Release #028 {2892}April 22, 1996
DENVER, (UMNS) -- The United Methodist General Conference unanimously approved a document that defines the role of baptism in the church.
The document is now an official interpretative statement of the services of the Baptismal Covenant found in the 1989 Hymnal.The study of baptism, confirmation and church membership, first mandated by the denomination's 1988 General Conference to the churchwide Board of Discipleship, has taken eight years to complete.
The Baptism study upholds the legitimacy of infant baptism, discourages re-baptism and explains the relationship between baptism as an infant and confirmation.
The document is "one of the clearest affirmations of who we are as United Methodists," said the Rev. Mark Trotter of San Diego, chairman of the study committee. "It is a phenomenon of United Methodists recovering the fullness and wholeness of their tradition."
Trotter explained during a Monday afternoon press conference that the study brings together both the sacramental and evangelical traditions of church history and acknowledges god's call of prevenient grace, which everyone receives from birth in the sacrament of baptism.
He said the document also provides for an individual's response by professing his or her commitment though the ceremonies of Confirmation and Remembering One's Baptism as significant point along the faith journey.
The study report also created two new categories of church membership. Currently, the church categorizes members as "preparatory members" and "full members." The new categories are "Baptized Members" and "Professing Members."
The document says that people become members of the church when they are baptized. The study report, prepared by a 16-member committee, says an infant, child or adult who is baptized becomes a member of the body of Christ, however church membership is dependent on an individual's profession of faith.
Trotter emphasized that the way churches count members for the purpose of determining apportionments would not change.
-- Linda Green
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