(Re)inventing the Sacred

There are few practices that are more important to Christians than Baptism. That this is a formative ritual undertaken by communities of faithful believers in the risen Christ is a conviction shared by both Thomas Finger and Rodney Clapp. In this section, therefore, we will address the problem of alienation by turning to the importance of the (mostly) universally recognized baptismal initiation rite. We will begin this section with a discussion the way that Finger, as an Anabaptist Christian views the Christian community. Following this brief survey, we will investigate Finger’s distinctively Anabaptist view of the baptismal sacrament and how it can function in a world with many differing perspectives and beliefs. Finally, with the help of Rodney Clapp, we will examine the ways that baptism can form Christian individuals into people who are equipped to combat alienation in their own lives, with respect to the environment, and as people who (as Christians) live and thrive in community.

Historically speaking, Anabaptists have been a deeply communal people. Indeed, “the content and orientation of Anabaptist faith are largely communal.” As with many other Free Church Christians, Finger believes that Anabaptist faith has the risen Christ as its primary object and that faith in Christ “is hardly individualistic, even though it is deeply personal. Turning to Christ is inseparable from turning to his community and participating in its corporate walk in his life, death and resurrection.” This feature of the centrality of the gathered community for Christian faith is certainly distinctive among Free Church Christians today. However, with so much stress laid upon the “acceptance” of Jesus Christ as one’s “personal Lord and Savior” within Baptist circles, this is a feature of Anabaptist faith that is difficult for many in that branch of the tradition to stomach. Although, for Finger, the Christian community is made up of those who have made a personal, hopefully adult, decision to join the community in its life and work. In addition, and possibly in contrast to many other Anabaptist Christians, Finger views the church as “deeply sacramental” even to the extent of the church itself being a sacrament. He writes,

Anabaptist communities are deeply sacramental…Historic Anabaptists envisioned the church itself much as a sacrament. Since this church heralds the new creation’s fullness, Anabaptists can call it…an eschatological sacrament: a visible, present sign of what God finally desires for all humanity…Sacramentality implies the basic goodness of matter-energy, including human bodies (contra many historic Anabaptists), however distorted by sin.

In this we catch a glimpse of the way that the church as sacrament can, through the power of the spirit, become an agent for reconciliation in spite of, and possible in the face of, great alienation. This can happen as a result of the fact that “this sacramentality is expressed most comprehensively as members disciple each other according to Jesus’ pattern, which includes sharing possessions.” He continues, “Discipling is a corporate journey within God’s overall reconciling mission toward increasingly Christlike character, which includes patience and moral perfection.” Therefore, what we find in Finger’s view of the Christian community is a deeply sacramental, discipling group of individually 0committed Christian that are empowered and enlivened by the Holy Spirit to be a witness to the world. This witness is often embodied in the individual sacramental acts of the church. These “ritual symbolic expressions (esp. baptism and the Supper) and behavioral expressions (esp. discipling and sharing) are essential to the new creation’s communal sacramentality.” It is at this point, with a glimpse of this holistic community that is inclusive of both “churchly” rituals (i.e. baptism and Eucharist) as well as deeply personal acts of devotion (foot washing and economic sharing), that we may turn to speak of the former as the means through which the Christian community can be a conduit for fighting contemporary alienation in the lives of its members.

In his section on the communal dimension of the Christian life, Thomas Finger provides a thorough working of the Anabaptist perspective regarding both baptism and the Lord’s Supper. I have chosen to focus on baptism simply because of its primary function in most Christian bodies within the church catholic. As the “sole initiatory sacrament,” a focus on baptism, apart from the obvious need to preserve writing space, is a logical point of focus for in it we will be able to gain an understanding of the ways in which our commitments to become disciples of Jesus in our baptism can be modes of combat against current alienation. In addition, as will be evident soon enough, a baptismal focus is primary because Finger is especially careful in his formulation of the Anabaptist perspective in conversation with both Catholic and Protestant perspectives. It is also important because of its role as an act that has the potential to subvert the wider cultural malaise that helps to contribute to a condition of alienation rather than reconciliation. This view is based on the conviction that people were created by God to experience synergy, rather than rupture and estrangement, with their deepest selves, with the environment, and with other people. We will be helped in this section by showcasing Finger in conversation with Rodney Clapp.

Finger, as a Christian within the Free Church tradition, emphasizes the importance of a committed believer’s baptism as opposed to the widespread practice of infant baptism. This is not a polemical stance, however. Finger readily engages both Catholic and Protestant voices regarding the practices of baptism in the church universal. He admits that, historically, believers’ baptism has been viewed in an oppositional manner from the perspective of Protestants and Catholics. He writes,

Sociologically, baptism resembles other processes by which people begin participating in groups. Some persons join organizations through dramatic decisions or conversions (say, from alcoholism). Others find group identity gradually, through increased involvement in ethic, special interest or religious solidarities. Transitions of the first kind typify historic Anabaptism and current evangelical movements. The second has characterized most ecumenical churches.

