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2008-02-05 issue:

WEB EXCLUSIVE VERSION: Reflections on baptism

by Spencer Bradford

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As a Mennonite who holds to a significantly more sacramental understanding of baptism than is prevalent among most Mennonites, I appreciate Chad Mason’s and John Lapp’s willingness to re-examine baptism’s purpose and significance (Jan. 8, 2008 issue). Contrary to Mason, however, the practice of believers’ baptism needs to be a pillar of Mennonite faith and identity, not least because it is a testimony we owe to our brothers and sisters of paedobaptist (“infant-baptizing”) communions.



In recent decades, the Roman Catholic Church and United Methodist Church in the United States, among others, have undertaken accounts of baptism to connect more closely baptism and first communion. In contrast to Mason’s argument, a key recognition seems to be emerging in such reconsiderations that believers’ or adult baptism (I favor the term “confessional” baptism), followed immediately by participation at the communion table by the baptized, is the paradigmatic experience in principle. Infant baptism, followed by a time of variant length until first communion, is seen more as a justifiable exception or anomalous situation that simply has become practically and historically dominant. The challenge has been to reconcile this in a coherent way witth the practice of infant baptism and the theological emphases that underpin it. It would be sadly ironic for Mennonites to now abandon emphases that other Christian streams are coming to recognize as central to the early church’s portrayal of baptism.

Especially, we should not make the mistake of thinking that any reconstruction of baptism on our part that does not directly address the issues of sacramental effectiveness of baptism and the essential link between baptism and communion will draw us any closer to our separated sisters and brothers in paedobaptist traditions. My personal experience has been that a number of Mennonites who feel little need to emphasize the importance of believers’ baptism also feel that limiting the invitation to the communion table to those who are baptized is of little significance. Perhaps this is one stance necessarily hazarded by the Zwinglian tradition in Anabaptism which holds baptism and communion as merely symbolic of relations to God that are realized independently without any inherent link to such outward rituals. But that’s not a perspective that will further rapprochement with any sacramental tradition, Catholic or Protestant, and one of the strengths of our Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective is that it uses language that stretches and reaches beyond the Zwinglian interpretation.

While Mason’s portrayal of baptism as a community action of social distinctiveness and allegiance to God is an appropriate and important element of teaching, his argument against the place of personal commitment and initiative in baptism also applies to the act of confirmation in the lives of paedobaptist Christians and churches. I don’t think Mason’s portrayal of baptism succeeds in reflecting the fullness of New Testament testimony about baptism, or offers a path to fuller relationship and understanding with Christians of other communions. It shows no more respect for the actual convictions and traditions of Catholics than the practice characterized as “rebaptism.”

As someone who came to pacifism and the Mennonite Church not only through relationships with Mennonites, but also with pacifist Catholics, Methodists and individuals in other communions, I truly appreciate the living faith at work in these other traditions, and some of their distinctive perspectives on Scripture’s testimony. Unlike Mason apparently, I’ve met a number of Mennonites who would expect baptism (not, on their understanding, a “rebaptism”) for membership in their church for Christians who were not baptized on personal confession of faith previously. Like some in the sacramental traditions, I can appreciate the emergence of infant baptism as a dominant anomaly, and I recognize a dimension of divine action in the act of water baptism by the church, united to a personal confession and covenant commitment by the baptized. I cannot deny that God can use infant baptism to initiate baptismal faith in the life of individuals, but until completed by a personal covenant commitment by the baptized in the church community, I would describe it as “incomplete” or “deficient” baptism.

This perspective doesn’t resolve the theological issue of what constitutes the one baptism to which God calls an individual for initiation into discipleship, though with Mason, I heartily agree that it cannot be resolved reliably by the private judgment of the individual about what God was doing—this is an argument between communities. Hence my dismay over the 59 percent of  respondents to the poll by The Mennonite who leave the baptism decision up to the individual. So pastorally and practically, I would continue to assess the propriety of believers’ baptism for individuals from those communions based on their individual testimony and the discernment of our faith community with them. Perhaps this is not a much happier resolution than either traditional wholesale rejection of infant baptism or Mason’s wholesale endorsement of it, but I am trying to hold together the truth of God’s recurrent, gracious activity in the sacramental life of sister communions, and the inescapable testimony of Scripture on baptism as a gracious covenant of personal repentance and allegiance.

