On Catholicism and Baptism

Dear N.:

Thank you for your absolutely splendid e-mail. Dealing with militant protestants can be a particularly difficult and sensitive matter and I applaud your courage and fortitude in being willing to discuss the Faith with someone so sadly biased against it. In these circumstances I am reminded of the wisdom of GK Chesterton, who admonishes believers always to be mindful that when defending the Faith we must guard against the temptation to win the argument and yet lose the person whom we debate. You have already demonstrated the first and most vital axiom which must obtain in any discussion of matters of religion: the need for charity above all things. S. Paul in Ephesians tells us to 'speak the truth with love.' That you have already certainly done. How wonderful it is that you express such love and concern for your friend. Unhappily, your friend clearly harbours grave prejudice against the Catholic tradition, and in so doing reveals, if I may say it, a woeful but unsurprising ignorance of the subject.

1. I believe our first task is to distinguish the meaning of the word 'Catholic.' It can be pointed out to your friend that the Creed of the First Council of Constantinople (AD 381) which has been used by all orthodox Christians universally since the fourth century and is now called 'Nicene' refers to the Church as One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Sadly, your friend, as a Baptist, rejects this orthodox Creed and the authority of the Church that composed it. The word Catholic was first used by Saint Ignatius, the Bishop who succeeded Saint Peter as Bishop of Antioch, in AD 107; it is katholikon or kata' holon, meaning, 'according to the whole,' 'full,' 'complete.' Where the Bishop is, there let the congregation assemble, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church (S. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 8). The word Catholic does not simply mean 'universal' or 'spread throughout time and space;' it also means 'orthodox' or 'the fullness of the Gospel.' Catholics, therefore, are simply Christians who adhere to the full and complete Christian Faith, and who belong to the historic traditional Church described in the Creeds as Catholic, or universal and orthodox. Obviously your friend intends to use the word Catholic to describe the Roman Church; this is a common but serious mistake. The word Catholic is not synonymous with the Roman Communion - it may very effectively be argued that the Papal Church is not Catholic is the truest sense of the word, that is, faithful to the ancient Tradition of the Church of the Seven Ecumenical Councils both East and West which existed unimpaired for the first thousand years of Christian history. Anglicanism claims for herself that she is uniquely faithful in the West to this ancient orthodoxy, asserting that she is the purest branch of historical Catholicism, shorn of the excesses of medieval Roman Catholic theology, and preserved from the caustic broom of protestant revolution which swept away the baby with the bathwater. In this sense, Anglicanism is more 'Catholic' than Rome. The Roman Church does not encompass the totality of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ, although Rome boldly makes that very claim. Catholicism does not begin and end in Rome - that branch of the Church ruled by the Pope of Rome does not comprehend the whole Church of Christ. When your friend says 'Catholic,' she means 'Roman.' It needs to be pointed out to her that such an idea is exactly what the Roman Communion wants her to think, but that assertion is wrong historically and theologically. We Anglicans recognise the Roman Church as a true particular Church of Apostolic and thus divine origin, with Apostolic Succession, Apostolic Faith and Order, and an authentic administration of the Word and Sacraments, but we also repudiate those elements in Romanism that are contrary to the theological deposit of the ancient and undivided Church of the first millennium, to wit, papal infallibility, the dogmas of the immaculate conception and bodily assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and the universal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome. There is but one Church of Christ which is orthodox and universal, and the Anglican Church, having the prerequisite Scriptures, Creeds, Sacraments, and Apostolic Ministry, is a true part of that one Church. To level the accusation at the Latin Church that she is a 'cult' is simply too pejorative, provocative, and unreasonable to dignify with an intelligent response - a Christian communion two-thousand years old with 1.1 billion members, the Mother Church of western Christendom responsible for the development of western civilisation and culture, is certainly not a cult. Let us recall that the word 'cult' refers to a body that claims to be Christian but holds aberrant, clearly unbiblical doctrines which undermine the Gospel of Christ. That cannot be said strictly of the Roman Church, although Rome does teach as doctrine certain beliefs which are at best theological opinions of great philosophical sophistication, and not revelation from God.

2. The other major point of contention is the phrase 'born again' which in Greek is anothen, 'born from above.' If we say it in its most simple and direct fashion, it is right to say that every single Christian is by virtue of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism 'born from above' or 'again.' Every Christian, every person that has been baptised, is born again. Your friend commits the quintessential error of confusing regeneration, or new birth in the Holy Ghost, with conversion, which is the turning of the soul, mind, and heart to God. Regeneration is God's Action upon us; conversion is our action towards God. The New Testament teaches salvation by grace alone. Grace comes to us primarily through the Sacraments, God's extension of His Incarnation, His own life in Christ, to us in a physical way. Christ is an incarnate human being with a physical body Who touches our bodies physically in the Sacraments. We cannot earn or deserve grace, and thus grace comes to us in visible signs by the Church that guarantee and assure our reception of it. Babies are baptised because they cannot earn or merit grace, and thus cannot earn or merit Baptism. It is pure, sheer, total grace. We are only saved by having our human nature taken into Christ's human nature; Baptism gives us a 'human nature transplant.' Through Baptism, we are inserted into Christ's incarnate life now glorified and 'made partakers of the divine nature' (II Peter 1.4). Baptism makes us the children of God by adoption and grace. We become in Baptism what God is by nature, children of God the Father and co-heirs of Christ the Son by the Spirit of Adoption (Romans 8). Baptism is the Sacrament of New Birth, it is the Sacrament of Faith wherein the three gifts that last forever, faith, hope, and love, are infused into the soul (I Corinthians 13). In evangelical teaching this is often confused and muddled. You and I are born again Christians because we are baptised; all baptised Christians are born again because the Holy Ghost recreates supernatural life in us by Baptism, apart from our works, deservings, or even our initial faith in Him. Grace comes first, then faith. The grace of conversion is preveniently presented to us and then made fully manifest in Baptism, which is the New Life in Christ. We die and rise again with Christ in the mystery of Baptism. Because we are born again sacramentally, we can then thoroughly turn to Christ in conversion, which is an ongoing daily process in the life of the Christian. The only way truly to become a Christian is to be baptised, to be united to Christ sacramentally, to be made a sharer in Christ's death and resurrection through the infusion of the Holy Spirit. Baptism applies to our bodies and souls in a direct supernatural manner the person and work of Jesus Christ, His victory on the Cross, and His resurrection and glorification. It communicates to us the forgiveness of all sins, actual and original, and makes us a 'new creature in Christ.' We receive remission of sins and eternal life in Baptism. 'I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins' (Nicene Creed). Baptism is an unrepeated once-for-all gift of God's forgiveness and mercy: One Lord, one faith, one Baptism (Ephesians 4.5). An unbaptised believer is a learner, a catechumen, but not a proper Christian. Baptism causes us to become members of Christ, members of the Body of Christ the Church, and heirs of the eternal and heavenly kingdom through grace. Baptism is the beginning of grace in the soul, the entrance into the divine life of grace. It makes us to share the one life of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost into Whom we are baptised. In summary, we cannot be saved, that is, brought into the saving, regenerating, transfiguring, redeeming, glorified life of Christ without water Trinitarian Baptism, as Our Lord clearly teaches us. Baptism is, in the words of the Prayer Book catechism, 'generally necessary to salvation,' that is, necessary for all people where it may be had. Your friend will undoubtedly reject all of this, but it is the explicit teaching of the Word of God: which is ironic, considering that evangelicals claim to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. Often, many evangelicals subconsciously believe only in the inerrancy of those scriptural passages with which they agree a priori. Baptists deny the regenerative power and sacramental efficacy of Baptism through a misinterpretation of the New Testament doctrine of salvation. If one gets Baptism wrong, one gets the economy of salvation wrong. Your friend should consider these essential scriptural teachings:

Verily, verily, I say unto you: unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (S. John 3.5).
Our Lord commands water to be the outward sign and the Spirit to be the inward grace of Holy Baptism.

Baptism doth now save us, not as the removal of the filth of the flesh, but as the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (I Peter 3.21)
S. Peter clearly understands Baptism as the gift of salvation which confers on us the power of Christ's resurrection.

For you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ: for as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ (Galatians 3.26-27).
S. Paul makes it abundantly clear that Baptism causes us to be adopted by God as His children through Christ. Baptism clothes us in Christ, His divine sonship, His righteousness, and His glory.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the Laver of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost (S. Titus 3.5).
Baptism saves us and washes us clean from sin through regeneration in the Holy Spirit.

For by one Spirit we were all baptised into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit (I Corinthians 12.13).
S. Paul teaches us that Baptism conveys to us the Holy Spirit and incorporates us into the Body of Christ by giving us the Spirit.

He who believes and is baptised will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. (S. Mark 16.16)
Our Lord definitively teaches the necessity of Baptism for salvation.

Do you not know that as many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? Therefore we were buried with Christ through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 6.3-4)
Baptism causes us to die and rise again in Christ, that the Father may raise us up in Baptism just as He raised Christ from the dead.

We are buried with Christ in baptism, in which you also were raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2.12).
The power of faith in God operates in baptism to join us to Christ's death and resurrection.

Then Peter said to them, Repent, and let every one of you be baptised in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts of the Apostles 2.38).
Baptism confers the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

As one can see, it is vitally important to distinguish between the regenerative gift of the Spirit conveyed in Baptism and the human response given to God's love and grace in conversion and repentance. Once this is rightly done, the confusion is clarified and the relationship between these two aspects of salvation is solidified and strengthened. When asked the question, 'are you born again?' the reply must surely be given, 'yes, when I was baptised!'

I pray these few meagre thoughts will be of some use to you in your continuing dialogue with your friend. Let us pray that the illumination of the Holy Ghost will move her to a greater understanding of the mystery of the Gospel as contained in Scripture and expressed in the life of the Church which is God's Family and the Household of Faith.