Apprentices in FaithTen proposals for our day, inspired by ancient baptism practices |
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Why does it matter to us what the third-century Christians did? After all, they lived in a primitive world without cell phones and the Internet. Their world, however, was remarkably parallel to ours. Between their world and ours have been seventeen centuries of “Christendom,” where the church had the official support of the government and everyone was assumed to be Christian. That kind of society began to take shape in the early fourth century, when the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and ended three centuries of Roman persecution of Christians.
The world of Christendom is rapidly crumbling around us in North America. Most of us are not persecuted for our faith, but in many places it’s not “cool” to be Christian. There are so many things to do on Sunday mornings other than going to church. Go to any major bookstore; there you will find that spiritual paths are proliferating. People are finding their individual ways to self-constructed salvations. We’re in a world that Christians can’t control, that may even be hostile to Christianity, and yet that is hungry for spirituality. Sounds like the early church.
In the first three centuries, the church grew numerically by an average of 40 per cent per decade. Today the church is often on the defensive. I propose that if we post-Christendom Christians learn from our pre-Christendom sisters and brothers about just one thing—initiation—we too can experience new life and growth. I’m not going to describe the early church’s practices here; those who want to learn more can check out my writings or the growing body of literature by others (see Resources on page 38). Instead, I offer ten proposals for the practice of baptism today, based on what the early Christians did.
PROPOSAL 1 All candidates for baptism take part in a class that meets twice a week for eighteen months. Does that seem a lot? Not by the standards of the early church, where the baptism course often met daily for three years. Why so many meetings, and over so long a period? Because, as the early church knew, and we today are discovering, preparing people for baptism properly is urgently important. We’re preparing to live in a world with many religious options, with huge ethical dilemmas, with addictions encouraged by clever advertisers. A young Mennonite may, by the time she is eighteen, have spent 750 hours in Sunday school; she also will have spent 11,000 hours in public school and 15,000 hours watching TV. Are we going to give the Creator and Redeemer of the universe a fraction of the attention that we give to Universal Studios?
Further, what if we discover, in our baptismal instruction, that God wants us to change? How long will it take to learn new ways of behaving, to allow ourselves to be re-oriented so we respond to crises the way Jesus did? We can’t do this overnight. These eighteen months should not be a hard and fast rule. The early church knew that not every candidate for baptism needed the full three years, but some needed longer. So also today there should be flexibility. But, for the sake of argument, let’s view the eighteen months as the average.
We’re preparing to live in a world with many religious options, with huge ethical dilemmas, with addictions encouraged by clever advertisers. How long will it take to learn new ways of behaving?
PROPOSAL 2 Make relationships the heart of preparation for baptism. In pre-Christendom people were attracted to Christianity by Christians who were distinctive, alive, and worth gossiping about. So today. People are drawn to Christ and the church by Christians whose attractive lives and words raise questions and invite relationship. Such Christians, in the language of the early church, were called “sponsors.” We might call them mentors. A mentor agrees not only to stay in touch with the apprentice Christian; he or she also goes to the teaching sessions with the baptismal candidate. Bonding takes place; friendship is built; questions about the faith can be dealt with spontaneously and informally. The mentor, whose life attracted the candidate toward Christ in the first place, can explain his or her life choices. The system works because of the authenticity of the relationship.
PROPOSAL 3 Baptismal instruction will deal with big issues and practical problems. People are attracted to Christians and the church because they sense that, in a world of addictions and bondages, Christians are free. Instructors will ask their students what their issues of bondage are, and an interesting list may result. Sex, the occult, work, endless accumulation, and violence are likely to be mentioned. The instructor will apply the teaching of Jesus to the addictions of today, while the presence and the stories of mentors will give the candidates a resource of wisdom and example: “I really struggled with over-work, but this is how I put limits on my compulsion.” Or, “I used to be addicted to drink, but Christ has set me free.” People learn to be Christians when their faith affects their material choices; without this, the early Christians rightly thought, people would be Christian in name only.
No one will be baptized who has not shown as much eagerness to serve the poor as to discuss big ideas.
PROPOSAL 4 Baptismal instruction will be experiential. Every person being prepared for baptism will have an assignment that will impart the practical values of the church. The early Christians asked, Are the baptismal candidates visiting the sick? Are they caring for the poor? Likewise, we today can make one of the weekly sessions—say for the middle six of the eighteen months—a practical assignment, such as working in a soup kitchen or helping teach English to immigrants. This helps the new believers to recognize that Jesus really is present with those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, in prison. Today, as in the early church, no one will be baptized who has not shown as much eagerness to serve the poor as to discuss big ideas.
