TJieodore W. Jennings, Jr. The Meaning of ... - Quarterly Review

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they urged a stronger claim for a personal experience of New Birth by the indwelling Spirit, leading to the fruits of the Spirit. 13 Several years earlier, in 1979, the Lutheran-United Methodist Statement on Baptism was issued. Interestingly, Lawrence Stookey and James White as well as Hoyt Hickman, then assistant general secretary for the Section on Worship of the General Board of Discipleship, were part of the ten-person United Methodist team. Several interesting affirmations appear in the statement. For example, We affirm with scripture that God gives us the Holy Spirit in baptism: —to unite us with Jesus Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6:1-11; Col. 2:12); —to effect new birth, new creation, newness of life (John 3:5; Titus 3:5); —to offer, give, and assure us ofthe forgiveness of sins in both cleansing and life-giving aspects (Acts 2:38); —to enable our continual repentance and daily reception of forgiveness, and our growing in grace; —to create unity and equality in Christ (1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:27-28); —to make us participants in the new age initiated by the saving act of God in Jesus Christ (John 3:5); —to place us into the Body of Christ, where the benefits ofthe Holy Spirit are shared within a visible community of faith (Acts 2:38; 1 Cor. 12:13). 14 After three years of study, the signers of this statement expressed their hope that United Methodists and Lutherans, who recognize one another's baptism, would continue tliis dialogue at the local level. Once again United Methodists seem to have little difficulty affirming that the Holy Spirit in baptism gives us New Birth and the forgiveness of sins. Opposition to the Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration Stookey and White are correct when they talk about a "crucial challenge of understanding and interpretation" and "a revolution in 44 QUARTERLY REVIEW / SPRING 1993
our thinking," respectively, with regard to the sacraments. In many ways they and our new baptismal liturgies are taking our church in a direction it has not formerly gone. Consider an all-too-superficial glance at the baptismal stance taken theologically by the predecessor denominations in America that form the United Methodist Church today. In the Articles of Religion, which, in 1784, John Wesley sent over for use by his American followers, baptism was described in Article XVII: Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized; but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth. . Article XVII makes a somewhat lesser claim than Article XXVII of the Anglican thirty-nine Articles, from which it is adapted. Wesley's article uses the Anglican "sign of regeneration or the New Birth," but it does not suggest in any bold form that it conveys the New Birth. It seems to be a sign of God's renewing grace that may operate outside of the sacrament itself. Although the former Methodist Church held firmly to the practice of infant baptism, it did not clearly delineate a doctrine of baptism. Where it did do much thinking about baptism, it was, as Hoyt Hickman suggests, done for the purpose of justifying the practice of infant baptism. 16 Over a quarter century ago, Colin Williams stated that Wesley had a creative tension between the objective and the subjective, between the givenness of Christ's holiness in the Word and Sacraments and the responsive holiness of life effected in the lives of Christian believers, but that he did not spell this tension out with any force. Thus, Methodism has experienced had a great deal of confusion on the subject. Williams concluded: Apparently, understanding only the second emphasis in Wesley, American Methodism has since reduced the service of baptism to the point where it is little more than a dedication, and in British Methodism, while far more ofthe structure ofthe service has been kept, all references to regeneration were excluded in 1882. BAPTISMAL REGENERATION 45
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Page 5: VOL. 13, NO. 1 SPRING 1993 Contents
Page 8 and 9: I have always rather liked the gruf
Page 10 and 11: of discipleship in the New Testamen
Page 12 and 13: imagine a week without visiting the
Page 14 and 15: transform all of life, and all that
Page 16 and 17: Contemporary North American Christi
Page 18 and 19: We must now see what it is that cha
Page 20 and 21: saying "call no one your father in
Page 22 and 23: 13:12). There is no following of Je
Page 24 and 25: Both New Testament discipleship and
Page 26 and 27: 17. "The Duty of Constant Communion
Page 28 and 29: earliest Christian congregations be
Page 30 and 31: his baptism to the experience of Ch
Page 32 and 33: Holy Spirit comes down willingly fr
Page 34 and 35: The Sacramental Nature of the Bapti
Page 36 and 37: to save them from "the wrath to com
Page 38 and 39: aptism—for mature youth and adult
Page 40 and 41: purpose of a rite of maturity is to
Page 42 and 43: church, namely, thatbaptism-chrisma
Page 44 and 45: 31. John Wesley, Works, X: 151. 32.
Page 46 and 47: In Baptismal Covenant I, in the "In
Page 48 and 49: of God without being born of water
Page 52 and 53: After analyzing how American Method
Page 54 and 55: eferred to as "a symbol of an inner
Page 56 and 57: of baptism is "the washing away the
Page 58 and 59: Although there is only scant likeli
Page 60 and 61: ut the inner man, where we have put
Page 62 and 63: Notes 1. Lawrence Hull Stookey, "Th
Page 64 and 65: 44. Borgen, 159f.; Stein, 319, f, 1
Page 66 and 67: I am not a liturgical scholar or pr
Page 68 and 69: ounden duty...to consecrate our chi
Page 70 and 71: formed in the gospel not only by le
Page 72 and 73: life, for one could always lose gra
Page 74 and 75: However, I have focused on human ac
Page 76 and 77: Osborne, Kenan B. The Christian Sac
Page 78 and 79: It was raining pretty hard one Satu
Page 80 and 81: the same time a young man came to s
Page 82 and 83: theologically unpacked. A pastoral
Page 84 and 85: Elizabeth Achtemeier's Preaching fr
Page 86 and 87: prophets by the traditions of ancie
Page 88 and 89: eading; it seems as if one is heari
Page 90 and 91: Brueggemann's discussion of royal v
Page 92 and 93: limitations, even in quite valuable
Page 95 and 96: M. Eugene Boring Interpreting 1 Pet
Page 97 and 98: particular way. The particularity o
Page 99 and 100: in the capital of the empire felt m
Page 101 and 102:
location but about the way we relat
Page 103 and 104:
answer: Read. Interpret. Examine. B
Page 105 and 106:
in liturgical settings. Yet all of
Page 107 and 108:
word accomplished by Jesus, who cal
Page 109 and 110:
community that does what priests do
Page 111 and 112:
kings, slavery as a divinely author
Page 113 and 114:
wives and husbands. To each it migh
Page 115 and 116:
etained some of the oral style appr
Page 117 and 118:
Brox, Norbert. Der erste Petrusbrie
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TJieodore W. Jennings, Jr. The Meaning of ... - Quarterly Review

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