FlDDES Baptism and the Process of Christian Initiation 287
tion of this document shows that such a simple and total identification is
bound to produce tensions and even inconsistencies. We shall have to ask
why, despite evident problems, there is a desire to persist on this course.
Believer-baptists who question it may well find that they have stumbled,
all unwittingly, not simply into the current momentum for a 'unified rite of
initiation', but into an internal Anglican debate.
The statement begins with a summary of 'Principles of Christian Initia-
tion', and the third point makes the unequivocal claim that 'Baptism is
complete sacramental initiation and leads to participation in the eucharist'.
The rite of confirmation is affirmed as having a continuing pastoral role as
a means of 'renewal of faith' among the baptized, or a reaffirmation of the
baptismal covenant (cf. §3.19-20), but it is not to be seen in any way as a
'completion of baptism'. We notice immediately that there is no room here
for the idea that confirmation, or other rites of commitment, might com-plete initiation while not completing baptism in itself.
This simple identity of baptism and initation leads to some strains in
§1.3 where the report considers the case of those who have received the
sign of baptism but have only later come to an 'active faith'. The 'inwardpart' of baptism is regarded as a 'promise of forgiveness of sins, rebirth to
new life in Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit', and the report notes that
'where baptism accompanies or even conveys a personal experience of
conversion to Christ then that promised gift of God is received along withthe outward sign'. The logic of this statement ('where baptism accompa-
nies...') is that when 'active faith' does not coincide with baptism but
comes later on in someone's experience, the promise must be fulfilled at
that moment. The report refrains from saying this explicitly; it affirms only
that liturgical celebration of active faith must be 'based upon the original
baptism'. However, if the promise given in baptism is in any sense ful-
filled in a later coming to faith, must not the fulfilment be the conclusion
of initiation? This would have been the view, for example, of the Reform-
ers who framed the Heidelberg Catechism in which the language of
promise plays so central a part in its section on baptism.^17 Yet this report
denies that 'the imposition of hands somehow.. .concludes the process of
Christian initiation' (§1.16).
For all that, however, the authors of the report do not seem to be able to
avoid the image of a process of initiation entirely, since they approve 'the- See Question 74 in the context of 69-73. Text, with useful commentary, in Karl
Barth, The Heidelberg Catechism for Today (trans. S. Guthrie; London: Epworth Press,
1964), pp. 98-105.