Baptism Liturgy -changes for CofE

Certain usual suspects in the British press have made uninformed and inaccurate comments about a trial of a baptism liturgy. They did so in conformity with their mission to leave their readers more angry, more scared or both. In this case by painting the changes as trendy disposal of hallowed tradition. They also made out that it was at the personal initiative of the current Archbishop of Canterbury when in fact it was a response to a motion at General Synod before the current ABofC was appointed.

Statement on proposal to Synod on baptism service wording: A Church of England spokesman said:
"The report in the Mail on Sunday (Jan 5) is misleading in a number of respects. The story claims that "the baptism ceremony had not been altered for more than 400 years until it was changed in 1980". This is the third revision in 30 years.

 If you follow one of the links  (to a pdf) you'll be able to read the liturgy in parallel with the current 30 year-old provision (which, frankly, does need looking at).

Here's the current introductory paragraph:
Here's some salient bits.
Faith is the gift of God to his people.
In baptism the Lord is adding to our number who have come to be baptized.
those whom he is calling.
People of God, will you welcome these
children/candidates
and uphold them in their new life in Christ?
All With the help of God, we will.

And its proposed replacement:
Today we thank God for these children/candidates
Christ welcomes them into his Church.
Will you promise to support them
as they begin their journey of faith?
   All We will.

The charge to the parents is currently thus:
Parents and godparents, the Church receives these
children with joy.
Today we are trusting God for their growth in faith.
Will you pray for them,
draw them by your example into the community of
faith
and walk with them in the way of Christ?
With the help of God, we will.

In baptism these children begin their journey in faith.
You speak for them today.
Will you care for them,
and help them to take their place
within the life and worship of Christ‟s Church?
With the help of God, we will.


The proposed alternative:
Parents and godparents,
you have brought these children to baptism
and speak for them today.
As we trust God for their growth in faith,
will you promise to care for them,
pray for them,
and help them to follow Christ?
We will.

I think I prefer the brevity and directness of the newer 'charge'.

Now to the decision bit:

In baptism, God calls us out of darkness into his marvellous light. To follow Christ means dying to sin and rising to new
life with him. Therefore I ask:
Do you reject the devil and all rebellion against God?
I reject them.
Do you renounce the deceit and corruption of evil?
I renounce them.
Do you repent of the sins that separate us from God
and neighbour?
I repent of them.
In baptism God calls us to new life. We die with Christ to all that destroys, and rise to live with him for ever. Therefore I ask: Do you reject evil? I reject evil. And all its many forms? And all its many forms. And all its empty promises? And all its empty promises.

Do you turn to Christ as Saviour?
I turn to Christ.
Do you submit to Christ as Lord?
I submit to Christ.
Do you come to Christ, the way, the truth and the life?
I come to Christ.

And the newer version:

The candidates, together with their parents,  godparents and sponsors, may now turn to face the font, a cross, or the large candle.
Do you turn to Christ?
I turn to Christ.
And put your trust in him?
And put my trust in him.
And promise to follow him for ever?
And promise to follow him for ever

(I think I'd recommend that the response have the word 'I' in them -perhaps instead of all those 'and's)

And the signing with the sign of the cross:

Do not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified.
All Fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ
against sin, the world and the devil, 
and remain faithful to Christ to the end of your life.

Do not be ashamed of Christ. You are his for ever.
All Stand bravely with him.
Oppose the power of evil,
and remain his faithful disciple to the
end of your life.

Then the prayer of the water  and there are a handful of shorter alternatives in the proposed revision -which I welcome since the older version was deadly. For the profession of faith, the proposal is to use the shorter responses from Common worship Initiation Services p.178, which is great as these are more succinct than the broken up Apostles' Creed currently used and something of a return to the ASB approach.

Altogether the revision-proposals tend to shorten the service which I feel is good since the current service is overly wordy and ponderous. I also feel that the content is good. It still makes clear what it is to be a baptised disciple of Christ, it still makes clear that parents are to help children become Christ-followers. I like the simplicity of the language and I like the way the responses echo the questions which makes them easier to process. I'd found the medievalism of the current questions a bit embarrassing -not because I don't 'believe' but because I know the service gets used with people who tend not to be so au fait with the more theologically 'commited' language and in terms of helping them to understand and appropriate the responses the revised set seem to hold more pastoral potential, in my view.

