THOMPSON Memorial Dimensions of Baptism 319
In tandem with recognition of memory as fundamental to Christian life,
a growing number of voices are warning of the threat posed to Christian
faith by a loss of memory, by amnesia.^64 Often identified as the loss of a
sense of the Church catholic's 'Great Tradition' on the part of Protestants,
this amnesia threatens a loss of identity. With the absence of this sense of
tradition, Wilken contends, Christian life lacks depth and direction.^65 This
threat has not gone unrecognized in Baptist circles. Baptist theologian D.H.
Williams writes:
If one could sum up the current theological situation [in Evangelicalism], it
would be amnesia. The real problem with amnesia, of course, is that not
only does the patient forget his loved ones and friends, but he no longer
remembers who he is.^66We might think it natural to say that Southern Baptists suffer from an
added aspect of amnesia of their own tradition, allowing the richer earlier
practices to be eclipsed. We need to ask what caused this eclipse, and
whether it is a simple amnesia, for it rendered Baptists vulnerable to receive
the wound of which Berry writes. Over the past two centuries, Baptists in
America have come to diminish the rite's recital of the Christian narrative in
the context of social space. Memorial recital has given way to kerygma in
baptismal practice among Southern Baptists. This was emerging even when
Edwards wrote. It came to dominate baptismal thought not many decades
thereafter.
John Leland (1754-1841), leader among Separate Baptists in America
and tireless champion of religious liberty, manifested this understanding in
a letter to the Shaftsbury, New York, Baptist Association. Leland had
qualms over not just administering, but receiving, communion. Concerned
about this stance, certain members of his congregation brought this to the
attention of the local association of Baptist churches. Leland's response,- Cf. Wilken, Remembering, p. 170; and M. G. Cartwright, 'The Once and Future
Church Revisited', in S. Powell and M. Lodahl (eds.), Embodied Holiness; Toward a
Corporate Theology of Spiritual Growth (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,
1999), pp. 115-44(115-16). - Wilken, Remembering, p. 170. Cf. C.E. Braaten, 'The Problem of Authority in
the Church', in C.E. Braaten and R.W. Jenson (eds.), The Catholicity of the Reforma-
tion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 53-66 (53-55); and Braaten, 'Epilogue:
Theology Pro Ecclesia—Evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox', in J.S. Custinger (ed.),
Reclaiming the Great Tradition: Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox in Dialogue
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), pp. 185-98. - D.H. Williams, Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A
Primer for Suspicious Protestants (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 9.