By Robin G. Jordan
In this two article series I am going to examine the
services of baptism from Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel-Shaped Gatherings. These two
services were developed by the Archbishop of Sydney’s Liturgical Panel as part
of a development and expansion of Sunday Services 2001. They show that
it is possible not only to compile a baptismal rite that uses wording and
ceremonies that are acceptable to Evangelical Anglicans but also to produce a rite that embodies the simplicity and
restraint that is the mark of the Anglican genius. In this article I look at
the service of baptism for infants and children. In the second article I look
at the service of baptism for those able to answer for themselves.
For educational purposes only I have reproduced the
service of baptism for infants and children below:
A SERVICE OF
BAPTISM FOR INFANTS AND CHILDREN
1. The minister
welcomes those who have come for baptism and their sponsors and addresses the
congregation. The passages of Scripture may be read in the indicated places.
God is the source of everything that is good. Children are
his gift and he entrusts parents with the privilege and responsibility of
nurturing them in his way. God wants our children to experience a loving home,
to gain wisdom, to live generously for the good of all, to grow in faith, and
to come at last to share in his eternal kingdom.
[Jesus said: ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not
hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you,
anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never
enter it.’]
Without Christ, we humans are far gone from God and mired in
sin. Through the gospel, God addresses each one of us and calls us back to
himself, resulting in a profound change. The act of baptism is about that
change.
[We follow the direction of Jesus, who said, ‘Go and make
disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have
commanded you.’]
Ordinary water is used to point to the extraordinary work of
God in cleansing us from sin and giving us a new heart to trust and serve him,
through the death and resurrection of his Son. Baptism provides a public
opportunity to turn to Christ and express a personal trust in him and what he
has done for us, and to ask for the renewing work of the Holy Spirit.
[Jesus taught that none can enter the kingdom of God without
being born of water and the Spirit. ‘Flesh gives birth to flesh,’ he said, ‘but
the Spirit gives birth to spirit’.]
So let us pray to God the Father through our Lord Jesus
Christ that he will grant to these children what they cannot have by nature,
that they may be born again by the Holy Spirit and be made living members of
Christ’s Church.
2. The congregation
and sponsors join the minister in praying
Heavenly Father,
we thank you that
in your great love
you have called us
to know you
and to trust you.
Increase this
knowledge and strengthen our faith.
Grant that these
children
may be born again
by the Holy Spirit,
cleansed from all
sin,
and inherit your
eternal kingdom;
through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
3. If the baptism does
not take place within the context of another service, suitable passages from
Scripture should be read and a sermon given at this point.
4. The minister
invites the sponsors to stand with those who are to be baptised and says to
them
God promises forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit to
all who turn to him in Christ. This promise also embraces the children of God’s
people, whom we bring to him in faith. Children must themselves express faith
in Christ when they are able to do so. They must turn away from sin and put
their trust in him. In due course, they should come to reaffirm these promises
and receive prayer for strengthening in confirmation.
Those of you who already trust in Christ, and are willing to
teach and encourage them in the same faith, are invited to make the baptismal
promises on their behalf. Therefore, I ask you,
Are you yourself a follower of Jesus Christ, trusting the
gracious promises of God?
I am.
Are you willing to sponsor these children, answering for
them now and accepting responsibility for their Christian upbringing in the
life of the Church?
I am willing.
5. The minister
continues
I now ask to answer on behalf of these children
Do you turn to Christ?
I turn to Christ.
Do you repent of your sins?
I repent of my sins.
Do you reject selfish living and all that is false and
unjust?
I reject them all.
Do you renounce Satan and all evil?
I renounce all that
is evil.
Almighty God deliver you from the powers of darkness, and
lead you in the light of Christ to his everlasting kingdom. Amen.
6. The minister
continues
These children have been brought here for baptism. Let us
all affirm the faith into which they are to be baptised.
I believe in God,
the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus
Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of
the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was
buried; he descended to the dead.
On the third day
he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into
heaven,
and is seated at
the right hand of the Father;
from there he will
come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the
Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic
church,
the communion of
saints,
the forgiveness of
sins,
the resurrection
of the body,
and the life
everlasting. Amen.
7. The minister
says to the sponsors
I ask you to answer on behalf of these children
Do you affirm this faith as yours?
I do.
Will you follow Jesus faithfully, and obey his commands
throughout your life?
With God’s help, I
intend to do so.
Do you ask for baptism in the faith you have affirmed ?
I do.
8. Standing at the
font with the candidates and their sponsors, the minister says
Let us pray.
Merciful God, for Jesus Christ’s sake, grant that these children whom we baptise in this
water, may be saved through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy
Spirit. May they die to sin and rise
again to righteousness. May your Spirit live and work in them, that they may be
yours forever; through Jesus Christ our Lord who died and rose again for us. Amen.
9. The minister says
to the sponsors of each child
Name this child.
10. Then the minister
dips each child in the water or pours water on each one, saying
N, I baptise you
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
11. After all the
children have been baptised the minister and congregation address them
God has called you into his church.
We therefore
receive and welcome you
as a fellow member
of the body of Christ,
as a child of the
same heavenly Father,
and as an
inheritor with us of the kingdom of God.
12. The minister
makes a sign of the cross on each child’s forehead and says
I sign you with the sign of the cross
to show that you are to be true to Christ crucified
and that you are not to be ashamed
to confess your faith in him.
