Baptism — the Basis of Church Unity?: The Question of Baptism in Faith and Order

"When baptismal unity is realized in one holy, catholic, apostolic church, a genuine Christian witness can be made to the healing and reconciling love of God. Therefore, our one baptism into Christ constitutes a call to the churches to overcome their divisions and visibly manifest their fellowship."(1)

This is a quotation from Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM), the well-known document published in 1982 after many years of study and consultation in the WCC's Faith and Order commission. What BEM sought to do, to put it simply, was to say together that which can be said together. The document has been described as an example of a new literary genre, the "convergence text". The BEM text seeks to identify convergences, points at which the different Christian traditions could come together -- or at least come closer to each other. "Convergence" differs from "consensus", which the introduction to the BEM text describes as the "experience of life and articulation of faith necessary to realize and maintain the church's visible unity"; convergences, by contrast, are points at which it is possible to speak with one voice even if there is not yet consensus on all the details.

The BEM text deals with its three themes in the same way: first, a formulation of the convergences on a given question, then, in its "commentaries", an indication of the divergences that remain. The document was sent to all the member churches of the WCC and to the Roman Catholic Church. The latter had been involved in producing the text by way of its official membership on the Faith and Order commission. The churches were asked to study the text and respond to several questions about whether they could "recognize in this text the faith of the church throughout the ages" and about the implications of this text for them. In other words, the churches were asked to receive the text and to draw the consequences from it -- that is, to change any practices or attitudes which did not correspond with the common tradition as set forth in BEM.

The responses of the churches were published and analyzed,(2) and since then Faith and Order has been following through on these themes in the directions indicated by the churches' responses.

An outline of what has been achieved by the BEM text and by the process of church responses regarding baptism will show that, while there has been progress, some problems remain. In what follows, I shall give an overview of the present ecumenical situation concerning baptism and the extent to which it is a basis for the communion of the churches. I shall conclude by summarizing what Faith and Order has been doing in this area recently.

Convergences on baptism

The BEM document was generally greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm and positive reaction. Above all, it was apparent that, of the three parts of the text, the highest degree of convergence has been attained regarding baptism.

The text begins by describing the agreement among different traditions regarding the institution and meaning of baptism (chs I-II). Baptism, it says, is "participation in Christ's death and resurrection", which implies conversion, pardoning and cleansing, and is the gift of the Spirit and incorporation into the body of Christ. In this sense, baptism is the sign of the kingdom of God. A commentary to Chapter II underscores the need to recover baptismal unity and observes that churches which allow differences of sex, race or social status to divide the body of Christ are contradicting the concept of baptism as incorporation into the body of Christ -- a contradiction between theory and practice which seriously compromises the witness of the Christian community.

In Chapter III, BEM deals with the problem of baptism and faith. All churches agree that faith is necessary "for the reception of the salvation embodied and set forth in baptism" and that "personal commitment is necessary for responsible membership in the body of Christ" (para. 8). This chapter also emphasizes that baptism is a matter of "life-long growth into Christ" (para. 9).

Regarding baptismal practice, the subject of chapter IV, BEM notes that two practices -- adult baptism and infant baptism -- have developed and that neither is in contradiction with the New Testament.(3) But it is evident that it is here that most of the problems regarding mutual recognition of baptism are encountered. And it is interesting to see how BEM treats these problems in the commentary following paragraph 12.

The first problem is the difference between those churches which "baptize people at any age and those who baptize only those able to make a confession of faith for themselves":

   The differences between infant and believers' baptism become less sharp
   when it is recognized that both forms of baptism embody God's own
   initiative in Christ and express a response of faith made within the
   believing community.

Thus BEM seeks to identify a convergence between the two attitudes or practices by showing that they are in fact complementary: