What is baptism? Is it necessary? Does it do anything? Who can receive it, and when, and how?
These are just some of the questions my students carry into the classroom. I teach theology in Bible Belt, red-county West Texas. Most of my students would check “Christian” on a survey, and their brand is nondenominational: Low Church, Scripture alone, no liturgy or hierarchy, no creeds or rituals. To be a Christian, for them, means to believe in God, trust Jesus for salvation, and follow him as best one can. For the more committed among them, it entails habits of prayer, devotional reading, and Sunday morning worship.
Baptism has a marginal role in this picture. Yet baptism is central to the Christian life: commanded by Jesus, taught by the apostles, and honored, practiced, and contemplated from church fathers like Augustine of Hippo and Cyril of Jerusalem through Protestant reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin. So why does baptism rank so low among these students’ spiritual concerns? I’ve noticed at least three background assumptions they tend to share.
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