Fight bravely
under his banner
against sin, the
world and the devil,
and continue
Christ’s faithful soldier and servant
to your life’s
end.
13. The minister
continues
God has called you out of darkness into his marvellous
light
Shine as a light
in the world to the glory of God the Father
14. The minister
continues with these prayers.
Gracious God, we thank you that through the death and
resurrection of your Son, you have brought us from death to life. Enable us by
your Spirit to resist the power of sin and give ourselves to you as a living
sacrifice. May we not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of our mind, so that we serve and please you in
every way. Amen.
Heavenly Father, we pray for the parents and godparents of these children. Give them the spirit of
wisdom and love, that they may teach these children by word and example to
fulfil the promises made in their name. In our homes, give us the joy that
comes from being faithful followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
15. If it is not used
elsewhere in the service, the Lord’s Prayer may be said together here.
Our Father in
heaven,
hallowed be your
name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our
daily bread.
Forgive us our
sins
as we forgive
those who sin against us.
Lead us not into
temptation,
but deliver us
from evil.
For the kingdom,
the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.
16. The service may
conclude with these words
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
be with us all evermore. Amen.
The Archbishop of Sydney’s Liturgical Panel followed the
example that Archbishop Thomas Cranmer set in the 1552 Baptismal Office and
developed a rite which has as its principle elements prayers for the candidates,
the symbolic washing of the candidates with water, and the signing of the cross
upon the foreheads of the newly baptized. When this rite is compared with the
Anglican Church in North America’s The Order for Holy Baptism, one
cannot help but note the differences between the two rite both in their
teaching and practices.
The Sydney rite emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit in
the spiritual life of the Christian. It
reflects the understanding that water and washing are used in the Bible to
describe the work of the Holy Spirit. It contains no prayer for the sanctifying
of the element of water for use for baptism, implicitly recognizing that God by
Jesus’ baptism in the river Jordan has set apart the element of water for that
use and such a prayer is redundant, asking God to do what he has already done. It
acknowledges what J. I. Packer points out in Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs, “the outward sign does not automatically or magically convey the inward blessings that it signifies…” [p.213]. It does not exclude the possibility that the
candidate will receive the Holy Spirit and the new birth at a time separate
from the moment of the administration of the water. In this regard the rite
reflects the whole counsel of God and not one or two texts interpreted without
regard to context or what is said elsewhere in Scripture. Absent from this rite
is the sacerdotal characteristics evident in the ACNA baptismal rite. It also avoids
the use of sacramentals such as the
Oil of Exorcism and the Oil of Chrism and other practices that the English Reformers
rejected in the sixteenth century.
Without the unnecessary embellishments that clutter the
ACNA baptismal rite, the Sydney rite is ideally suited for the mission field.
It is a rite that a small house church congregation can use in the living room
of a private home as well as a large congregation can use in its own worship
center. It is also a rite that lends itself to both indoor and
outdoor use.
The rite to which the College of Bishops gave final shape
and which it endorsed, on the other hand, embodies the unreformed Catholic
doctrinal views and ritualistic proclivities of a number of its members. The
only recognition that the College of Bishops gave to the diversity of opinion
represented in the Anglican Church in North America was to make optional the
use of sacramentals such as the Oil
of Exorcism and the use of ceremonies such as the vesting of the newly-baptized
in a white garment and their presentation with a lit candle—a minor concession
to congregations and clergy unaccustomed to these additions from the unreformed
baptismal liturgies of the Roman Catholic Church. It is not a rite suited for
the wide range of non-traditional settings in which many Anglican congregations
presently gather in North America and are likely to gather for the foreseeable
future.
As can be seen from this brief comparison of the two
rites, the need for a second province within the Anglican Church in North
America, an orthodox Anglican province that is fully aligned with the teaching
of the Bible and the doctrine and principles of the Anglican formularies,
including the two Books of Homilies, is self-evident. The existing
denominational organs do not have the will to make the liturgies of the
denomination comprehensive to the point where they are acceptable to all
schools of Anglican thought represented in the denomination. Those occupying
the place of power in the denomination show no inclination to make room
doctrinally and liturgically for orthodox Anglicans who fully accept the
teaching of the Bible and the doctrine and principles of the Anglican
formularies. They only want to make room for congregations and clergy who are
willing to go along with how they are seeking to shape the denomination’s
identity. In this regard they are not too different from the liberals occupying the
place of power in the Episcopal Church, entrenching their own views and
excluding those who do not agree.
The second Anglican Church in North America is not the
first ecclesial body in which those whom Douglas Bess describes as the “Catholic
Revivalists’ in his history of the Continuing Anglican Movement have done this sort
of thing. They did it in the several jurisdictions into which the first
Anglican Church in North America fragmented. They gave greater weight to the
traditions of men than to the Word of God and replaced the gospel of the New Testament
with a gospel of human contriving. Needless to say the jurisdictions in which
they occupied the place of power have failed to flourish. Like the second Anglican
Church in North America, these jurisdictions experienced a short-lived initial
growth spurt and then went into a long, slow decline. They limited the
population base of these jurisdictions, causing the jurisdictions to shrink as
that population base aged and died.
As the saying goes, those who do not learn from past mistakes
are bound to repeat them.
No comments:
Post a Comment