Thursday, December 12, 2013
rethinking the theology of baptism
Burgess urges church to recast
membership as baptismal covenant
December 10, 2013
Presbyterian News Service
Jerry L. Van Marter - PRINCETON, N.J.
With the idea of membership meaning
less and less in American culture and its churches, the Rev. John Burgess today
suggested rethinking the theology of baptism as
the key to recasting what membership means in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
“Attention to baptismal theology and
practice can lead us into a more faithful understanding of church membership,”
Burgess ― professor of systematic theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary ―
told the second Moderator’s Colloquium on Ecclesiology (the
doctrine of the church) today (Dec. 9), hosted by Princeton Theological
Seminary with financial support from the Presbyterian Foundation.
“For too long baptism has been
understood simply as a precondition to full, active membership in the church,”
Burgess said in his paper “Is There Any Good Reason to Join a Church?-Baptism,
Mission and Life Together.” “If, however, baptism is a commissioning to
ministry in the church and the world, it requires full and active entry into a
community that exercises encouragement and accountability for this ministry.”
Burgess proposed that that language
of “active membership” be eliminated from the PC(USA) Book of Order. “If
our baptismal theology is correct, we will understand that all who are baptized
are by definition full, active members of the church,” he said.
Burgess also suggested elimination
of “public profession of faith” from Presbyterian practice. “Those who were
baptized as infants but have not yet made the kind of ‘public profession of
faith’ for which the Book of Order calls nevertheless have been making public
profession of faith every time they receive the Lord’s Supper and whenever they
have joined the congregation in reaffirming the baptismal covenant.”
Because baptism “identifies one as
belonging to Jesus Christ and to the community that he has called to give
witness to him by word and deed,” Burgess said, this shift in the church’s
thinking and practice must “interpret baptism as entry into a community of
mutual encouragement and accountability.” Those who will be baptized, he added,
“must know that after their baptism they will not be left alone.”
Considering baptism as membership
will also require a different scriptural emphasis, Burgess said. “The church
has normally turned to passages in Acts and the Epistles for its understanding
of baptism,” he noted. A better starting point might be Jesus’ calling of his
disciples, he continued.
“The Gospels make a special point of
naming the twelve, just as the church gives those being baptized a ‘Christian
name,’” Burgess said. “Jesus calls the twelve to give up everything and follow
him, just as the church calls those being baptized to break with the past and
begin a new life.”
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