Dimensions of Baptism Biblical and Theological Studies

260 Dimensions of Baptism

ing at infants, but having understood it as the baptism of believers, he finds

room in that understanding for infants.

This analysis might give pause to controversialists on both sides of more

recent debates: the paedobaptist might claim John's support for his prac-

tice, but not, surely, for his theology, which assumes the normative status

of that practice. The baptist, by contrast will find in John ample support for

her theology, as he could agree to the BUGB Declaration of Principle

when it claims' [t]hat Christian Baptism is the immersion in water into the

Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, of those who have

professed repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ...'

However, on the basis of precisely this understanding of baptism, John

baptized infants, a practice almost any modern baptist would object to.

What resources might we find here for contemporary ecumenical dia-

logue, then? First, and in a sense negatively, John's account of baptism

should further convince those of us^9 who hold baptistic convictions that

the account of baptism we hold on to is important for the Church, and that

our witness is an important one. John would teach us that if baptism is not

understood through the baptism of believers, then it is simply not under-

stood. Further, the practice of catechesis in the post-Constantinian Church

witnesses to a fear that baptism in a mass Church will become detached

from Christian discipleship and so meaningless, another aspect of baptist

complaint against the paedobaptist state churches that we might find

surprising support for in John Chrysostom.

Secondly, however, John's account should challenge the exclusive the-

ology of baptistic Christians. It is important to realize exactly where the

fault-lines lie in the ecumenical debates over baptism. The witness of

John's own church in the patristic era, and the experiences in modern

times of the United Reformed Church in Britain, and other united and

uniting churches around the world, has shown that it is possible to main-

tain communion with a variety of baptismal convictions and practices, so

long as the validity of practices considered improper is not doubted. That

is, the URC today can find space within its life and praxis for those who

hold to broadly baptistic convictions, and to paedobaptists, by insisting

only that the former do not question the validity of baptisms performed

according to the convictions of the latter. John Chrysostom, it seems,

believed as fervently as any baptist that 'Christian baptism is the immer-

9. As will no doubt be clear by now, I write as a baptist Christian, indeed, as a
   minister accredited by the BUGB. The convictions I am discussing here are my own,
   and deeply held.