So, overall, I'd have to say I like the look of the new stuff and I hope it broadly becomes commended and comes into use. For a pretty good comment explaining the background and offsetting the Mail's rabble-rousing, go here. A quote from which says nicely what I've alluded to above when I mention medievalism:

On paper, saying ‘I reject evil… in all its many forms.. and all its empty promises’ did indeed look as if it was going to be colourlessly vague and managerial. But said out loud by the parents and godparents, it had surprising weight and gravity, a surprising Augustinian sobriety about it, pointing to evil as a familiar and participatory thing that humans do, rather than to a remote abstraction; to someone else’s problem. It seemed, in fact, to name the darkness more successfully than talking about the devil or about sin would have done, given that both those names now carry an obscuring freight of associations from pop culture, almost all of which point away from what the church wants us to notice about ourselves.

Baptising infants and educating out of Spirituality

Quite and interesting article/posting here: Educating out of Spirituality � Such as These part of it (interestingly) resonates with a fundamental message of Mat Fox's Original Blessing (I won't go into what I think is wrong with that book, merely affirm that the original blessing message in itself seems fair enough). Part of it is the curriculum that is engendered: "Gretchen Wolff Pritchard wrote in Offering the Gospel to Children that “Adults come to church on Sunday in order to worship; children come to Sunday school to acquire information” (140-141). The assumption is that it’s more important for young people to know about God that is for them to know God. We are educating our children and youth out of their innate spiritual capacities. God, the subject of our worship, becomes the object of our study."
It's an approach to curriculum more informed, I would say, by Enlightenment attitudes which prize rationality as the pre-eminent human characteristic. I'd like to develop a Christian nurture curriculum based on an approach I started to take with confirmation groups of doing far more about spirituality, formation and spiritual disciplines with an experiential dimension written in, and this is an approach which is pretty consonant with what is being said here.

The link to infant baptism is that I think it's interesting that the big rise in pisteuo-baptism comes with the post-Enlightenment period and exhibits concerns with conscious (rational) faith commitments. It has struggled with issues to do with the incorporation of those who have diminished rational capacities. The biblical basis of infant baptism (ie of children in the household of Christians) is precisely about recognising that faith is something lived and felt as much as, if not more than, rationally apprehended. I could go on, but I think that I have drawn the parallel ...

Follow up:
Case for Infant Baptism (Grove booklets on ministry and worship)  

Non story of the month: Marriage-with-baptism

I am frankly a little surprised about the legs that this story grew. Mainly for all the reasons that the various reports have outlined. The CT report is here: Church Times - Marriage-with-baptism defended. And of course, the most salient facts summarised thusly: "WEDDINGS at which the couple’s children are also baptised have been legal for years, a Church House spokesman said this week. An initiative promoting such services had been criticised for giving tacit approval to sex outside marriage." So it should have been a case of 'move along folks, nothing to see here', but somehow it wasn't. Of course, the sticking point is that it seems to licence extra-marital sex; but hang on let's get over the tut-tut reaction and engage our brains a moment: do we really want to be heard to say, in effect: "We'd rather you just didn't bother us if you have made life-choices we don't like". It does seem to me that we want to be heard saying: "It's never too late to try to get things back on track". Now that's the PR angle.

The other angle is a little more tricky.
The sacramental thing.
Marriage is one thing: it's 'a gift of God in creation' and as such is something the church solemnises as part of celebrating Gods common grace. Baptism is a gift of God in the order of redemption. Unfortunately the CofE has inherited a situation it partly created, unwittingly, where baptism is used in popular culture as a creation-rite (ie to celebrate the birth of a child etc) on a par with marriage, in that sense. So the real rub is not the marriage but the confusion about baptism and that is only a problem in situations where both are contemplated togethr where the couple concerned are not really in a position psychologically or spiritually to attempt to make good on the very explicit promises required of them in the baptism service. It's a different matter if the couple concerned have come to a point where they are starting to respond actively to the gospel: in that case it is very appropriate for wedding and baptism to be held together. However, if that is not the situation it really would be better for churches to have a policy of using a very first rate non-baptismal 'christening' (a suitably well-done Thanksgiving is actually more appropriate to the needs, see my research and various church policies being operated up and down the land without any serious problem).
But then I would say that; I'm on the exec of Baptismal Integrity ...

A Goody baptism?

