Baptism and the process of Christian initiation

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan-June, 2002 by Paul S. Fiddes

      In some churches which unite both infant-baptist and believer-baptist
    traditions, it has been possible to regard as equivalent alternatives
    for entry into the church both a pattern whereby baptism in infancy is
    followed by a later profession of faith and a pattern whereby believer's
    baptism follows upon a presentation and blessing in infancy.

The article then urges all churches to consider whether they, too, cannot "recognize equivalent alternatives in their reciprocal relationships". That these "equivalent alternatives" are not simply the different forms of baptism but whole patterns of initiation is made clear by the "clarification" of this clause offered by the official report on the responses made to BEM (1990):

   Some churches ask what is meant by "equivalent alternatives" ... It is not
   the act of "infant baptism" and the act of "believer's/adult baptism" in
   themselves that are there proposed as "equivalent alternatives", but rather
   two total processes of initiation which the text recognizes. (11)

So, according to BEM, the "one baptism" in Christ is not in itself sufficient to ensure mutual recognition of each other's baptism; indeed, such recognition, achieved by mutual acceptance of whole processes of initiation, will be "an important sign and means of expressing the baptismal unity given in Christ". (12) While the responses of the churches to BEM greet with apparent enthusiasm the depiction of initiation as a process, seeing in this a means of overcoming differences in practice, they still tend to relapse into a strict comparison of two forms of baptism, treating the theological concept of "common baptism" as equivalent to "mutually recognized baptism".

While Roman Catholic sacramental theology has continued to maintain confirmation as a second sacrament (although increasingly encouraging "first communion" before confirmation), it may seem odd that BEM has been followed by a general Protestant move to assert sacramental completeness of initiation in baptism. The "new pattern" has perhaps been fostered by the way that the "theological" part of the article on baptism draws attention to two kinds of process (though it does not use the actual word "process", preferring "growth"), distinguished in two separate paragraphs under "baptism and faith". The first states that baptism "looks towards a growth into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ", and explicitly links this to the "personal commitment" which is "necessary for responsible membership in the body of Christ" (para. 8). This clearly envisages "growth" as part of a process of initiation, or being incorporated into Christ. The next paragraph, however, describes a longer process, affirming that "baptism is related not only to momentary experience but to life-long growth into Christ". It is this view of a process that seems to be taken up in statements which affirm the "sacramental completeness of baptism"; that is, it is a process of growth subsequent to a completed initiation. We shall return to this below in examining the increasingly popular language of "baptismal process".