FlDDES Baptism and the Process of Christian Initiation 295
ing' of the elements of initiation over time and space? How can we hold
together elements that have been torn apart while allowing for real proc-
ess? How can we affirm a completeness in baptism but not in initiation?
These are questions we have to explore in the final section.
- A Theology of Process
My aim so far in this paper has been to clarify the different senses in which
the word 'process' may be used, and to urge that the full sense of a 'sacra-
mental process of initiation' should not be lost in a 'baptismal process'
understood as 'life-long growth into Christ'. However, if we are to speak
of a process of initiation in which baptism may stand either near the begin-
ning (infant baptism) or near the end (believer's baptism), we need con-
structively to develop a theology of initiatory process. This must support
any attempt to compare 'equivalent processes', as BEMproposes. Here I
suggest that there are three dynamics which may help us, each being an
interplay of balancing factors, and all depending on a theological view of
baptism as immersion into the threefold fellowship of God who is Trinity.
(a) An Interplay of Grace and Faith
Christian initiation as a process or journey is characterized by an interplay
of divine grace and human faith at all stages. The journey begins in the
hidden depths of prevenient grace, at work beneath the surface of human
life and consciousness, originating in the eternal desire of God for fel-
lowship with human persons. We are called to respond to God's project in
creation with trust and obedience, and initiation into this partnership for
any person ends with his or her conscious and responsible response. At
any stage in this process of making a partnership (or covenant), baptism
can be a meeting-place between grace and faith and so can focus the two
realities. We need to abandon the stereotypes that infant baptism only ex-
presses divine grace, and that believer's baptism only witnesses to human
faith.
However, we must recognize that the nature of 'grace' and 'faith' will
an infant who is baptized must be professed later on by that person him or herself
(II.B.22). This statement thus stresses that while baptism at any age certainly contains
some aspect of formation in faith, initiation requires a more extended process of this
formation which includes owned faith. It concludes that 'churches might arrive at a
mutual recognition of baptism through recognizing and affirming the similarity of
wider patterns of initiation and formation in Christ' (V. A.62).