Rector’s Reflections
Thursday 23rd February 2025
Baptism in Today’s Church: Time for a Change?
I have now reached the end of the current series of reflections. I started the series with an acknowledgment of the fact that that the traditional model of baptism and confirmation practice no longer matches the contemporary reality of Church life. In the old days, most parents brought their babies to their local parish church to be christened, and a substantial proportion of these children would then go on to be confirmed as teenagers. This is no longer the usual practice. Of course, some parents still do bring their children to be baptized, and some confirmations do still take place. But it is nothing like the old days. Things have changed.
So how should the Church of England respond to these changes? One approach is to re-brand baptism and confirmation so that they become ceremonies marking membership of a local church congregation. Another way is to see them primarily as means towards getting more people into church.
Both these re-brands make baptism and confirmation subsidiary to the concerns of the local church congregation: everything is about the local church. Another approach is to take the local church out of the picture, and focus on the bigger picture. One version of this approach sees baptism and confirmation in terms of welcoming a new member into the World wide Church. Another version focusses squarely on God’s call, and sees baptism and confirmation as one of the ways in which we respond to God’s call, and receive the gift of God’s Holy Spirit to encourage and inspire us as we live out our Christian faith in the particular circumstances of our own lives.
Of course elements of all these different approaches can be combined together, but I think in practice one particular approach tends to dominate. For example, some churches integrate baptism and confirmation into a lengthy process of instruction and formation, typically called the Catechumenate. In theory, this is all about celebrating God’s call and the work of God’s Holy Spirit, which is a wonderful thing to do, but in practice it’s basically another way of turning a candidate seeking baptism into a well-taught and hopefully obedient member of your particular denomination. In theory, the Catechumenate is all about God, but in practice its mostly about the Church. Of course the response to this is that the Church is God’s Church, so what’s the problem?
So there are many different responses to the fact that, at least in England, the traditional approach to baptism and confirmation has had its day. Different church leaders will take different approaches, according to their own particular context, their own theological traditions, and their own personality. I don’t think there is a one size fits all approach which will work in every situation. It’s all about trying to discern what seems to make sense in a particular place and a particular time, taking into account the resources available. For example, there is much to be said for the idea of embedding baptism and confirmation into a well-planned programme of Christian instruction and formation. But this needs resourcing, and it is rare for the necessary resources to be available, in part because the resources which are available usually need to be diverted to other priorities.
And what do I think? My starting point is that everything depends on the context – every parish is different, every family is different, every individual is different. Baptism and confirmation needs to start by recognising the context. My next step is to ask myself the following question: given the context here, what might give greatest glory to God? How do we make sure, as the Church, that we’re not just pushing our own agenda, and our desire to control the lives of others? How do make sure that we’re not getting in the way of God? My third step is this: how are we recognising and celebrating the breadth and diversity of God’s church? The ”church” isn’t just our own congregation. Neither is it our own particular denomination. The “church” means the World Wide Christian Community, and baptism with or without confirmation brings us into membership of this World Wide Church. Finally, I ask myself this: given the resources available, what is realistic in the particular situation in question? There’s no point trying to do something where we simply don’t have the resources to make it happen.
With these thoughts, I draw the current series of reflections to a close. A fresh series starts next week, on a totally different topic.