Musings on baptism

Baptism and confirmation address a critical issue.

Print Article Email to a Friend

Last June 3, our grandson Robert Lerch was baptized at age 15 into the body of Christ at Germond’s Presbyterian Church in New City, N.Y. Three years earlier, we witnessed the baptism of his sister Sarah.

 Robert was the only one of nine new members to be baptized. The others were confirmed. The pastor spoke on baptism as a sign of crossing over to new life. I was slightly jarred by her comment on the baptismal font “as the womb of new birth,” but the metaphor does have a suggestive meaning.

 A Mennonite sitting through a Presbyterian sacrament is bound to have many contradictory thoughts. Alice and I were overwhelmed with gratitude for the vitality of Germond’s faith community. Our daughter and husband serve on the session (council) and board of deacons (congregational welfare). They have many close friends and are known as having a Mennonite past. Sarah is already active as a Sunday school teacher and serves as the youth member on the Pastoral Nominating Committee.

 The nurturing of the youth being confirmed into the congregation was an interesting process on which to reflect. Infant baptism is understood as a declaration by parents “to raise their children as Christians.” Baptism of infants is thus understood as the symbolic passing on of the tradition from “generation to generation.” This is as significant for parenting as for children.

Adult baptism and confirmation at Germond’s are a verbal and public declaration of “grace received” and an intent “to be faithful in the life of the church.” Germond’s explicitly says that young people of confirmation age “may seek baptism upon confession of faith.” That is why Robert was baptized.
 As an heir of Anabaptism, I pondered the gains and losses of our tradition by its insistence on believer’s baptism. I surely would not urge any change to our patterns, but I wonder whether the act of infant baptism helps solidify the parental obligation of raising children in the fear of the Lord and nurturing for life in the church? Does the individualism implied in believer’s baptism require extra effort to nurture the communal obligations of church life? Amid the hyperindividualism of modern American culture—including much church life—baptism and confirmation, as public signs of joining the Christian movement, need to be strong statements. I am grateful for the practice of child dedication in many Mennonite congregations as a symbol of parental commitment to passing on the tradition. (Both Robert and Sarah were dedicated as infants at Madison (Wis.) Mennonite Church.)

 Another musing on this occasion was whether our grandchildren will keep alive their parents’ and grandparents’ practice of believer’s baptism or will join the Protestant and Catholic majority practicing infant baptism? In an ecumenical epoch and a time of growing secularism, perhaps the time and mode of baptism is less significant than during the past five centuries.

 The tenor of my musings was warm and positive toward grandson Robert’s public “crossing over” as well as toward the public announcement of the other eight youth being confirmed.
 But there is the nagging concern expressed so well by Dietrich Bonhoeffer 65 years ago:

“The feature of the Constantinian age was not that the Christian community baptized its children but that baptism as such became a qualification of civic life. The false development lies not in infant baptism but in this secular qualification. The two should clearly be distinguished.”

 That was the critical issue in 1525 and continues to be a critical issue today, particularly in the United States. As I look over the Christian landscape, the link of baptism and public life appears to be a critical issue, however and whenever one is baptized. Baptism and confirmation are a sign and announcement that we indeed move in and out of two realities, both of which strive to be ultimate concerns. Both desire total commitment. For believers, parents and congregations, baptism means there is always a question mark over civic pretensions. This is what I hope all six of our grandchildren never forget.

 I was intrigued at a subsequent coffee hour conversation that day at Germond’s that some people there were aware of World War II conscientious objectors and spoke approvingly of that alternative to civic demands. Then I recalled there were as many in CPS or prison during World War II who were baptized as babies or not baptized at all as there were those baptized as adults.

John A. Lapp is a member of Lititz (Pa.) Mennonite Church and executive secretary emeritus of Mennonite Central Committee.

Related Resources

Column: "Musings on baptism"

Current Stories

Articles

• Mennonite but not Anabaptist
• Free to be different
• The four renderings
• Musings on baptism

News stories, digests and Meno Acontecer

• Mennonite groups find unity in Congo
• Hesston grad defuses Middle East crisis
• MCC donates to hospital in North Korea
• Support increases for Iraqi peacemakers
• Erick Sawatzky, seminary professor, dies
• Dancing on African time at EMU
• World Fellowship Sunday is Jan. 27
• Kidron Mennonite Church receives grant
• Hesston Mennonite Church installs organ
• New kiln to be installed at Laurelville
• New record for Nazareth Village
• Asian churches pursue merger with MWC

Columns

• ‘I’m getting married in the morning’
• Human sacrifice
• In with the old
• Warning: church ahead

Readers Say

• Too hard on lectionary
• Our work or God’s work?
• Learn from recent leaders also
• Republicanism is Mennonite tradition
• Pastors’ questions are shameful
• Give a gift to Jesus

Additional Notes

John A. Lapp is a member of Lititz (Pa.) Mennonite Church and executive secretary emeritus of Mennonite Central Committee.