I'm getting baptised tomorrow and whilst it will be a great occasion, it's not something to be taken lightly. Through baptism I'm signalling that I have died to my old 'self' (a concept that was central to why I started this blog) and been reborn through the power of God to follow Christ and live my life as he would have me. I'll write in the next few days of my personal reasons for baptism, but this post, if a little long (it's worth it I promise...), should give some food for thought about the general role of baptism. I want it to be clear that I'm not doing this to be controversial in the Salvation Army (SA) (and indeed I believe a fair few people in the SA have been baptised), it is something I really feel I should do and want to do, but I do believe it raises important questions for the SA.
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The topic of baptism seems to raise so many dilemmas for different people and has caused a lot of division. In general, the Catholic and Anglican Churches seem to go for infant baptism (or Christening), whilst Baptists, Reformed and 'Free' Churches tend to go for adult ones. The logic for child baptism would seem to be that you wish to dedicate your child to God when they are young, and there could be arguably some backing for this in the Bible. Adult baptism seems more consistent and repeatedly implied throughout the New Testament (or more specifically those that are of an age to make their own conscious decision). The former also seem to go for drawing a cross on the forehead whilst the latter for full immersion (plunging the whole body into water).
The SA on the other hand don't do it at all (although are not, officially, against it). From what I have gleaned, the main reason for this seems to be that when the SA started (1865 in it's original form), it's membership drew from a variety of denominations, full of people who wanted to take the good news of Christ Jesus to those on the margins of society that had been forgotten by the wider Church. As there would have been disagreements amongst the members how baptism should be performed, this may have led to some friction, and so in 1883 William Booth wrote, suggesting: "is it not wise for us to postpone any settlement of the question, to leave it over to some future day, when we shall have more light, and see more clearly our way before us?" (see article mentioned in final paragraph). However, that day seems not to have arrived, or at least there seems to have been no point at which a serious, open discussion has occurred that has focused on Christ and put aside tradition and considered what is the best thing we can do as a movement, forgetting our pride and asking what is God's desire.
As you may well tell from how I write, and also given that I have made this decision, I feel baptism is right and is important. I feel glad to make this decision, and the fact I have come from this background has actually been extremely beneficial as I have been able to consider the special significance of baptism, rather than just seeing it as the natural 'next step'. I started seriously considering it maybe 18 months/2 years ago, challenged by how uni friends took it for granted and how I could really give no reason why I didn't, other than that it wasn't really the Salvation Army's thing. I couldn't really say the SA don't do symbolism, as they wear uniforms. Saying that we have 'Soldiership' which is equivalent almost seemed like I'd be saying "yeah I know Jesus made this suggestion but we've had a think and decided that William Booth's idea about the whole soldier thing just sounds a lot better". Again, it just seems like tradition getting in the way of the commands of God.
At the time of thinking this I was increasingly aware of the concept of Gnosticism which had invaded some parts of the early Church, where people thought the body was bad and the spirit good. This was rebuffed by early Christians who said that God made the whole human being good; spirit, soul AND body. I therefore figured that if God made us both spiritual and physical beings, then the things we relate with we look at in both a spiritual and physical context and meaning. Therefore it makes sense that we associate with some physical things in a spiritual way, sometimes in a bad way (idol worship, obsession around cars, money, etc.) but often in a good way (such as emotions experienced through photographs of people and places, or, for Christians, using the picture of the cross to help contemplate Christ). As God created us surely he knows we have these tendencies, and in fact wanted us to be like this, and so it seems logical that he would give us physical things to help us spiritually. He used the rainbow as a symbol of a promise, gave the Israelites the temple to symbolise the importance of God, and time and time again promise a sign to signify and confirm something spiritual. So it makes sense that when Christ wanted his followers to remember why he was to die he gave them the reminder of bread and wine, which was shown to be powerful in opening the followers eyes when they forgot that his death was planned. He also knew that people may judge Christians on their own works rather than what Christ has done, so by giving the sign of baptism they had something that was rooted in the death of Christ, rather than anything to do with human effort. Perhaps he knew that the SA would make uniforms for themselves and become soldiers, something that whilst obviously rooted in a decision to follow Christ, has so much more added to it and significance that is often more to do with the individual's actions than the work of God.
It was both a relief (as it showed I wasn't crazy) but also a slight annoyance (that someone else had written something that I thought I was the first to think of) to read an article by Chick Yuill about this very topic and with similar explanation. A controversial figure in the SA, but someone who not only seems to have a solid grounding in the Bible but is also a very good speaker, Chick writes engagingly, and I encourage 'Salvationists' to read it through and seriously consider it (and have a look through the Rubicon website more generally), but others too should give it a read and maybe help them think afresh why it is that baptism is, and should be, held so dear.
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