Delegates Will Consider Baptism Paper

Clarifies positions on "rebaptism," church membership, confirmation

Baptism happens only once; profession of Christian faith can be repeated 'at many points in our faith journey.'

This is the seventh in a series of Interpreter features designed to help United Methodists understand the issues, people and planning for the denomination's international legislatives body, the General Conference. The quadrennial assembly of 1,000 delegates will be held April 16-26 in Denver.

by Tom McAnally


A major position paper on baptism in The United Methodist Church--seven years in the making--is now on its way to the denomination's top legislative body meeting in April.

The study was mandated by the church's 1988 quadrennial General Conference but was referred by the subsequent 1992 General Conference for further study and a report to delegates at the 1996 gathering in Denver.

Chairman of the 16-member study committee was the Rev. Mark Trotter, pastor of First Church, San Diego, Calif.

Last fall, committee members adopted a revised draft of By Water and the Spirit: A United Methodist Understanding of Baptism and approved proposed legislative changes for inclusion in the 1996 Book of Discipline. Eleven committee members voted in favor of the paper's final draft, two abstained and three were absent.

The paper was then forwarded to the General Board of Discipleship, which approved it and forwarded it to General Conference.

Trotter called the action a "remarkable, landmark achievement" for the church. "We have demonstrated that a diverse group can come together and successfully find resolution to our theological differences," he said. As evidence, he said the final paper is "significantly different" from earlier drafts.

Membership Issue Most Difficult
The most difficult issue for the committee and the most significant emphasis in the paper, according to Trotter, is the definition of church membership.

Currently individuals become members of the church by professing their faith. The proposed legislation, based on the position paper, calls for two categories of members: baptized and professing.

"Baptism is the sacrament of initiation and incorporation into the Body of Christ," the paper says. "An infant, child or adult who is baptized becomes a member of the catholic (universal) church, of the denomination, and of the local church."

Balancing this with an evangelical emphasis, the commission also calls for all baptized people to profess their faith in Christ publicly at the time of their baptism, or at a later time if they were baptized as infants.

While baptism happens only once, the paper says reaffirmation of one's profession of Christian faith can be repeated "at many points in our faith journey."

Confirmation has been retained by the committee, but is carefully defined as the "work of the Spirit empowering a person," rather than something initiated by the individual.

When people who were baptized as infants profess their faith later in life, the occasion is not an entrance into church membership, the paper stresses, "for this was accomplished in baptism."

The ritual action in confirmation, according to the paper, is the "laying on of hands as the sign of God's continuing gift of the grace of Pentecost."

Rolls Would Count Professing Members
Statistics of church membership, the paper explains, are counts of professing members, not all baptized members.

A knotty problem resolved here by the committee was the removal of baptized members. While a permanent record of everyone baptized is kept as a historical document in every church, additional lists will be maintained of baptized and professing members.

Proposed legislation allows for people to be removed from the list of baptized members by death, transfer, withdrawal or removal for cause "with the understanding that withdrawal or removal for cause in no way abrogates the baptismal covenant from God's side (of the covenant)."

Such a person can reaffirm their faith and again become a professing member, but without rebaptism.

Supporting its claim that baptism is unrepeatable, the committee says individuals may misuse God-given freedom and may live in neglect or defiance of that covenant, "but we cannot destroy God's love for us.

"When we repent and return to God, the covenant does not need to be remade, because God always has remained faithful to it. What is needed is renewal of our commitment and reaffirmation of our side of the covenant."

In its final action here the committee asked the General Conference to approve By Water and the Spirit as a position paper on baptism for the church "and as an official interpretive statement of the new services of the Baptismal Covenant found in the 1989 Hymnal.

The committee also is asking that it be published in the 1996 Book of Resolutions, and be used by denominational curriculum planners and the Board of Discipleship "as a guide for teaching about baptism."

The committee also commended its interpretation of baptism "to any entity of the church interpreting or administering the sacrament."


Tom McAnally is director of United Methodist News Service in Nashville, Tenn.