ABSTRACT

The last fifty years have witnessed an unprecedented industry of liturgical revision in the mainline Western churches, most notably the revised rites in the Roman Catholic Church which resulted from the Second Vatican Council. Called by Pope John XXIII, the Council began its work under his successor in 1963, and the revision of the liturgy was the first major task undertaken by the Council. The principles underlying the liturgical revisions were shared and became influential in other churches. The revisions in the Roman Catholic Church were the fruits of what is called the Liturgical Movement. This movement, often traced to particular Benedictines in the first decade of the twentieth century in France, Germany and Austria, was concerned that the Catholic liturgy should be understood by the laity, and that they should participate in and be formed by it.1 Later, Catholic scholars pressed for alterations and reforms of the Tridentine forms in use, appealing to earlier rites in the history of the development of liturgies. Already in the 1950s, prior to the Second Vatican Council, the special rites for Holy Week had been reformed and restored, and provision made for the renewal of baptismal vows at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night. The insights of the Roman Catholic Liturgical Movement were shared by liturgical scholars and pastoral liturgists in many other mainline Western churches. The 1951 Report of the Faith and Order Commission on Worship, under the auspices of the World Council of Churches, noted, ‘In the course of this enquiry we have been struck by the extent to which a “liturgical movement” is to be found in churches of widely differing traditions.’2 At this time the common opinion of liturgical scholars was that the so-called Apostolic Tradition was the work of Hippolytus c. 215, and that it provided churches with liturgical paradigms which pre-dated Reformation disputes and polemic, and which thus might help the churches to grow together in their worship forms. Indeed, there tended to be considerable agreement between liturgists of the different churches on what appropriate liturgical ideals might be. With the continuing growth of ecumenism through the work of the World Council of Churches, and the keen interest in ecumenism which came from the Second Vatican Council in the Roman Catholic Church, much liturgical scholarship was pursued ecumenically, and

spread as if by osmosis. The result can be seen in agreement on use of common texts, common structures, and frequent borrowing of material between churches. This has had an impact on the revision of baptismal rites in the latter part of the twentieth century. Liturgical scholars have been mainly concerned about earlier precedents in structures and texts. However, revision of the baptismal rites has also been influenced by pastoral situations and theological issues. The twentieth century saw the continued decline of the influence of the Christian church in European countries. Many of those countries had a state, national, or majority church – the Church of England in England, the Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands, the Lutheran Church in Sweden, and the Roman Catholic Church as a majority church in France. Instead of the older Christendom model, where national identity and church membership were often synonymous, churches have been faced with a new identity as a minority but distinct people of God in a secular society. Thus there has been a marked concern for ecclesiology, as we have seen in some of the theologians discussed in the previous chapter. Closely connected with this has been a renewed questioning of infant baptism, particularly of the practice identified as ‘indiscriminate baptism’. As infant baptism became the norm, the Western Catholic rite was the old adult/child/infant process, telescoped and slightly adapted for infant baptism. The Reformation Churches revised and devised forms of baptism which acknowledged the pastoral reality, and were thus rites for infant baptism. Only later, in connection with missionary work, did these churches produce rites for adult baptism. In Europe, baptism became seen as part of national identity, and both as a birth rite and birth right. As we have said, Karl Barth and Jürgen Moltmann both questioned whether infant baptism should continue, and we have noted the intense discussion which followed Barth’s criticisms. Much of the debate stemmed from the fact that in European societies, although active church membership was declining, many people brought their infants for baptism, while neither they nor the children were actively taking up their Christian status. In England it was an ‘Anglican’ problem. Already in a 1939 report of the Church of England, doubts were voiced about ‘indiscriminate baptism’. This report recommended that instruction for parents applying for their child’s baptism be tightened up, and even that the sacrament be deferred in families whose older children were not going to church. Reports in 1944, 1949, 1954 and 1965 made the same observations. Most baptisms were performed on a Sunday afternoon as a private service for the families, and not during normal public worship. In some quarters it was suggested that godparents should be vetted, that parents should undergo instruction, and even that perhaps baptism of infants should be restricted only to those whose parents were active members of the Church. In France, the Roman Catholic Church had a similar problem. A.M. Rouget wrote of indiscriminate infant baptism:

Another French Roman Catholic scholar, A.G. Martmort, stressed that adult baptism by immersion is the norm of the Church, and not infant baptism, which is always a derivation from the norm.4 In the presbyterian Church of Scotland the same questioning was behind the Reports of the Special Commission issued from 1955 to 1962.5 The result has been a concern in the revision of baptismal rites to show adult baptism as the norm from which infant baptism is derived, and that baptisms should take place within normal Sunday public worship. A further concern – and one linked with both ecclesiology and the discussion on infant baptism – has been the relationship of confirmation to baptism. Confirmation has been a Western development (anointing in the Eastern rites is not ‘Eastern Confirmation’), and although the Roman Catholic Church has kept it as a separate sacrament, most Reformation Churches retained or restored a rite of confirmation which was an adult affirmation of baptism, and normally required for admission to communion. The theological question has been: what is confirmation – does it confer further graces and gifts of the Spirit, or is it the conscious confession of faith which completes infant baptism? If the former, then do those baptized as adults need confirmation? If adult baptism is the norm, how can confirmaton be reintegrated into the rite of baptism? Is it necessary for reception of communion, or is baptism alone sufficient? A fourth factor has been the impact of the Charismatic movement, and a concern for a better understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in baptism and in the Church. This has also implications for adult baptism and ‘conversion’ and the role of personal testimony in the ritual. A fifth factor, which is only slowly emerging, is the apparent move from the period of modernity to postmodernity, though some would prefer to call this ‘late modernity’.6 These terms are tossed around in recent literature, and are difficult to pin down. They appear to mean different things when applied to art and architecture than when applied to historiography and textual interpretation. At times postmodernity seems to be a catch-all term for modern high-tech global culture. However, despite this uncertainty in precise definition of these terms, there has been in the last two or three decades a shift away from absolute faith in the rational method of argument, of the ‘progress’ of science, and of trust in the expert, as well as the assumption of the superiority of Euro-North American culture. What is significant is that some rites considered here – notably the Roman Catholic rites, the Episcopal Church in the United States of

America’s Book of Common Prayer (1979), and the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), were compiled at the end of modernity; other rites, such as A Prayer Book for New Zealand, belong to the era many identify as postmodern. It is against this background that we now consider some of the many rites of baptism which have been compiled in recent decades.