It's In the Code 205: "What is Baptism?"

240.

Hello and welcome to It's in the Code.

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Why do American Jesus?

My name is Dan Miller, Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Lamar College.

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Please keep the ideas coming.

Daniel Miller Swadge, Daniel Miller, SW-A-J at gmail.com.

Ideas for new episodes, new series, responses to existing episodes.

In the course, we are in a series called questions I wasn't supposed to ask in church.

The questions that got you in trouble, the questions that got you in talking to, the

questions that made you maybe re-examine, rethink your faith for some maybe leave the

faith entirely because of those questions.

Maybe more importantly, the lack of answers to them or the responses that you got.

Still soliciting responses for those so many great things from so many listeners.

Even those two me Daniel Miller Swadge, Daniel Miller, SW-A-J at gmail.com.

Put questions in the header helps me to know what to be looking for.

I want to dive in today to a question.

Again, I'm taking it primarily from Calvin, but as with all the questions for every person

who I name on air, there are a lot of other people who had similar questions or questions

that were related and things like that.

Thank you to so many who like Calvin brought up the issues related to today.

Calvin highlights just how incomprehensible different forms of Christian religious identity

can be to the uninitiated.

That's sort of a background of the question.

Even to those who grew up within different Christian traditions, those of us who grew up

within a Christian tradition in one form or another often only know that tradition.

Maybe the only exposure that we have and certainly to those who didn't grow up in those traditions

that can be bewildering.

The question he specifically poses, the topic that he brings up, opens on to questions that

cannot only get one in trouble when you press hard to get answers, but there are questions

that have been central to topics of Christian identity, Christian conflict, and schism in

the history of Christianity going back to his very origin.

So, what is the topic for today?

The topic for today is baptism, and more specifically what exactly baptism is, what it does, and

what it means.

So if you are not or maybe never have been involved in church life, you probably still have

some ideas about baptism.

You will almost certainly have seen images of infants being sprinkled with water in, say,

a Catholic church service.

I think that within popular culture or the culture of those who don't sort of participate

in Christian religious life, I think that image of Catholic baptism or christening is

probably the image people are most familiar with.

I, good, bad or otherwise, when I think of images of Catholic infant baptism, I often think

of the Godfather when Michael Corleone is like, you know, they're becoming a literal Godfather

while he's busy having people killed.

But it features Catholic baptism, maybe not the best association.

But that's, I think, the most common, right?

Even if you don't know anything about baptism, you know much about Christianity.

You've probably at least seen images of that.

If you did grow up within a Christian tradition of some sort, you will have encountered very

particular practices and teachings around baptism.

And those might well depart obviously from the Catholic tradition.

If that was not your, your brand of Christianity.

And within that framework, if you did ask any questions, what is baptism?

Why do we baptize the way do we do?

Why do we do it all?

You'll know that you got very, very specific and often very pointed responses and asking

the question was, okay, and you're given the answer.

But if you kind of pushed further, okay, but like, why do we do it that way?

You're like, you know, hey, Jesse down the road goes to that other church and like, they

don't do that.

Like why?

Then the answers could get kind of pointed and testy.

Now here's why the answer to those questions, again, what is baptism?

Why do we do it?

How do we do it?

What does it mean?

Those questions have from the very origins of the Christian tradition been very different

for different kinds of Christians.

There has never been just one baptism.

You know, as a Christian, Chris, he talks about, you know, one faith and one baptism and

one church and that sounds great.

But there has never been one understanding of what this really central ritual or right

is within the church.

And certainly if we look more historically since the period of the Protestant Reformation,

when you had the break of lots of Christians from the Catholic tradition in the West, divisions

about baptism have been a defining feature of different kinds of Christian traditions.

And some in some cases, arguably, one of, you know, sort of the defining feature.

So much so that again, historically, and this can seem strange to people, arguments about

baptism have been one of the defining features of Christian division and the emergence of

what we now call different, you know, rival Christian denominations and so forth.

And I bring that up because those debates can feel really esoteric to people and we're

going to get down in the weeds just a little.

We could get more in the weeds than we are.

We're going to get in the weeds on how different kinds of Christian traditions understand

baptism and what it is meant to them and so forth.

Those discussions can feel really esoteric, very like, okay, that's kind of interesting,

like, wow, who cares?