PROPOSAL 5 Narrative will be at the heart of the instruction. Today, as in pre-Christendom, we are surrounded by pagan narratives—whether Star Trek or George Bush in a pilot suit landing on the Lafayette. In their months of preparation, apprentice Christians will learn the story of the deviant community that extends from Abraham to Jesus to Martin Luther King, Jr. The story of Israel, of the apostolic church, of Anabaptism, of saints and martyrs, and pre-eminently of Jesus—these are essential to enable apprentice Christians to find their place in the story, and to develop an identity that helps them to live attractively in the midst of a seductive culture.
PROPOSAL 6 Candidates will memorize key Bible passages. Each candidate will recommend his or her own favorite passages for memorization—such as those that emphasize thanksgiving and the peace of God (Philippians 4) and that encourage the believer to wait in trust when things don’t develop as they desire (Psalm 27). But all candidates, today as in the third century, should memorize two passages that profoundly affect people’s lives: the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the “swords into plowshares” passage from Isaiah 2. The former is the church’s prime source of practical and spiritual guidance; and the Isaiah passage fills Christians with hope in the peaceable world God is creating.
PROPOSAL 7 Candidates will be taught to think critically about culture. Christians today will learn to describe themselves with the same biblical term their pre-Christendom counterparts used: “resident aliens” (1 Peter 2:11). What does this mean practically? The second-century Epistle to Diognetus talks about Christians who followed the customs of their country in clothing and food but who were distinct in the way they handled wealth, loved their enemies, and refused to abort or expose unwanted infants. Those preparing believers for baptism today will likewise help the candidates to learn to think missionally—to decide at what points to blend in with the wider society and on what issues to non-conform freely.
PROPOSAL 8 Candidates will be taught to think about their faith. In pre-Christendom, after the candidates had begun to learn how to live as Christians, they were given the church’s creed to memorize. Instructors taught them the meaning of this summary of Christian thinking, clause by clause. Today we may want to ask the candidates what their questions are. These will be many and varied in light of the spiritual smorgasbord of our age. Over the eighteen months we can deal with these in light of the Mennonite Church’s confession of faith. Today, as in the early church, we will need to help candidates wend their way through deadly “heresies” (such as faith that does not do good to poor people) and to learn to avoid them.
PROPOSAL 9 Candidates will be prayed for, and will be taught to pray. At the end of every teaching session, we will lay our hands on the candidates and pray for them as the early church did. We will pray that they may be protected from the evil one and find joy and freedom in Christ. Similarly, every Sunday in the morning service we will pray for candidates who are growing in faith as they move toward baptism. Just as prayer for baptismal candidates is critical, so is their instruction in how to pray. Today, as in the early centuries, the Lord’s Prayer will be the heart of the Christian’s prayer. Apprentice Christians will use it line by line, as an outline prayer. What could be more important than praying this distillation of the piety of Jesus?
Every Sunday in the morning service we will pray for candidates who are growing in faith as they move toward baptism.
PROPOSAL 10 The instruction process will culminate in a
ritually impressive baptism. The baptismal services of the early Christians
took place on Easter, the day of Resurrection. I propose that
in post-Christendom we make Easter our main baptismal day, too.
In pre-Christendom candidates were immersed three times, naked;
then they were clothed in white robes, given the milk and honey
of the Promised Land, and led amidst great joy to the fellowship
of the communion table. Today we may skip the nakedness; and we
may not have milk and honey. But we will find ways of making the
baptismal service beautiful, exultant, extravagant.
Why not? The candidates have completed a journey from death to life. They have died to their old selves; they have been reborn to life in the resurrection of Christ. They have learned to say no to the lordship of the state, no to the tyranny of violence, and no to a lifestyle of escalating consumerism. They have said YES to Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of their lives. Why observe this half-heartedly? Why not go whole-hog and whoop it up? For from this process new Christians have emerged who will be as attractive to non-Christians as the Christians who had attracted them.
In the past, Mennonite churches could retain their numerical strength by having children. In post-Christendom this will no longer work. Birth rates are lower, communities no longer have coercive power over their young, and people wander off. When the Christian community is attractive and question posing, however, there will be people from within Christian families—and from the hungry world that is watching us—who will be attracted to Christian faith. When new believers are drawn to discipleship that is both rigorous and joyful, they will want to be joined to Jesus and to say to him, in baptism, YES!
Alan Kreider teaches the History of Christianity at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and works in congregations as a mission educator with Mennonite Mission Network (Mennonite Church USA). He lives in Elkhart, Indiana.