, The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom, Harrisburg PA, Trinity, 1999.

61. Kreider traces the development of baptismal preparation in the early church through into the Constantinian era.

62. While it is true that the church in Australia has never been officially established in the same way as the national churches in some European countries were, up until the 1960s the Christian faith had considerable influence in national life, whilst other world faiths were almost unheard of.

63. Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony, Nashville, Abingdon, 1989.

64. Walter Wink, The Powers that Be: Theology for a New Millennium, New York, Doubleday, 1998.

65. Aidan Kavanagh, “Catechesis: Formation in Stages.” The Baptismal Mystery and the Catechumenate. Michael W. Merriman, ed., New York, The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1990, pp. 39-40.

66. Indigenous Australians often lamented to me the loss of “man-making ceremonies,” resulting in irresponsible, immature and child-like behaviour in young males.

67. William Abraham, The Logic of Evangelism, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1989, page 95.

68. Adapted from Kavanagh 1990, (op. cit.) pp. 39-40.

69. Par. 1.