Baptists: laying on hands

Baptist History and Heritage, Summer-Fall, 2003 by Walter B. Shurden

In recent years few things have gripped me more in Baptist worship than Baptist ordination services.

Some of the most spiritually moving, emotionally tearful, and authentically inspiring worship services that I have attended have been those very services that I once considered tedious, even boring. I am not sure why the change. Two aspects stand out for me, however.

One difference is WHO is BEING ordained. The inclusion of women in ministry has made enormous differences. To watch people who have been shut out finally get in is a touching scene for any vulnerable conscience. It is a golden moment to watch significant, though long-suppressed, gifts liberated for Christ's church and cause. To see Baptists ordain women deacons and women clergy by the laying on of hands never fails to give me hope for the church. It is another strong sign that the walls are coming down.

Another factor that has made a difference in these ordination services is who is doing the ordaining. At the last two churches where my wife and I have been members, the entire congregation laid on hands. All God's priests ordain and bless. To watch a granddaughter whisper blessings while laying hands on her grandmother moves the soul.

I am sure that you have stood in line waiting your turn to lay on hands, thinking of what you would say when your time came. I often wonder what other "blessing people" have said to the blest. Was it simply the sound of the voice that caused the kneeling one blindly to reach out for hands to grasp? And what word precipitated the abandonment of decorum, causing eyes to open and auras to reach up and hug and kiss and give thanks?

Today, Baptists usually associate laying on hands with the ordination of deacons or clergy. However, Baptists possess another tradition of laying on hands that is deeply rooted in their history. I refer, of course, to the laying on of hands on believers following their baptism. It is a remarkable symbol where new Christians received through the church the blessing of Almighty God.

Early Baptists found in Acts 8:17 and Hebrews 6:1-2, among other scriptures, biblical justification for laying on of hands on baptized believers. In his 1827 History of the General or Six Principle Baptists, Richard Knight held that "this rite" was "of equal authority with baptism." Whether all Baptists considered it of equal authority with baptism is highly debatable, but it is not debatable that General Baptists, Calvinistic Baptists, and Separate Baptists at various time practiced "this rite."

In republishing the Second London Confession in 1743, the Philadelphia Association deliberately added an article on "Of Laying on of Hands." "We believe," they said, "that ... laying on of Hands (with Prayer) upon baptized Believers ... is an Ordinance of Christ." Benjamin Griffith's A Short Treatise of Church Discipline, may be American Baptists' first church manual, also called for laying on of hands after baptism.

Baptists never agreed on the precise meaning of this rite. However, they believed it was biblical. They also believed it was meaningful It is unquestionably historical, in terms of the Baptist tradition. So, if the act of laying on hands could do for me at baptismal services what it has done for me at ordination services, I move that we reconsider the practice. I would love to see the entire congregation have a physical way of blessing new Christians that goes beyond the sometimes perfunctory "right hand of Christian fellowship."

Walter B. Shurden

Executive Director

The Center for Baptist Studies

Mercer University