These differences, however, do not preclude Finger from engaging in a rich ecumenical dialogue regarding the practice of believers’ baptism and its possible contributions to the theological thinking of both Catholic and Protestant groups. He reminds us that “most scholars now concur that baptism in East and West, until at least the fourth century, was normally performed on catechumens. Persons became catechumens by forsaking negative behaviors and affirming their desire to join the church. From then on they were regarded as part of it.” Finger contends that, because of this early near consensus between both East and West, the Anabaptist conviction regarding believer’s baptism is currently gaining favor. Even within the Roman Catholic tradition, there are those who prefer adult baptism as a “norm of baptism” that receives its origin “from the New Testament doctrine of conversion.” He notes that the language of Vatican II describes baptism as “a solemn sacramental initiation done especially in the paschal vigil and preceded by a catechumenate of serious content and considerable duration.” From this Finger deduces that, even within the post-Vatican II era, Roman Catholicism considers infant baptism “abnormal – but in the sense of less than ideal, not impermissible.”
Thus he believes that the Anabaptist – and Free Church – conviction that baptism must involve conscious conversion as opposed to unconscious welcoming into a fellowship is currently more influential than it has been in recent years. He adds that many groups, both Protestant and Catholic, are learning from this historic practice. This interaction is important because of the contempt with which both Anabaptists and Roman Catholics have regarded one another at different times throughout history. In other words, Finger is engaged in theological bridge building. Although this interaction contains much commendable interaction, Finger retains the historic Anabaptist conviction of believers’ baptism. He writes, “At this moment, then, I think Anabaptists can best contribute to others by asking, gently, whether their own positions might not point toward aligning confession with baptism: toward making these together the distinctive initiating sacrament (as believers’ baptism).” This position that baptism must be aligned with confession provides the impetus for our interaction between Finger and Rodney Clapp.

As noted above, Clapp is not necessarily a Free Church Christian in the institutional sense, but he does indicate the formative influence of theologians within the “neo-Anabaptist” vein of thought. He claims that it is this group, along with the postliberals “who, among contemporary theologians…most faithfully and adeptly fit us for the challenges of this day and place.” Therefore, although he is not fully “Free Church,” I believe that he provides us a good platform from which to use Finger’s view of Baptist (and, incidentally Clapp’s view as well) as a way to combat the force of alienation in our contemporary culture. It is with this in mind that we begin our discussion of the formative role of baptism in the Christian life.

Toward the end of his discussion of baptism and its importance for the outer life of Christian witness to the world, Finger asks the question of which form of baptism – infant or believers’ – makes most visible the repentance and new communal life into which the baptized person has been initiated. His answer clearly reflects his heritage and position as a committed Christian in the Free Church tradition. He writes that it must be “one which celebrates and actualizes deliberate movement away from the “world” through burial with Christ and toward the new creation through resurrection with him.” That believers’ baptism represents a deliberate turning toward the community of Christ and toward Jesus as Lord is important in formulating a response to the alienation about which Finger concerns himself. If alienation is the opposite of God’s plan for humanity, then baptism is the beginning on that journey toward reconciliation that brings us into that “true and proper” state of being in relation to our inner selves, the earth, and other people.

Clapp writes, “The New Testament understands life in the church as a kind of resocialization, an enculturation according to the standards of the kingdom of God rather than this world.” This resocialization shares great affinity to the “turning” emphasized by Finger’s understanding of the rite of believers’ baptism. In his discussion of baptism, Clapp recounts the familial commitments that the New Testament view of baptism entails. He writes of Paul that “he reminds believers that they have a new identity because they have been baptized into Christ and adopted as sisters and brothers. When children are adopted they take on new parents, new siblings, new names, new inheritances – in short, a new culture.” This “new inheritance” can and must be viewed in opposition to the culture of alienation so prevalent in our current context. “Seen in this light,” Clapp writes, “baptism is profoundly subversive. Anytime a church takes baptism seriously, which is to say on its own terms, the surrounding society cannot help but see it as at least potentially politically [and socially] threatening.” This is not the threat of physical harm or of revolutionary upheaval (although these have been, perhaps wrongly, enacted as interpretations of the baptismal responsibility) but of significant spiritual and physical allegiance to a community that is, in the end, more important than any other. This importance is not an elitism that often overshadows the reconciling work of the church but rather an importance that calls people to the great purpose of God for humanity: community with the their truest selves, with God’s creation, and with other people. Indeed, baptism is an important way to subvert the currents of alienation in our society because in its baptism the church insists emphatically that there is “another kind of kinship, a particular allegiance, more significant and constitutive than that of the biological family or the state” or the prevailing winds of popular culture and societal trends. In this way, through baptism, the church initiates people into a community that does not “go to church” but rather “is the church.” The church is that community that, instead of allowing people to flounder in a world of confusion and doubt about who they are in relation to inner realities, to the earth, and to society, allows them to find themselves as people created, loved and sustained by God in that great community that shares in the goodness and love God. Overcoming alienation through this mysterious physical and spiritual community is an important part of God’s mission for the world. This is evident in Finger’s thought regarding baptism as a “turning” away from alienating modes of behavior and toward God through conversion to the body of Christ. Thus, with Clapp’s help, we are able to conceive of the baptismal sacrament as the beginning initiation into a community that has the potential to be a conduit of reconciliation and healing in opposition to prevailing culture that so often alienates and destroys.

Concluding Remarks

Alienation is the condition in which many in our society exist. We are estranged from our true potential as human beings. We (often inadvertently) exploit nature for personal gain and convenience. And we are suspicious of both neighbors and friends. These are all simply examples of our current state of alienation and they are more prevalent than we might think. We live in a time in which the planting of personal “roots” is an increasingly unpopular concept; a time in which the need to travel for both business and recreation overrules our respect for the creation through which we travel; and a time in which we barely know those who live and work around us every day. Thomas N. Finger has taken issue with these conditions and in his writing, he offers both an analysis of the contemporary roots of alienation and an understanding of the ways in which this alienation has affected individual people as they relate to themselves, to the earth, and to the broader society. It has been my hope throughout this essay that Finger’s perspective can offer some constructive advice to Christian individuals and communities that struggle daily with the harshness of alienation in our context. We have been helped in this endeavor by bringing Finger into conversation with Jonathan R. Wilson and Rodney Clapp – thinkers who have been formed by the Free Church tradition and who have helped in clarifying the context and needs for our current context.