Does it really matter?

But throughout Christian history, baptismal practices have often been a matter, not just

of conflict, but literally of life and death, people who are willing to risk their lives

to stand up for a certain understanding of baptism.

And it times to be executed or martyred for advancing the understanding that they did.

So they've been really, really, really significant in Christian tradition.

So Calvin, if you're listening, how the person wrote the email who says they identify

as a unitarian universalist and atheist, if you're confused, you're in good company

and it's with good reason.

So what I want to do here is just kind of walk through some of the different views of

baptism, which will help, I think, Calvin and others.

And again, Calvin is not the only one I hear about this.

Understand why the answers they might get about baptism have a lot to do with whom they

ask.

In other words, you ask a Presbyterian minister what baptism is and you ask a Catholic priest

and you ask a Baptist missionary.

We're going to get really different answers about what baptism is.

And those people may or may not know what the other traditions are saying.

They will probably have very strong views of what the other traditions are saying.

So we're going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about why pressing too hard on particular issues can provoke angry

responses.

And I'm just going to try to map the terrain.

This is a little bit of a, I guess, kind of a Christianity one-on-one sort of thing

when we get down into specific practices.

So I wanted to start with something really basic, which is let's just call it sort of a

literal definition, almost a dictionary definition of baptism.

The word baptism comes from the Greek word baptism, right?

So it's one of these lone words that comes basically straight from Greek.

That word baptism comes from a verb baptism, which means to immerse, to dip, or to plunge

into water.

Now, it's always useful to remember, you know, people talk about the Bible and what it

means and translating different words and so forth.

But all of those words in the Bible, especially Greek, especially the Greek New Testament,

they had usages that are usually widely accessible outside of the New Testament, right?

They weren't just words that Christians made up.

They weren't just words that theologians meant it.

They had other words.

And so the word baptism was just that.

It was just a Greek word that meant to immerse to dip or to plunge into water.

As the word gets appropriated for a specifically Christian act, right?

As it becomes developed in the Christian New Testament, Christian teaching and liturgy

and so forth, it comes to mean very broadly something like this.

A sacred ride of initiation into the church, it uses water either by complete immersion,

pouring or sprinkling to symbolize several key spiritual truths.

And I think that comes from Mary and Webster.

I was just looking online for dictionary definitions.

I think that's Mary and Webster.

And I'm going to leave it there.

The one point that I will add though is that maybe with a fair rear, excuse me,

with a few rare exceptions getting too excited,

baptism is something that is enjoined on Christians and as a primary marker,

maybe even a prerequisite for belonging within the Christian community,

pretty much across traditions.

You could find some exceptions, but almost all Christians of different stripes affirm

and really require the act of baptism, okay?

So it has several spiritual truths to it, but if we get more specific than that,

you're diverging from a general definition into something else.

By the time you say, okay, like, well, so what, sorry, Dan, like, what are the spiritual truths?

Answer that question.

You're not just talking about baptism in a generic sense, you're into specific community interpretations.

So that's a good place to start, even though it's vague.

Let's dive into the nitty gritty.

What does baptism mean in more concrete terms?

There are different ways that you can think about this, but what I want to do is you can,

in my view, and I'd love to hear from folks on this,

I'd love to hear from people how you think I do on explaining baptism in like, you know,

20, 25 minutes, whatever we've got here.

One way to map different Christian understandings of baptism is to look at how different

different Christian groups think about the method of baptism.

That is how do we baptize the effect or purpose of baptism.

That would be the why and the recipient, okay?

So why do we baptize?

How do we do it and to whom?

Who is baptized by these different traditions?

And what those dimensions will highlight to us, I think, is that the understanding of baptism

is tied in with broader understandings of how Christian salvation is achieved.

That is, Christians, you know, again, by and large with the exception of probably pretty

liberal Christians will say that salvation is somehow attained through faith in Jesus

of Nazareth and his life and work.

Great, cool.

How, what exactly does that mean?

What was his life and work?

What does it mean that he died?

And according to Christian confession was raised from the dead, all that stuff.

Very specific answers to those.

And traditions, understandings of baptism is tied in with their understanding of those

bigger questions.

So let's start with the purpose or meaning of baptism.

And here we can kind of find a continuum of understandings.

And we can map sort of the far end, the far end of that continuum, right?

The two sort of ends of it and then plot some positions in between.

The two positions I'm going to map as the ends of the continuum.

They stand in the greatest contrast and they give kind of the clearest like example of like,

here's a really specific view, here's a really specific view.

And then there's, you know, a lot of stuff in the middle.

So that's what we're going to start on.

So on one end of the continuum, are those traditions that understand the practice of baptism as part of

the means of Christian salvation?

Okay, again, for them baptism is part of what it takes to be saved as Christians would use that word.

At this end of the spectrum, Christians believe that salvation, excuse me, that baptism

is necessary for Christian salvation.

If somebody dies without having been baptized, they can't be saved.

They can't go to heaven when they die.

They'll be eternally condemned and so forth.

They cannot be saved if they die without being baptized.

The theological language for this, the fancy theological term,

is the baptism is one of the means of grace.

That is, it is one of the necessary mechanisms for receiving

God's forgiveness and being saved as a Christian.

So if you haven't been baptized, you can't be saved.

Which means that if you haven't been baptized, you also kind of by definition,

you cannot fully be Christian.

And it also means the baptism is a necessary part of Jesus of Nazareth's saving work.

So you'll have Christian traditions to say, yes, Jesus lived and died and was resurrected and so

forth. This is the means of our salvation.

But baptism is a part of that.

You can't, as it were, sort of participate in that without being baptized.

And the idea is the baptism washes away what's called original sin.

The humans are born sinful and condemned and so forth.

And what baptism does is essentially cleanses us of that original sin

and then allows us to participate in the saving work of Jesus of Nazareth.

So that's the view at like one end of the spectrum.

And that's the view specifically of Catholicism and essentially the

Eastern Orthodox tradition as well.

And that's why within popular culture and common understanding,

this is the form of baptism that I think most people might be familiar with.

I said earlier that I think Catholic baptism is probably the broadest kind of pop cultural

representation of Christian baptism.

Well, as such, it's also the theology behind it.

The Catholic understanding what baptism is and does and why we do it and so forth,

the kind of gets wrapped up with that.

And that's why if people who are sort of uninitiated didn't participate in church,

if they do know anything about the meaning of baptism,

it's probably this general Catholic understanding that they're familiar with.

This is also why that whole understanding of baptism,

and that's why traditions like the Catholic tradition baptize infants.

If someone dies that they've been baptized, they can't be saved.

And this is true of infants.

It's one of the kind of what we call sort of the odyssey questions that comes up a lot,

specifically within traditions like this is if an infant dies during childbirth and can't be

baptized, right? What does it mean happens to them because they just died in a non-Selvithic state,

right? They died outside of a state of grace. It means that they're not saved.

So being baptized as early as possible becomes centrally important,

which is why the Catholic tradition, Orthodox tradition, we're going to talk about others,

the baptize infants.

Finally, these traditions, we talked about the how they tend to baptize by sprinkling water

on the head of the person being baptized. Sometimes you'll see them like dip a finger into water

and do the sign of the cross on the forehead or something like that. Sometimes the sprinkling

or the sort of cross is done three times because of the Trinity, right? So the baptized

sort of the name of the father of the son and the Holy Spirit, that's biblical language and

joins them to do that. So sometimes they'll be three. So that's one end of the spectrum.

The shorthand is basically the Catholic view of baptism.

On the other end of the spectrum, far end from that Catholic view, we have those groups that come

out of and evolve from what was known as the radical reformation. And also what comes to be known

as the free church tradition. And we can get into those things without taking us really in the weeds.

At the far end, again, the far end of the spectrum, those Christians argue the baptism is purely

symbolic. It has a purely symbolic meaning. What do I mean by that? Baptism is not necessary for

salvation. One can be saved and not be baptized. And it does not impart God's saving grace. One

does not need to be baptized to become a Christian or to be saved. So if somebody is a Christian and they

die, they'll go to heaven. They won't go to hell. And it doesn't matter if they're baptized or not.

And in fact, these views often developed an explicit rejection of that Catholic theology of

baptism and in the rejection of groups that they felt didn't reject it strongly enough. So this

is this position really originated as the opposite of the Catholic position in any ways.

So within this view, one becomes a Christian only by professing faith in the saving work of Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth. That profession alone trusting that Jesus of Nazareth is the son of God,

died for your sins and so forth. That is what makes you a Christian. That is what brings salvation.

And that's all that does this. So nothing else is needed. In addition, these traditions tend to say

that that active faith has to be conscious and voluntary. In other words, someone has to willingly

and consciously profess the Jesus as their savior, choose to enter into that and so forth.

And it's that active faith, that voluntary conscious, active faith or conversion.

That's what makes somebody a Christian. So then these traditions, you also cannot be born a Christian

because you have to reach an age where you can understand the profession of faith and choose to

make that willingly and so forth. So baptism does not make someone a Christian and someone can

be a Christian without being baptized. So within this framework, baptism is something that only people

who are already Christians because of a prior commitment of faith can do. You're not baptized

to become Christian. You become baptized because you already are a Christian. You have already made

that. That's why it's often called believers baptism. It's a right that only Christian believers

are supposed to participate in. Again, it doesn't make you a Christian. You do it because you already

are. You've already believed and identified as a Christian. So now you can be baptized.

And that's why these traditions don't baptize infants or sometimes even young children. That is,

people who they think are too young to consciously and actively choose to be Christian. You have to

reach a sort of age and a maturity level where you can be responsible for that decision.

So why be baptized at all? If it's purely symbolic, if you don't need to do it, it occurs like,

why do they do it? I said that with rare exceptions, all Christian traditions are going to

enjoy in baptism. So what's the point here if it doesn't save you, make you a Christian and so forth?

The first thing is that it is understood as a public profession of one's faith. There's this

decision that you have made to become a Christian. It's like a public profession of that.

And it is often understood as marking one's commitment to an entrance into the shared Christian

community. So joining a church often you need to be baptized. And that is your way of sort of

joining into this community of like-minded believers and so forth.

These traditions also tend to baptize by full immersion. Either in a Baptistry,

basically like a big tub that's built into the church, they do their baptisms,

or you'll see them do them in lakes or rivers or in the ocean or something like that.

And this is because they emphasize that literal meaning of the word baptismal,

right? Or the verb to immerse to baptize, right? So they, they, or excuse me, to immerse

artists to submerge where we get our word baptized. So they submerge people. So the, the act of going

under the water, then rising up. So you're sort of, you've ever seen this though, they'll grip somebody

and they think like, hold their nose and have their hand like this and you take them down under the

water and you bring them back up. That also symbolically represents, so Jesus when He died and was

buried and was resurrected. And there's language in the New Testament about how being a Christian

means we've died to the old South, South, and we've been resurrected with Christ and new spiritual

life so that, that, that image sort of symbolizes that burial and resurrection. Um, so that's why

they do it. They tend to do it by immersion. So the tradition I came out of, I was a little bit

of an outlier because I always felt like, yeah, that fits best. But you're arguing that it's a

symbol. I was not opposed to sprinkling or pouring or things besides immersion because I'm like,

if you're just symbolizing at this point, it feels weird to me to get super literal about the

method having to have been employed. But you can get those kind of debates. So this end of the

spectrum includes lots of groups, lots and lots of of Christian groups, including most notably

Baptists, right? This is where they get their name from, this view of baptism. It also includes

most non-denominational Christians when you see those non-denominational churches and maybe

non-denominational pastors. Most of them are broadly baptismistic in their understanding of this.

Most Pentecostal and charismatic groups also practice water baptism in this way, though they also

tend to not emphasize water baptism the same way that other Christian groups do. They often

emphasize what they call the baptism in the Holy Spirit. That's a topic a lot of people have

emailed about. We'll probably get into that at some point. So they do baptize in water, but tend

not to place maybe the same emphasis on it that some other Christian groups do. Um,

and there are other Protestant groups like a lot of Methodists understand baptism in this way.

Okay. So those are the two ends of the spectrum. As I said, these debates can seem very, very

esoteric, but I mentioned these extreme visions being significant historically.

Excuse me, during the radical reformation period. So we talked about the so you had the Catholic

Church, then you had the other reformation. Most people have some idea what that was. Then you had

other movements that felt like the reformation didn't go far enough. They were kind of more extreme

and they're theological views. And that's that they become the groups and was the radical

reformation. And what would happen is many of them, if they converted to say, say they converted

to be a Baptist. And so they had been born Catholic, raised Catholic, they'd been baptized as infants.

