Baptism

Incarnation explicitly seeks to be ecumenical, defined as, “promoting or tending toward worldwide Christian unity or cooperation”.  In much the same way that we base our faith on the creeds which have formed the basis of Christian faith for centuries, we likewise desire to ground our understanding of baptism within the mainstream of the Christian tradition.  We find that the World Council of Churches statement on baptism in the 1982 document “Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry” both expresses and shapes our understanding of baptism.  

 

A core conviction of our community is that faith is not merely about belief but rather about how we practice those beliefs.  Within the Church universal there are two primary baptismal practices: infant baptism and believer/convert baptism.  We believe that both of these practices are valid, with firm grounding in Scripture and/or tradition. Given this plurality of practice and the evident grace present in both throughout the centuries, we take our position less by determining what is the best practice always and everywhere but instead by deciding what is the best way for our community to practice baptism here and now.  

 

Following much deliberation, we have decided to practice infant baptism.  Of course, in practicing infant baptism we still also practice believer/convert baptism of those who come to faith as adults (or of those who for whatever reason had not been previously baptized), but we specifically desire to baptize the infants/children who are being raised within our church community.  

 

We do this because:

• Most Christians throughout history (and indeed a majority of those present in our community at its formation) were baptized as infants.  This has been the dominant practice in the very traditions our community draws upon to give it life in the present.  Where God has been faithful in the past we trust God will be faithful in the future. 

• We want to emphasize that children are full participants in the church.

• We want baptism to proclaim the objective reality of what God, in Christ, has done for us over and above our subjective response to God’s action.  Baptism is about God’s faithfulness even more than it is about our faith.  

• We believe that faith formation, in our age and place, requires resisting the elevation of individual choice to the highest good.  We consider it a strength, not a defect, of infant baptism that we are chosen even before we choose.

• We take an active role in our children’s formation.  While we desire for them to one day affirm the faith in which they were raised, we do not intend to wait for them to make up their own minds before we teach them to follow Jesus.  

 

Given that we are an ecumenical church, we hope and expect that people will participate in our community whose previous experience is with the practice of believer baptism and even those who object to the practice of infant baptism.   This creates potential tension, but we are prepared to live with it! Though we intend to encourage infant baptism as the normative practice in our community, and while we desire for all children to receive that blessing, we recognize that some might, as a matter of conviction or conscience, wish for their children not to be baptized (until they come to personal faith).  While we would consider such cases exceptional - our position is not that we have two practices from which each can decide which they prefer - we unequivocally declare that we do not consider such parents to be “wrong”, nor would they and their children be anything less than full participants in the community.  Indeed,  we would look forward to the day when those children would be baptized upon profession of faith.  

 

The only condition for baptism is faith in Jesus - either the faith of the one to be baptized or, in the case of infant baptism, the faith of the parents.   We discern the presence of faith through relationship with the person seeking baptism, thus established relationship is essential for baptism.  Similarly,  we emphasize that baptism constitutes the Body of Christ.  To be baptized is to be received into the body, the people of God, the church.  It is a communal practice, and thus we baptize only those (and/or the children of those) who actively participate in the life of our community (or whom we are confident will actively participate going forward).