Connecting with Baptism: A practical guide to Christian initiation today
Mark Earey, Trevor Lloyd, and Ian Tarrant, editors
Church House Publishing £14.99 (978-0-7151-4110-6)
Church Times Bookshop £13.50
BEFORE LUNCH I planned a maths-based confirmation course — we have a teenage group of budding Polkinghornes. Earlier, a woman had emailed me, asking why her unbaptised brother couldn’t be a godfather; a candidate for adult baptism had borrowed another of my favourite theological tomes; and the school receptionist had chatted on, incredulous that it was ten years since her Freddy’s christening.
After such a morning, Connecting with Baptism provided an oasis for my parched desert traveller. This encyclopedic resource, divided into short, attractively presented chapters, explores the way in which the wealth of material broadly connected with Christian initiation in Common Worship can fire ministry, mission, and evangelism.
Initially, the book made me uneasy with such bold claims as “the New Testament gives us no other way than baptism for individuals to express publicly their allegiance to Christ.” Really? What about Thomas’s “My Lord and my God!” and the centurion’s Calvary confession, among others? Its jejune depiction of early baptismal practice depends too slavishly on the chronology of Luke/Acts. And its second real-life story, in which an adult with terminal cancer is baptised and cured, struck me as almost too-good-to-be-real-life.
But, annoying shallows apart, the book’s exhilarating depths sensi-tively explore the whole spectrum of baptismal practice within the Anglican Church, from infant baptism to the total immersion of adults. I prefer the former (symbolising God’s prevenient grace), but the book drew out my sympathies for the latter. The collection of real-life stories soon rang true with my real life, making me shiver at past mistakes, and yet see tremendous possibilities.
The book’s approach is humble. “We can only expound a part of the story on each occasion,” it advocates to those exploring symbols. That Christians “certainly should be known as the kindest, most caring and considerate people around, rather than the weirdest” is its take on evangelism, preferring the mnemonic GIGAWOK (God is good and we’re OK) to GIAMAWN (God is a monster and we’re nerds).
There is humour throughout, even though sometimes unintentional: “microphones and other electrical equipment in the vicinity of water are a particular hazard to bear in mind.”
Common-sense guides on pastoral care, preaching, liturgy, and teaching are offered for initiation-related subjects such as admission to communion, confirmation, reconciliation, and thanksgiving for birth. The book is soaked with a convincingly prayerful feel — so that even praying for conception seems natural rather than embarrassing.
Primarily concerned with Common Worship (although informed by the BCP and ASB), Connecting with Baptism does what it says on the tin, encouraging the whole life of the Church to be baptism-shaped. “I really must try that,” I kept thinking as I turned each page. If every bishop sent this book to each of his clergy with the simple injunction “Read it!”, we wouldn’t find ourselves far from a Kingdom of Heaven in which every font contained the warmest water.
The Revd David Wilbourne is Vicar of Helmsley, in the diocese of York.
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