It's not often I read, let alone quote the Sun. So pick yourself up off the floor and take a look now here: Jade Goody vows to see her sons' baptism | The Sun |News:
This just shows how hard it can be to know what's going on in any news story. There are a number of different ways to read this one: it could be read as a kind of 'magical belief' in a rite; it could be read as part of a money-spinner, as some clearly do according to this quote;

'A close friend said: "The christening was not just a cynical attempt to make some money for her boys. Jade genuinely wants to be baptised before she dies. She is still hopeful this can be done. But time is running out for her."

Or we could take the other perspective in that quote quite seriously. I'm minded to at least consider there could be a spiritual reality about this. The proximity of death is notorious for concentrating minds on what is lasting, eternal, important and loving. If we can entertain the notion that people do turn to Christ on their deathbeds, then maybe, just maybe, we are seeing it here. We cannot see into others' souls but we might be charitable in our first assessments. Jade Goody has said, apparently, "It’s really important to me now that they learn about Jesus" Now that would, in the New Testament, have got enough attention for a family baptism, I suspect. A disciple being someone who is learning about Jesus (okay, loose interpretation, but bear with me). It does seem to me that this is more than just a superstitious thing with 'magic' water to prop up a psychological defence against impending death (or whatever). If that was the case, I suspect the kind of things said would be different: about the baptised getting into heaven or somesuch. But instead what we've got is a link to the person and by implication the teaching of Jesus Christ. I think that what may be happening is that the nearness of death has brought Ms Goody to recognise some important things about life and death and that some of the residual thing about 70% of Britons claiming the label Christian is kicking in to point a way forward for her. I hope her action will make an impression on many to consider their own position. Not because I want hordes of people clamouring for baptism, but because I'd love to see a trickle of people want to explore the person and teaching of Jesus and decide to follow him -initially by being baptised and then by being members of communities of Christward change.

What I'm concerned about in terms of the ministry of sacrament here is actually what happens to the boys after her death? Of course that means in terms of helping them to find their way through their bereavement in due time and good shape. But it also means how to help them draw on the resources of a faith that they may have only had minimal contact with up until recently. Who is to help them grow in that learning that their mother has declared she wants them to have about Jesus? Who are the godparents in the full and original meaning of the term? The real issue here is about faith nurture of children more than deathbed conversions. A complicated issue in this case because of the tragic circumstances. My heart goes out to those lads, my prayer is that the godparental role may be filled by people who can help them grieve and to draw upon the strength, resiliance and love of God as they grieve and go forward.

why baptise infants?

Doug has stated very nicely one of the ad hominem arguments I favour for the propriety of baptising the infants of believers, and so I quote it here so you can enjoy it's pithiness. "There are a great many arguments that have roiled over the font about the baptism of children. One of the lesser used arguments in favour, but which I regard as one of the more significant, is that Christian parents would from the first share with their child their relationship with God, and central to that is the expression of that relationship in prayer. But the means and mode by which we relate to God, and address him as Abba, our Father, is the gift of the Spirit. Yes, prayer is also a human activity, but it is first a divine relationship into which we are invited and initiated. Baptism as the effectual sign of the Spirit’s gift should be administered to anyone who will be brought up to pray. "
The problems of baptism (art. XXVII) � Metacatholic:

Debaptism 2.0

A couple of months back, in one of the year 9 (I think it was) classes I was teaching, one lad asked if there was a way to leave being a Catholic. At the time we didn't have time to pursue it. In my mind was to ask further questions about what they thought should happen and why simply not turning up was not sufficient. This was a Roman Catholic school. Well, it turns out that it is possible in RC terms to leave officially and not just in heart and mind and body. And apparently it happens in Italy, though to what extent is hard to determine. "Cyberspace is one of the few places lapsed Catholics can get a copy of the formal letter called 'actus defectionis' that is required by Church officials to leave the faith. "
What I think we should pay more attention to is this:

unwilling to belong to a Church that didn't represent him, Luca made an appointment. He told the priest he had never been a believer, so why belong to the flock? "A flock that included me as soon as I was born without my consent," he said.

There's a lot to be unpacked there, and I'm not going to go into the nature of consent, cultural-formation or modernity vs post-modernity, but it does seem to me to bring about certain considerations about baptism policies in a post-Christendom culture and where, certainly in the UK, one can increasingly find non-church 'christenings' ...
Debaptism 2.0: Fleeing the Flock Via the Net: