During the 1940s, in parallel with the emerging consensus on the nature and structure of the Eucharist based on pre-Nicene models, there was an emerging scholarly consensus on baptism. This culminated in the 1958 Liturgical Commission Report “Baptism and Confirmation”. It sets out the integrated rite of Baptism and Confirmation of Adults as the archetypal service, roundly declaring “In the New Testament Adult Baptism is the norm, and it is only in the light of this fact that the doctrine and practice of Baptism can be understood”.

However, to understand and to imitate are two different things. In 1960 the number of infant baptisms was still massive and the number of confirmations was quite substantial, so pastoral practice was not affected by what the liturgists thought..

In 1971 the Ely report on Christian initiation proposed that “The Church should make explicit its recognition of Baptism as the full and complete rite of Christian initiation” and “that Confirmation be administered as a service of commitment and commissioning, but at a suitable stage in adult life.” The first recommendation resulted in the drive by some for children to be communicants without being confirmed. To the extent it takes root, the practice casts doubt on the relevance or necessity for confirmation. The second recommendation has simply been ignored. In the midst of this are the bishops who carry on confirming candidates as requested by the parishes. It raises the question – is confirmation a component of Christian initiation as it stands? If so, how is initiation complete in Baptism? Perhaps Ely was mistaken?

What about this question. Is Confirmation experienced as it should be only when part of an integrated sacramental act of Baptism-Confirmation-First Communion?

If we accept that to be so, then there are two ways of handling the full integrated rite.. First is the way of the Orthodox who administers the integrated rite to babies. The parish priests are given authority to confirm. The second way is to follow the pre-Nicene pattern of the pre-baptismal catechumenate, culminating (ideally at Easter) in the integrated rite. For this to be practicable it would be necessary for the bishops to delegate confirming to the parochial clergy, but just imagine the energy that might release. It would mean that the work of evangelism and catechesis could be synchronised throughout England. Starting with “Back to Church Sunday” in September there could be a common pattern of preparation and instruction leading through to Easter. The role of the bishops could be to validate those local churches or new expressions of Church sufficiently resourced to meet the demands of the programme.

Embraced ecumenically a typical Easter might see people receiving initiation in perhaps 25,000 different locations at the same time on the same day. What a witness that would be!

However, for as long as the authority to confirm in the C of E is confined to fewer than 200 men, the vision cannot be realised. That would be a great shame. Movements like Fresh Expressions witness to a Church beginning to wake up to the world as it is – pluralistic, globalised, scientific, materialistic, media driven but a world in which people have enormous personal freedom to choose in so many aspects of life, but knowing little or nothing about Jesus. As the report on Generation Y said, it is a generation ignorant about rather than hostile to Christianity, surely an unchurched generation for which the ancient pre-baptismal catechumenate was tailor-made.

To reintroduce the catechumenate and reintegrate Confirmation with Baptism is not something unheard of. For a generation now the Roman Catholic Church has been running its rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) and some parts of the Anglican Communion have developed similar rites. Take note also that Common Worship: Christian Initiation contains a modest nudge in the same direction with its opening Rites Supporting Disciples on the Way of Christ. It also provides for the newborn with a well devised Service of Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child. (691 words)

David Perry, Membership Secretary of Baptismal Integrity,
the views expressed are personal and do not represent any particular policy of BI
South Cave 10/10/10

How does one account for the way in which the Armenian Church, one of the most ancient, developed specific liturgies for babies? Prefacing the Order for Baptism which states explicitly that it is for use with adults and grown children, the Armenian books provide two Canons to be used for infants.

The first is the “Canon of an eight days old child”; the infant is brought to the door of the church by his grandmother, he is named, signed with the cross, and one prayer said. The second is a Canon for use when the child is forty days old; he is brought by his mother and his nurse, at the church door a prayer is said for the purification of the mother, they enter church where hands are laid on the child, and he is caused to prostrate himself before the altar.

How could that provision for infants have been made if the apostolic norm was to baptise infants? How also indeed could infants have been treated as ineligible for baptism?

These rites for infants are well echoed by modern rites of infant blessing and dedication such as the Church of England’s Service of Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child.

Jesus speaks in terms of the new wine requiring new skins.

Time and again Jesus says “But I say unto you….”

St Paul sets out clearly the radical transition made by Christians, outgrowing the paedagogos that leads us to Christ.

Animal sacrifice is made redundant because of the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

We see the price of the discontinuity where Jesus says “Brother will betray brother to death and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

The Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 was an exercise in managing the discontinuity.

Paul in Philippians – What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Lo! We turn to the Gentiles.

All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers. (Jn 10)

Discontinuity is there in abundance, making Christianity a new start for mankind rather than the formation of a sect within Judaism.

There is no suggestion that newborn infants were baptised nor that there was any attempt at clinical baptism when they were dying in childhood. Instead the parents and the Christian community practised “giving thanks in all things”.

Note the phrase “explicit testimony is lacking”. Perhaps we should start from the contrary assumption that baptism was from the very beginning a rite for adults or, in Jewish terms, for those who were beyond the age of bar mitzvah and now responsible for their actions.

If we assume there was no baptism of infants, there is nothing in the New Testament to conflict with that assumption and everything to support it. Consider just the following:

John the Baptist’s baptism of repentance is only meaningful if administered to those of adult status. Insisting that infants and young children should undergo a baptism of repentance would have seemed ludicrous to John and the crowds around him. I have nowhere seen it suggested either in scripture or in the writings of theologians that John the Baptist baptised infants.

Jesus was baptised as a 30 year old. Jesus blessed the little children; he did not ask them to be disciples.

Jesus’ disciples (the Twelve and the Seventy) were adults and it is the continuity of that group which evolves into Followers of the Way and into Christian fellowships dotted around the ancient world.

John the Baptist was beheaded, Jesus was crucified and Stephen was stoned. Could the first Christian congregations really have thrust baptism upon babies and young children? With the threat of persecution hanging over them they would surely have kept them out of the firing line, hopefully bringing them up to seek baptism when mature enough to accept the implications of confessing Christ in a hostile world.

Acts 8.12 tells us explicitly that “men and women were baptised” – no mention of babes or children and Acts 9 records that Saul went to Damascus to arrest “both men and women”. This shows up the argument that “household” baptisms included babies is mere supposition.

Becoming a Christian was a grown up activity that was entered into through responding to the Gospel, e.g. Rom. 10.10 “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” This all presupposes a process of evangelism and catechesis prior to baptism.

The argument from circumcision is equally impotent. The first Christians were circumcised Jews. John the Baptist baptised circumcised Jews. The direct link between John’s baptism and that of the infant Church cannot be overemphasised. When asked by what authority he operated, Jesus replied “The ministry of John the Baptist, was it of God or man?” John the Baptist shows no interest in circumcision. The word never crosses Jesus’ lips except as part of an argument over the Sabbath in John 7.22. St Paul says bluntly “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avail anything but a new creature”. To say that baptism was the Christian version of Jewish circumcision is as absurd as saying “football is the new cricket.”

David Perry 24th April 2010 South Cave

Here two forms of baptism are contrasted. There is the baptism that arises when someone of adult status comes forward willingly to embrace the faith and there is the baptism “of necessity”, i.e. clinical or emergency baptism. It is clear that the latter is regarded as second best. Up until the late fourth century parents would not have dreamt of robbing their children of a meaningful baptismal experience by prematurely seeking their baptism as infants or prepubescent children (see post about J H Newman).

Jeremias in his Infant Baptism in the first four centuries spent all his energy hunting for wisps of evidence that babies were being baptised. He gave no thought to material which would indicate that the baptism of healthy infants was nowhere in the frame.

This Canon shows that the norm since NT times that baptism was for the believing instructed is still going strong nearly 300 years later.