They would be rebaptized in believers baptism as they converted to Protestantism. And in some

cases, they were oppressed, marginalized, sometimes even martyred for that. And one form that

martyring would take is that people were sometimes drowned. And their Catholic opponents would call

it the third baptism, right? That they wanted their two baptisms and now they got their

authority to be executed by drowning, essentially because they were considered schismatics and

heretics because they're views of baptism. So as I say, it can seem really esoteric to us.

It's been a big deal historically. So two broad ends of the spectrum. And if we're not esoteric enough,

if we're not confusing enough, there are a bunch of other Protestant groups, most of which, if you're

looking for these today, we would call them the mainline denominations, the whole position

somewhere on that spectrum between the two. They were considered heretics by Catholics because

they didn't hold the full Catholic position. But groups like Baptists argued that they didn't go

far enough in their views on baptism. So who are a couple of these? The first one you might talk

about are Lutherans. And for those who kind of catch the name, those are the groups that trace

their roots back to Martin Luther, the Reformation Theologian. They hold the baptism as commanded by God.

And is the means through which God gives the faith necessary for salvation. So for them,

they're different from the Baptist. It's not merely symbolic. It is a means of grace, right? So

they say that you have to have faith to be a Christian, but the faith is itself a gift from God.

And the baptism is what sort of unlocks that allows us to tap into that faith. So that brings them

closer to Catholics. However, and this is what sort of moves them away from the Catholic position,

they also teach the God can create saving faith in a person through the work of the Holy Spirit

and hearing the word, you know, being taught the word and so forth. And that if somebody were to

die without being baptized, it's a lack of faith that leads to eternal condemnation, not a lack of

baptism. So they do have this kind of allowance for God to still save people apart from baptism.

So strictly speaking, baptism doesn't play the same role that it does for the Catholics, but they

don't go as far as like the Baptist saying it's merely symbolic. Another broad group, the last one

we'll talk about a promise because we're in the weeds enough are reformed or Presbyterian Protestants.

Those are the groups that trace their roots back to the teachings of John Calvin.

They're different from Baptists because they also believe that baptism is more than a symbol.

They're different from Lutherans and Catholics though because they don't believe the baptism is

a means of grace. So they don't think the baptism saves in the way that Catholics and Lutherans do,

but they also believe it is more than just a symbol the way that the more radical people like the

Baptist think. They have what's called a covenantal notion of baptism comes from the idea of the

covenant and the idea is this that in the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish people were initiated into the

covenant through through circumcision as a sign of that covenant. And so their view is that

within the Christian context through the new covenant that's been initiated through faith in Christ,

baptism is how one is initiated into that covenant. So it becomes this kind of like Christian parallel

of circumcision and entrance into the Jewish covenant. So it is a visible sign, they will say of,

excuse me, a visible sign of an invisible act of grace. It is a way of sort of visibly showing

to the world this active grace. The one is experienced in becoming a Christian.

So it's closer to the Baptist tradition in that regard except like the Lutherans and like the

Catholics reformed traditions typically still baptized infants. And critics will say, well, why? Like if

it's not what brings salvation, why baptized infants, they still this notion that part of being in

the new covenant means being part of the Christian community. And so they will baptize infants because

even if they themselves have not experienced salvation, the idea is that they're being brought into

this community of people that will be the context in which that salvation becomes possible. So

baptism is like marked as that. So this is one piece of this across these traditions in different

ways, but it's a commonality that baptism also marks this entrance into the broader Christian

communion, a communion, the Christian community. This is part of what it means.

And I'm not sure I mentioned it a minute ago. Lutherans and Presbyterians also typically practice

baptism through sprinkling or pouring. So of all those different traditions, most of them,

sprinkle or pour water, some of those more radical reformation, free church traditions,

baptize through full immersion. I should also say that within all the traditions, there's also

allowances for baptizing converts. So if somebody converts to Catholicism as an adult, they'll undergo

baptism as an adult, right? If they had not been baptized as an infant. So I don't know

Calvin and others if they made it better or worse, but that is the range of let's just call them

kind of mainstream visions of Christian baptism. The interesting thing about this is that again,

just in summary, different understandings of what baptism does. That's what leads to different

understandings of who is baptized and when. And again, in terms of the method, most Christians

baptized by sprinkling or pouring water, some baptize through full immersion. I go through all of

that, but like, here's another issue to come up. If you were to talk to, I don't know, maybe your

grandparents, I guess depends how old you are listening to this, but if I were to talk to,

you know, people my parents age, my grandparents age, even remembering back to when I was a kid,

these issues would be hot button issues. Christians would get really divided about practices of

baptism. It really mattered to somebody doing a Catholic understanding or a Presbyterian understanding

or Lutheran understanding or a Baptist understanding. That is not so much the case within contemporary

American Christianity. In other words, despite the fact that these issues can still be really loaded

in confusing and so forth, contemporary American Christians don't get as worked up about something

like baptism as they once did. It's one of the reasons it feels kind of esoteric and not so important.

Why? Because over the past decades, American Christians have come to understand their Christian

identity not as much in terms of denomination as they used to. Lots of polling data and things

that show that most people who call themselves Christians, they don't think necessarily,

primarily in terms of all in Presbyterian, I'm Lutheran, I'm Methodist, I'm Baptist.

There was a time when those were really important distinctions, what made those important

distinctions then were theological arguments about things like baptism and so forth. Instead,

and this won't be a surprise to you if you listen to this series, if you listen to

StraightWide American Jesus, if you listen to access to Moondy Media, like this is going to be

pretty obvious. Contemporary Christian identity is increasingly defined and tied not to,

you know, the theologically nuanced discussions, but to views on things we might call them

cultural issues, social and political issues, issues that are viewed to be of moral significance

and so forth. So issues like LGBTQ plus equality or marriage equality, Christian nationalism,

immigration, gender roles, different kinds of things like this. So those are the points around which

a common Christian identity often forms. So nowadays it is much more common to find Christian

identities that combine, for example, conservative Catholics, conservative evangelicals,

Pentecostal and charismatic groups, who share common identity around, say, you know, shared

immigration views or views on LGBTQ plus issues or gender roles or Christian nationalism,

what have you, and vice versa. So those Christian identities are often not hung up on things like

communion, you know, how often do communion, what does that mean, baptism and so forth,

and they tend to focus more on those issues. So baptism has become, for many Christians,

a more secondary marker of Christian identity, whereas in decades past, centuries past,

it was a primary marker. So I think that that's one of the reasons why if you're listening to this,

and maybe you're even part of discussions and debates that American Christianity, you might still say,

well, this is all interesting, but it still sounds really esoteric, or I don't feel like

the Catholic guy down the street seems all that worked up about it. That's why there's that

shifting understanding. So again, Calvin, I hope this clarifies some. Would love to hear from people,

I know I'm not talking about every permutation on baptism, would love to hear your experiences

with this. I will say that despite the fact that I say it becomes less important, if you're in a

church with kind of an old school, sort of an older leadership or older people in it, if you are

in a church where you've got a pastor who's really into theology and still really does value

denominational distinctives, these can still be loaded questions. If you say, you know,

in say you're Lutheran church and you go to a conservative Lutheran pastor, you say, well,

you know, I'm like, I don't know, I've been reading the Bible and it seems to me like, you know,

you're a Christian and then you get baptized. I don't think you got to be baptized to be a Christian.

You're going to get the same kinds of negative reactions to those questions you get to so many

others. Your faith will be questioned. You might be accused of not reading the Bible and when

in real doubt in those high control religious contexts, what will happen is the leadership will

simply seek to like sort of assert control and have more of a, well, this is what this church

believes and if you're going to be part of it, it's what you believe. That kind of thing. So it can

still be a very loaded question. It's also why if you're a Christian of a certain background and you

have certain understandings of salvation and what that is and you encounter different teachings of

baptism, they're not going to fit, right? Because one set of teachings influences the other. So,

again, hope this clarified issues might have just made things worse, but it's a really fascinating

topic. Happy to talk about it. Again, as always, this series is driven by you. Please keep the ideas

coming. Daniel Miller Swage, Daniel Miller, SW, AJ at gmail.com. Look forward to hearing from you.

Check out the other things that we're doing on straight white American Jesus and access

Monday media. Try and really hard. Appreciate all of you coming with us. Please keep us going.

And as always, please be well until we get a chance to talk again. Thank you so much.