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?

    , , , , ,

19 responses to “Grace Received: communion on the battlefield”

  1. robert e lewis Avatar
    robert e lewis

    RE “Spiritual Communion”–This prayer has been used in one form or another of late in various instances, including the Easter Sunday service at the National Cathedral.

    My Jesus, I believe that you are truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. I desire to offer you praise and thanksgiving as I proclaim your resurrection. I love you above all things, and long for you in my soul. Since I cannot receive you in the Sacrament of your Body and Blood, come spiritually into my heart. Cleanse and strengthen me with your grace, Lord Jesus, and let me never be separated from you. May I live in you, and you in me, in this life and in the life to come. Amen .

    I detest this prayer. It is smarmy, dorky, and focused on ME ME ME. There must be something better that we can come up with in this unprecedented moment when we cannot gather for Eucharist.

    As an alternative I have created this prayer (well, not “created,” but rather pieced together using phrases and motifs from the BCP and A New Zealand Prayer Book), which I offer as a starting point for dicsussion.

    it has echoes of the sursum corda and the sanctus
    it is WE language (not ME language)
    it expresses both our fear and our hope
    it points to working together to end our exile.
    it includes the key phrase “receive into our hearts by faith”

    Lord, the door of your church is locked.

    We are not able to gather around your table;
    we are not able to share your peace.
    We are anxious and afraid.

    Nevertheless, we lift up our hearts,
    we join with angels and archangels
    and all the company of heaven
    as we proclaim you holy
    and receive you into our hearts by faith.

    Strengthen our love for you.
    Give us patience and hope,
    and help us work together with all your faithful people,
    that we may restore health and wholeness to one another
    and to all your creation.
    Through Christ our Savior, Amen.

    Reply
  2. Father Ron Smith Avatar
    Father Ron Smith

    There will come a time – we are told in a certain Christian hymn: “When Sacraments shall cease” In the meantime, Jesus told his disciples that they were to “Do this to remember me”. In saying that, I’m pretty sure that Jesus meant that we were to gather together (whether in the body, corporately, or – in todays’s situation – possibly over the ether of the Internet – to re-member Him.

    Having been given the Spirit of Christ in our Baptism, we are told that the Holy spirit now lives within us. Teilhard de Chardin, when faced with the prospect of celebrating Mass with neither bread not wine to hand, asked God to “be my bread and wine for today”. He believed that he was receving Christ sacramentally in that moment. Knowing that God is much great than our understanding of God, can we not believe that God will feed us sacramentally when our hearts are actually open to receive Him? “I will never leave you” said Jesus. Do we really believe Him in this time of extraordinary need?

    Reply
  3. David Wood Avatar
    David Wood

    A typically helpful and generous reflection, Kelvin, thank you.

    Thanks to you too Robert, for your simple and elegant prayer suggestion, which will hopefully replace that narcissistic rubbish.

    Reply
  4. Anne Wyllie Avatar
    Anne Wyllie

    Thank you Kelvin for your helpful and thought-provoking reflection and questions. As a lay member of the Scottish Episcopal Church, I am following the current guidance from our College of Bishops and making ‘spiritual communion’ instead of partaking of bread and wine whenever I join in an online SEC Eucharistic Service. As a member also of the Church of Scotland, I gladly accept the invitation from Ministers in the Church of Scotland and other churches in the Reformed tradition to set apart a portion of bread and wine in order to receive it during an online Communion Service conducted by such a Minister. Do I feel more nourished by one of these acts of worship rather than the other? Actually, so far, no: I value both traditions and am grateful to belong to both.

    Reply
  5. Rev. Lewis G. Walker Avatar
    Rev. Lewis G. Walker

    And what exactly is the purpose of an article which is all to do with senseless sensationalism and nothing to do with good an sound Theology?… This is the sort of nonsensical gibberish I expect to find the Sun Newspaper, or the Daily Mail, or the Express… They all make a living out of hysterical spectacle passing as “journalism”!

    What is the main objective of an article like this?… I have no idea! Irresponsible scaremongering certainly springs to mind, along with disbelief. What happened to Faith?

    This is not a matter of public relations, Earthly Humanism, or marketing. And this is NOT the place, the time or the subject matter for senseless speculation of utmost gravity!

    This is the MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST, the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, instituted by Him at the Last Supper, with a simple and straight forward request: DO THIS IN MEMORY OF ME.
    For 2020 years Christendom has honoured that promise, through and through, amid endless wars, plagues, sieges, catastrophes in Europe and elsewhere and terrible tragedies such as World Wars 1 and 2, persecutions, and even evil, demonic dictatorships such as the Soviet Union and China.
    Despite all that, Our Lord Jesus Christ emerges, always radiant, always loving, always REAL and PRESENT, a magnet of the Christian Faith, the ultimate catalyst of the New and Eternal Covenant, declared at every Holy Mass during the Canon, at the Elevation.

    COVID-19 is no different than any other calamity the miserable History of Humanity has landed on our doorstep. And as before in 2020 years of Christian History, Our Lord Jesus Christ shall rise again, because we shall raise HIM again. We shall raise him in churches, and if we are forbidden to do so, we shall raise HIM in the streets, in processions, in Open Air Masses, in the open and in hiding if it needs be. And we shall raise HIM again, in public places and in private homes, in gilded altars and on kitchen tables if it comes to that!

    And why?!… Because He promised and so far has never failed us, to fulfil His Mission NEVER TO LEAVE US ALONE, even though He ascended to the Heavens.

    So the message for you, and ME, and all others in ALL CHURCHES is simple: Get AWAY from behind the comfort of a screen and a keyboard, put a washed and nicely ironed cassock on, get inside a cotta, grab a stole and get out, celebrate Mass as before. Ring the bells until they drop off the silent towers.

    Get organised, invite local brass bands, CELEBRATE the Victory of Resurrection as it should be celebrated. Take the Holy Eucharist in procession from local churches to the Cathedral, stop all the traffic, make a splash, make noise. MAKE A FUSS!

    Dying on the Cross for all of us is worth all of that and more, I believe.

    Have FAITH! And for goodness sake, blog less, especially when you are bored, it results in train crash articles like this one. Do something else for the Love of God.

    Regards.

    The Faithful will come, because Love is more powerful than blogs, empty notions, cheap pseudo-debates and all that nonsense.

    Reply

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