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

Ecumenical Review, The, Oct, 1998 by Dagmar Heller

5. In this connection, it should be noted that while all churches agree that baptism cannot be repeated (BEM urges churches not to do anything that could be understood as "re-baptism"), the problem is in fact much more difficult. Those churches which do "re-baptize" (as those who baptize infants would see it) do not themselves consider this to be a "re-baptism" at all; for them it is the first and only baptism. Thus there is evidently still a difference in the understanding or definition of baptism which BEM does not discuss and which is far from being resolved. The issue here is whether or not personal faith is a prerequisite for baptism. All churches agree that faith is necessary, but for some this can be the faith of the church, expressed during the baptism by the parents or the godparent, while for others it is necessary for the candidate to express the faith himself or herself. This points also to the fact that the question of what is understood by "faith" is still open.

The present situation

To describe the present ecumenical situation regarding baptism we must go beyond the official responses to look at what is in fact happening among the churches. And on that basis it must be acknowledged that a certain degree of progress has been made. Under the influence of BEM some churches have come closer together or even recognized each other (for instance, the churches in the Porvoo and Meissen agreements). But it must be added that this is not the result of what BEM says on baptism: the churches which are parties to these agreements did not have problems with one another over the issue of baptism. Furthermore, a number of important problems remain for many churches in the area of the mutual recognition of baptism. These problems centre around two principal issues:

1. One area of difficulty has to do with the differences between the churches which baptize adults and those which baptize infants. As stated above, these are differences in the concept of baptism and on the question of faith. At this point, I think it must be said, BEM was a little too optimistic. Its identification of convergences here did not take sufficient account of the differences between these two sorts of churches. And today the Baptist churches in general are expressing themselves much more strongly on this question.

2. The second area of difficulty -- about which there has been little discussion -- concerns differences among those churches which baptize infants. In particular, the Orthodox churches still do not recognize the baptism of other churches on principle. In the words of Henry Chadwick,

   the Orthodox churches of the East are deeply resistant even today about the
   possibility of recognizing the baptism of any Christian community which
   does not share the right faith, orthodoxia: baptism is initiation into the
   church, and no heretic can admit anyone to the church.(9)

In principle the Orthodox do baptize a person coming from another church (which from the point of view of the other church would be seen as "re-baptizing"). In practice, the situation is different from church to church. In the USA, for example, many Orthodox churches would not (re-)baptize a person coming from an Oriental Orthodox church, the Roman Catholic Church or from an historic Protestant church.(10) To take another example, this one from Europe, the Russian Orthodox Church does not (re-)baptize Lutherans or Catholics, while the Church of Greece does.