322 Dimensions of Baptism
ens the integrity of Christian identity. Identity and consciousness are not
simply lost, but transformed, distorted. Casey rightly observes that acts of
remembering carry an implicit commitment to the truth concerning the past,
and that this serves to condition what shall be for the remembering sub-
ject.^73 Baptism for Southern Baptists seems either to remember not the
gospel rooted as it is in flesh and matter, but individual, spiritual appro-
priation of it; or to reduce the gospel to individual saving knowledge or
experience. The latter fits more closely within the contours of Berry's medi-
tation. The individual believer and her belief have come to displace the
one in whom she believes in baptismal memory. Thus we are not surprised
to find Stewart Newman assert baptism's meaning is largely that given to
it by the person baptized.^74
There is doubtless a legitimate place in baptismal memory and in Chris-
tian kerygma for the personal, even the individual. Cross rightly notes that
conversion and initiation are of a piece in the New Testament witness, and
that baptism occupied a crucial place in the early kerygma.^75 Geoffrey
Wainwright identifies fuller ritual expression of conversion as an example
of ecumenical recovery of the fullness of the rite.^76 Yet because Southern
Baptists place such great emphasis upon the believer's faith as the object
of baptismal memory, they risk minimizing the true subject and object of
Christian memory: Christ. Their baptismal practice thus strengthens not so- Casey, Remembering, pp. 278-83.
- S.A. Newman, A Free Church Perspective: A Study in Ecclesiology (Wake
Forest, NC: Stevens Book Press, 1986), p. 79.
In this respect, Baptist practice mirrors American culture more generally considered.
In their groundbreaking analysis, Robert Bellah and four colleagues identified indi-
vidualism as the American 'first language' for moral discourse. The effect, however, is
to rob Americans of language by which to name the bases of compelling reasons for
commitment and duty beyond personal preference and self-realization. Even the 'second
languages' provided by 'communities of memory' (such as churches) are compromised
by the dominance of individualism. R. Bellah, et al, Habits of the Heart: Individualism
and Commitment in American Life (New York: Harper & Row, 1985),passim. Southern
Baptist baptismal practice would seem to corroborate their conclusions.
Significant exceptions to this tendency are W. Carr, Baptism: Conscience and Clue
for the Church (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964),passim, cf. especially
p. 153; and M. Ashcraft, Christian Faith and Beliefs (Nashville: Broadman Press,
1984), pp. 292-93. - Cross, '"One Baptism", pp. 182-93. Cf. Ellis, 'Baptism', p. 27. Southern
Baptist emphases, while understandable and to an extent correct, have also been
impoverishing. - Wainwright,' Renewing', p. 51.