254 Dimensions of Baptism
debate. They were not always right, but they are always worth listening to.
For a significant portion of the first five centuries of the Church's life
varying baptismal practices, and indeed theologies, coexisted in an undi-
vided Church. As one recent Lutheran treatment of the sacrament puts it,
'It is important to note that the ancient decision was not that the children
of Christian parents should be baptized as infants, only that they could be.
Many pastors of the ancient church recommended postponement, and
many parents postponed.'^2 That is to say, a situation obtained whereby
many pastors and people believed infant baptism to be proper, and many
others believed it to be improper, but not invalid, and yet the Church (and,
as far as we can tell, the churches) did not discern any need to divide over
the issue.
Now, it is possible that the Fathers were suffering a simple failure of
discernment: this may be an issue which should have divided the Church,
but no-one could see this. When we consider, however, just how wide-
spread this peaceful coexistence was, and the calibre of the theologians
who failed to challenge it (e.g. Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Jerome,
Augustine), this begins to seem unlikely. It is also the case that the present
divisions are sharper than the patristic ones: most baptist^3 Christians and
churches will not allow that infant baptism is 'improper but not invalid';
rather, they insist that it is invalid.
Individual attitudes, however, as described in the anecdote with which
I began, and the ecumenical practice of baptistic churches, suggest that
beliefs are at some variance to confession. It is not the case that people
baptized as infants are treated as if they were simply unbaptized. There
may be room here for some form of ecumenical rapprochement.
- John Chrysostom: Baptizing Believers and Infants
'Patristic' covers a wide timespan; my interest here is particularly in a
series of debates in the fourth and fifth centuries. This was the time when
- Robert W. Jenson, The Means of Grace: Part Two: The Sacraments', in C.E.
Braaten and R.W. Jenson (eds.), Christian Dogmatics (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1984), II, pp. 289-389 (318). Jenson cites the obvious example of Augustine. - Using the uncapitalized word in a similar, although not identical, manner to
James W. McClendon, to indicate all those who hold to an understanding of eccle-
siology and baptismal practice which would accord with traditional Baptist ideas,
including, for example, Mennonites, the Churches of Christ, and various new churches
alongside self-identified 'Baptist' churches. See J.W. McClendon, Systematic Theol-
ogy. I. Ethics (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988), e.g. pp. 17-46.