This Day Consultation was organised by North East Christian Churches Together, and took place on 15 October 2007 at St Joseph’s Parish Centre in Gateshead.
Like most of these Day Consultations, the starting point was a document seen to be of ecumenical significance, in this case the report of the recent joint Anglican - Baptist conversations Pushing at the Boundaries of Unity. Happily, and probably wisely, none of the speakers assumed that all the participants had read the text.
The Baptist perspective was supplied by the Revd Dr Brian Haymes, former principal of the Northern Baptist College. Starting from a historical perspective, he argued that early separatists in the seventeenth century who were asking the question “Where is the true Church to be found?” became Baptists because of their ecclesiology. Warning of the dangers of any religious rite being employed as a foundation for unity, he sought to distinguish our “One Baptism” from the confusing notion of “Common Baptism”. Reflecting on a number of difficult real life scenarios, the speaker turned to the report and commended its insistence that the act of baptism must be unrepeatable as an act of redemption, that the grace of God displayed in baptism is always prevenient, and that baptism is a relational act – not a private deal.
The Revd Dr Peter Robinson, priest in charge at Byker, and Director of the Project in Urban Ministry and Theology, spoke out of his own experiences of parish ministry, and his conviction (with Martin Luther) that baptism must be understood as a living everyday reality. From the report, he highlighted the helpful distinction originally made in On the Way between sacramental and Christian initiation, and the quotation from another Anglican document, the 1991 Toronto Statement, that ‘Baptism is complete sacramental initiation and leads to participation in the Eucharist’. Turning to the theme of “One baptism” he called for a closer consideration of Jesus’s own baptism, before concluding with some thoughts on baptism as a personal and social process drawn from Anglican thought and experience over the past couple of decades.
Both these presentations evoked a number of preliminary questions from the thirty or so people who had gathered for the day. There was a good deal of conversation over lunch, after which the group gathered again to hear our own Revd Dr David Peel, Synod Education & Training Officer, speak from the perspective of a Church that since union with the Churches of Christ in 1981 has deliberately held different understandings of baptism within our own constitution. Drawing from his own experiences, and referring to recent news stories, David questioned whether some of our conversation about baptism takes place in the real world, and asked what would be an appropriate form of baptism for our post-modern post-Christendom context. There is a challenge for us all to hold different theologies of baptism side by side in a diverse but inclusive Church; but we need also to ask what kind of Church it is that we are united in.
The final plenary session inevitably ran out of time before all the questions were answered, or all the points made. For some, it was important to turn back to the New Testament, and recognise baptism there as missionary baptism. There was some debate on whether the speakers had been biblical or theological in their approach: “Behind ecclesiologies lie Christologies”. And speakers coming from different directions in various ways affirmed the significance of tradition, sympathised with one speaker’s nervousness at the concept of “baptismal policies”, and were challenged by the question posed by a Baptist: “To what extent is the life of baptism tied up with the sacrament of baptism?”
The day concluded with thanks to the speakers and all the participants, and prayers which were led by the Theological Consultant, Father Colin Carr.