Thursday, November 20, 2003 chicken or egg, you tell me
So, last week I wrote this wee reflection for AKMA's class based on John's baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and how Matthew was not establishing a new ritual with this but reforming an older ritual...or perhaps not even that much. The narrative has everything to do with who Jesus is in relation to John and nothing to do with why we get baptised.
AKMA and Jeff asked me who might say that we get baptised because Jesus did. Which baptists say that? As Jeff said, there are no hymns about it. Then, surely, baptists don't think that.
Right and wrong.
First there is this article about baptismal theology written by an SBC guy. It is pretty well done considering my objections to the source. It is an orthodox baptist perspective. He uses Paul. He stays away from the gospel account. He does however allude to an earlier practice where "old timers" were baptised in a river or any moving water. This was so that they could be baptised like Jesus was.
Now, here is another article about how the baptism of the Baptist church is specifically to mirror and emulate the baptism that Jesus received. They used a river. They sang. They did it up emulating John the Baptist and Jesus. Well, now, which is the right way to go? Does there need to be?
I think what is the more interesting question is the chicken and egg argument of which comes first, theology or liturgy? This is clearly a chicken and egg argument. Bob Webber leans more toward the we-first-do-things-and-then-meaning-comes model. I think that both processes are happening at once and these two articles are a great example of that. So, when you have a river to play in, you think about Jesus' experience in the Jordan. When your congregation has enough money to build a font and move the liturgy inside, you lose that natural (?) inclination to connect the two and lean more heavily on Paul and that theology. The Jordan is not as evident. This speaks to issues of theological intention and the willingness of a community to buy into a theological understanding of their rite, but it is interesting.
So, the "old timers" in the first article had a different understanding of their baptism then those that followed, or at least a more readily handy scriptural image to play with. I like that. Both are at work, but one is recalled because of the specific liturgical elements. Go to a parish that has a tomb-like structure for a baptismal font and tell me what the believers baptised there recall of their baptism. Ask them what it means. I bet that even if you were to SAY "because Jesus did it in the Jordan" in the rite they would remember "we die to our sins."