As a pastor, I’ve been led to some questions for reflection during baptism discernment processes. So far, I’ve used these mainly in considering whether some older children had arrived at the faith and accountability indicative of a call to baptism (in addition to discussion of teaching from Mennonite and ecumenical confessions). But it occurs to me that these questions would also be appropriate for discernment about an adult candidate’s baptismal experience in a paedobaptist communion, and whether baptism (with or without confirmation) had been joined to what in Mennonite tradition could be described as “baptism by the Spirit” and a commitment to discipleship. So one could apply these questions to a “baptismal experience” (in baptism and/or confirmation) in the life of an individual who had undergone an infant or very early baptism.

1. Did the believer know and express the story of God’s redemption of the world in Jesus, and connect that with their own story? Do they tell the story of Jesus as “for us”, with first-person effect? This question seeks out both substantive familiarity with the Christian gospel narrative, and personal identification with that story—a connection with the Spirit of the living Jesus known in the Bible.

2. Did the believer respond with gratitude to gift? Had they experienced giving and receiving a costly gift of love? This probes the believer’s experience of grace, and their anticipation of becoming an instrument of grace.

3. Did the believer understand the nature of a promise? Were they accountable to commitments they made? God’s gracious covenant is not conditional on our initiative, but commands a response of obedient commitment.

4. Could the believer extend forgiveness and undertake to forego retaliation? Could they recount experiences of giving and receiving forgiveness? This does not demand an unwavering commitment to nonviolence from the moment of baptism, but it does look at baptism as an experience of reconciliation that recognizably puts one in the path of commitment to nonretaliation in conformity with the forgiveness they have received from Jesus.

5. Does the believer intend a good death? Is the community prepared to commit the believer to a good death? Water baptism is a pledge to follow Jesus to the baptism of martyrdom if necessary. This requires some sense of one’s mortality, that there is an inescapable terminality to one’s earthly life, and a willingness to have God do with that what God will, even if it’s not the ending we would choose for ourselves. Baptism becomes in part a willing acceptance of a death that we cannot choose, but that we turn over to God to choose for us in Christ.  We cannot know what God has in store for us, but in baptism we are asked to keep obedient faith toward Jesus no matter what God has in store, no matter the cost. As for our churches’ willingness to commit our children to death in baptism, we may be too much shaped by our society’s determination of when to let our children enlist in combat and vote, and the sentimental hope that we might get out of this life without sacrifice or death.

Perhaps we need to recall that Martin Luther King, Jr., enlisted children to march and go to jail in Birmingham in 1963, and that children died in that campaign in the terrorist bombing of a church. That is a useful lens for assessing whether we’re prepared to baptize someone: whether we are ready if called (whether or not we would choose it or grieve over it) for that person to accompany us to martyrdom.

Note that these questions are not focused particularly on intellectual understanding or dogmatic conviction or emotional feelings, but rather focus on spiritual condition in a manner that weaves together understanding, conviction, and feeling. There is no formulaic correct answer to each of these that could be checked off, but they each require a measure of personal expression and confession of faith. In conjunction with a time of catechetical teaching and mentoring, reflection on these questions by a pastor and others with candidates of various ages and church experiences could be helpful for discernment.

I welcome new attention and openness in the Mennonite Church USA to our understanding of baptism and our relationship to Christians of other traditions. But let’s recognize that the significance and power of believers’ baptism extend beyond rationales of the 16th, 18th, or 20th centuries. Even in disagreement with us, our sister communions have recognized that.

Spencer Bradford is part-time pastor of Durham Mennonite Church in Durham, North Carolina, where he also leads a local interfaith nonprofit and organizes peace education and advocacy for the North Carolina Council of Churches.

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Additional Notes

Spencer Bradford is part-time pastor of Durham (N.C.) Mennonite Church. He also organizes peace education and advocacy for the North Carolina Council of Churches.


The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the official positions of The Mennonite, the board for The Mennonite, Inc., or Mennonite Church USA.

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