What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Baptism and the Churches

    Liturgists and People Who Know What They Are Talking About have worked very hard to persuade people that we should be trying dissuade people from talking about Christenings and instead talk about the sacrament of baptism. Today the Church of England appears to have let the cat out of the bag with a post that seems to suggest that no-one, least of all anyone in the Church of England’s press team has been paying the blindest bit of notice.

    The post, Top 10 facts about Christenings is being comprehensively panned and rubbished on twitter by friends I know in the Church of England.

    The post itself reminds me of a conversation that I had only yesterday with an American friend when I realised that what we think about baptism differs radically in different parts of the world. Like marriage, we believe baptism to be a universal thing commonly understood. And then you look at the formularies for the services or chat to someone about it and you realise that we are not always talking about the same thing.

    During my trip to North America last year, I was more concious than ever that the churches over there have bought into a baptismal theology that we just don’t talk about. It is based around something called the baptismal covenant – a little catechism that is used at baptisms.

    Now, we use the words here too. People will recognise them as being part of the service of baptism.

    Here’s one form of it:

    Do you believe in God the Creator, who made the world?
    I believe.
    Do you believe in God the Saviour, who redeemed humanity?
    I believe.
    Do you believe in God the Sanctifier, who gives life to God’s people?
    I believe.

    This is the faith of the Church.
    This is our faith. We believe in one God, Creator, Saviour and Sanctifier.
    Amen

    NN., as those who will love and care for N., will you continue in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers?
    With the help of God, I will
    Will you proclaim the good news by word and deed, serving Christ in all people?
    With the help of God, I will.
    Will you work for justice and peace, honouring God in all Creation?
    With the help of God, I will.

    This is the task of the Church.
    This is our task: to live and work for the kingdom of God.

    Now the point is, this isn’t called The Baptismal Covenant in Scotland. And in England, so far as I can get my head around the liturgy, it is entirely optional and even then only for those who have been baptised who can answer for themselves, not for babies.

    Yet, my friends in the US and Canada speak about the Baptismal Covenant as though it is universally understood, always used at baptisms and as though it justifies all kinds of things.

    For a lot of people over there, the questions about gay relationships, ordaining women as bishops and priests and all kinds of other issues about justice are simply answered with a shrug of the shoulders and “well, we need to do these things because of the baptismal covenant”.

    I don’t think that I do well in explaining to friends from across the pond that though we may (or indeed may not) use the same words at baptisms, we don’t generally carry those ideas through into thinking that they are slam dunk answers to difficult questions that arise in other areas of church life. Indeed, they look at me as though I am bonkers. I don’t know anyone in the UK who would seriously argue in public that same-sex marriage or the ordination of women are obviously things that we should do because of anything to do with baptism yet that association is commonplace in other parts of the Anglican Communion.

    I may be bonkers, of course. But I think I’m right to say that the north American churches believe that there is something going on at baptism that I think most Christians in the UK Anglican churches and indeed most Christians in all of the rest of Christendom through all the ages of the church would be bewildered and puzzled by.

    I’m puzzled by it too. Though there is nothing in the Baptismal Covenant that I disagree with, it isn’t a set of promises that were either made on my behalf as a child nor was I asked to assert any of it when I was baptised.

    When you travel, you discover that some things are universal. When you travel well, you realise that they are not the things that you expected to be universal.

    Thoughts?

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7 responses to “Reclaiming the web”

  1. Paul Hutchinson Avatar
    Paul Hutchinson

    Thank you for making me think in a different direction just before pausing for lunch. I have never had a blog, so came quite late to Internet social discourse, and have engaged more since joining one major network in 2010 and another in early 2014 – normally using those networks rather than a comment box such as this. Not all of us are natural creators of substantial original content, but like to be thoughtful in brief exchange, and so both those major networks, though cursed with many difficulties, serve those brief exchanges quite well. I do agree that the endless recycling of links (on both of them) can be wearying, and I do wish that some old friends would be a little more self-critical. But the price of any kind of social discourse is that one is vulnerable to the otherness of the other.
    I feel I ought to be writing a more substantial comment here, but hope that this is enough. The time is not always there to offer deeper reflection: but sometimes a blogger needs to hear at least a small splash from the stone thrown down the well!

    Reply
    1. Kelvin Avatar
      Kelvin

      Thanks for the comment, Paul. I’m aware that not everyone is a content creator, but perhaps what I miss is the sense of discovering different communities online and keeping the comments more or less in one place helps with that.

      The glory days of 50 or more comments on a post are probably over. I suspect I mourn the sense of community being created even more than I miss the interesting reflections of others. Retweets and shares are always welcome – but they are the means of amplification. Becoming loud isn’t the same as becoming wise, nor the same as becoming connected.

      Reply
  2. Seph Avatar
    Seph

    It’s a damnable shame—and mostly the fault of Facebook. Twitter at least has an etiquette of sorts, wherein it is considered impolite not to respond to the original tweet, which is usually made by the blogger in question.

    Facebook, in short, is the scourge of the Internet. I have often been in groups which have decided to do all of their organizing on Facebook, despite my protests that I’m not on Facebook and don’t want to be, and really an e-mail list would be just as easy, and would they like me to set one up. This inevitably leads to my marginalization within the group, as no-one bothers to keep me abreast of the discussions to which I am not party.

    Can you tell I’m upset about this?

    Reply
  3. Daniel Lamont Avatar
    Daniel Lamont

    I am only an occasional user of Facebook but I know what you mean, Kelvin. And indeed, I never read the comments ‘below the line’ on newspapers like ‘The Guardian’. You offer some useful advice. I read yours and one or two other blogs on a regular basis but don’t always comment. However, I can see that the author of a blog would like some feedback. I would be sad not to have the blogs that I do read because they do give me a sense of what people are thinking and an odd sense of community.

    Reply
  4. Father Ron Smith Avatar
    Father Ron Smith

    My own contribution to the blogopshere is, I’m afraid, Father Kelvin, limited to comments I make on other people’s blogs (such as ‘Thinking Anglicans’ and ‘Anglican Down Under’ – a local NZ forum; plus my own blog ‘kiwianglo’, where i pluck articles that interest me personally from the web and provide my own commentary. This still interests me, personally, and provides my few readers with information they might not otherwise be bothered to glean for themselves. Like you, I am no longer an avid Facebook fan.

    Reply
  5. David Campbell Avatar
    David Campbell

    Hi Kelvin – thoughtful as ever – and yours is invariably the first blog I turn to each day. That you bring pressing issues to a wider audience and to people who know, or used to know, the church you serve is a great thing. I’m still blogging relatively strongly, but it’s certainly a different blogging experience when work is set in a very different context and especially community from previously, writing these days mainly for myself about things that interest me, although not quite at the address you have in your Blog Roll. http://www.limpingtowardsthesunrise.com is where it’s “all” happening.

    Reply
    1. Kelvin Avatar
      Kelvin

      Thanks David – nice to hear from you. I’ve amended the link.

      I don’t think many people use blogrolls to find blogs these days but whenever I remove it my mother complains…

      Reply

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