BAPTISM AND THE PROCESS OF CHRISTIAN INITIATIONPaul S. Fiddes
- Common Baptism or Common Initiation?
The affirmation that all Christian people share a 'common baptism' has
become an accepted departure point in ecumenical conversations and
documents. The latest Faith and Order Paper on baptism (emerging from
the consultation held at Faverges in 1997) declares, for example, that
Through our common baptism we are all brought into Christ, and this forms
the basis of our ecumenical engagement with each other: because Christ has
claimed us, we have no right to reject one another... Since we as Christians
are all incorporated into the crucified and glorified Christ, nothing—not
even the churches with their centuries of division—can separate us from
one another.lIn face of this moving plea it may seem wilfully obstructive for at least
two worldwide Christian communions—the Orthodox Church and the
Baptist churches—to be doubtful about whether one can in fact speak so
easily of a 'common baptism' at the present stage of the history of the
Christian Church. However, one is bound to observe that even those
churches which whole-heartedly acclaim a 'common baptism' as the means
of union with Christ and with each other have not been able to move on
from this point to other areas of mutual recognition. 'Common baptism', a
shared baptismal identity, does not seem to have proved the foundation forbuilding visible union in such areas of ecclesial life as ministry and
eucharist. In this paper I want to suggest that there may be more potential
in exploring a wider context of commonality—not simply an appeal to a
common event of initiation (baptism), but a common process or pattern of
initiation in which the moment of baptism plays a part. This, as I want to
- Thomas F. Best and Dagmar Heller (eds.), Becoming a Christian: The Ecu-
menical Implications of our Common Baptism (F&O Paper, 184; Geneva: WCC, 1999),
p. 3.