4 Dimensions of Baptism
The patristic and modern periods are then covered by Stephen Holmes's
study of John Chrysostom, Basil of Caesarea and Augustine, and Roy
Kearsley's study of Tertullian (and Jurgen Moltmann). Both Holmes and
Kearsley make suggestions as to how the work of these Fathers can be
employed for the benefit of contemporary ecumenical theological debate.
The ecumenical context is further explored in Paul Fiddes's study of Chris-
tian initiation in which baptism as a 'process' is advanced as a fruitful way
forward for ecumenical discussion for both baptists and paedobaptists.
Graham Watts compares the work of Martin Luther and Karl Barth and
their use of the idea of the hiddenness of God as a systematic tool. Their
theologies are contrasted and their opposing conclusions on the nature and
practice of baptism are discussed. He believes that both Luther and Barth
failed to integrate their profound insights into the manner of God's pres-
ence into their theologies of baptism, and he proposes that a greater inter-
play between the doctrine of the Trinity and the concept of hiddenness
could provide an approach to baptism as a free response that is grounded
in God's action in the Spirit. Brian Haymes offers a study on the moral
dimension of baptism that links New Testament teaching and ethical
studies and issues. He examines some of the implications arising from the
recognition that the nature of baptism and the whole life of moral exis-
tence are related to baptism.
This final category of studies is distinctly Baptist/baptist in content.^5
The most distinctive feature of the Baptists is their theology and practice
of believer's baptism, an integral part of which is their rejection of infant
baptism (antipaedobaptism). But while baptism and the broader issue of
Christian initiation has come into prominence since the 1940s, it was not
really until the late 1950s to mid-1960s that Baptists entered the debate,
only for them to all but disappear from it by the early 1970s. As a result
Baptists have been criticized from within for the seeming lack of attention
they have paid to the rite which, on the one hand, symbolizes their distinc-
tion from other traditions, but, on the other, symbolizes their contribution
- For this distinction between 'Baptist' and 'baptist', see J.W. McClendon,
Systematic Theology. I. Ethics (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1988), e.g. pp. 19-20, and
his Systematic Theology. II. Doctrine (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994), pp. 8-9.
'Baptist* refers to those, such as the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Southern Baptists,
American Baptists and Cooperative Baptists, who are known as such, while 'baptists'
refers to those of a baptistic tradition, which McClendon, Ethics, p. 19, identifies as
having originated in the Radical Reformation, also known as the 'Free Church' or
'Believers' Church'.