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A Theology of Christian Initiation

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We move on to chapter 4 in A Pastoral and Theological Commentary on the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults titled “A Theology of Christian Initiation” by Dr. Kimberly Hope Belcher (who is on the faculty at Notre Dame). Belcher introduces this chapter by noting that in the ancient world, where participation “convey[ed] a share in the reality one participated in” meant “that by participation in Christian initiation, the Christian has come to be another Christ.” Such a theological claim is more difficult in our current context, where many people, by equating “real” with “physical,” miss the import “of the symbolic nature of the sacraments” (43-44). Belcher claims that theologians speak of this symbolic nature

… because they [the sacraments] address human beings, who come to know by symbols truths that cannot be empirically proved or stated as a proposition. The liturgical symbols express mysteries: our deepest loves, hopes, and commitments. They change us because they speak to a human level that is deeper than the material world (44).

She offers five themes expressed through the Christian initiation, giving greatest weight and attention to the first, the paschal mystery. Like Luther’s baptismal theology, this concept is anchored in Roman 6, “the symbolic act of death in baptism” through which the initiate is joined with Christ’s death and resurrection; his death “is the revelation of the eternal love of God for creation and also the source of the forgiveness of sins” (44). The implication of this joining is true freedom. Belcher writes that “Christians after baptism have been liberated from worldly values, preparing for the death they have already begun to experience” (47).

The remaining themes flow from this first. The Trinity (second theme) is revealed through the person of Jesus, whose passion, death, and resurrection “is a manifestation of an endless cycle of self-giving and selfless love that is characteristic of the Trinity” (48). The moral life (fourth theme) has a trinitarian framework informed by the initiation rituals, which reveals the love the Father, joins one to Christ, and in which the Christian life, expressed in love of neighbor, is supported by the Holy Spirit (52). Of eschatology and cosmology, the final theme, she writes: “The blessing of the baptismal water points toward the heavenly consummation … The catechumenal journey should be celebrated within a community that undertakes to be a foretaste of that heavenly life, despite their human frailties” (53).

I close with her third theme, ecclesiology, to which she gives significant attention regarding those enrolled in OCIA who “have been validly baptized.” Yes, participating in the OCIA process for these baptized people is “initiation into full communion with the Catholic Church,” but she stresses that through baptism a person enters into “the universal Christian church, which is fragmented into various communities not in communion with one another” (50). She continues, “The OCIA balances two complementary theological principles: respect and pastoral care for the person who presents herself or himself for inquiry, and respect for our ecumenical partners, other churches or ecclesial communities who believe in the Trinity and baptize.” To keep that balance “candidates’ baptism in and formation by other churches or ecclesial communions deserves honor from the Catholic communities where they are finding a new home” (51). This language not only resonates with me, as a member of an “ecclesial community,” but it also reflects the sacramental theology with which she began: “The liturgical symbols express mysteries: our deepest loves, hopes, and commitments. They change us because they speak to a human level that is deeper than the material world” (44).  But most of all, her sacramental theology comes close my own; to her words “that by participation in Christian initiation, the Christian has come to be another Christ” (43), I would add these: that in baptism one is joined to Christ and, by daily dying to sin, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

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Banner photo
Laxfield, UK; All Saints Church: 15th-century Seven Sacraments font. Photograph by Michael Garlick
© Copyright Michael Garlick and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
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Communion_of_saints_-_Baptistry_-_Padua_2016

Baptism as Incorporation into the Body of Christ

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Last week Kent concluded his post with a quote from Max Johnson noting the importance of the role of the Holy Spirit in questions “about faith, justification, ecclesiology, eschatology, and the meaning of the eucharist.” With that assertion in mind, we turn to the final chapter of Images of Baptism, Baptism as Incorporation into the Body of Christ. Johnson’s thesis (echoing both/and statements typical among Lutherans) claims that in baptism the person is incorporated into both the Head, Christ, and his body, the church:

It is not that we are first initiated into union and communion with Christ and then as a consequence into the community of the church. Rather, baptism itself signifies and effects both at the same time (Images of Baptism, 109-10, emphasis in original).

Reflecting his own ecumenical spirit, Johnson draws on Roman Catholic theologians Karl Rahner and Edward Schillebeeckx before turning to Lutherans Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Carl Braaten to support his thesis. A quotation from Braaten draws together the Christological, ecclesiological, and eschatological dimensions of this chapter: “The church is Christ as his bodily presence in the world, prefiguring the future of the world in the kingdom of God” (Braaten, Mother Church, 7 in Images of Baptism, 111, emphasis added by Johnson).

After warning against chasing after a romanticized ideal of “the church” as a cozy community, Johnson offers three biblical images as “proper” ways to understand what the church is, and, more importantly, ways to live as the body of Christ in the world.

Church as a Priestly Community

… the community of the church is a particular kind of community, one that knows itself as engaged in active priestly ministry and self-sacrificial service in the world. The body of Christ is not a community bent on its own survival or self-preservation. The body of Christ, who is Priest, Prophet and King, exists that it may die in Christ, so that it may extend itself for the life of others as it continues its baptismal pilgrimage through death to resurrection (Images of Baptism, 118).

Church as an Ecumenical-Inclusive-Catholic Community

… we are not really baptized “Catholic” or “Lutheran” or anything else. We should strive to remove such an incomplete theology of baptismal identity from our vocabulary (Images of Baptism, 121-22). [Referencing 1 Corinthians 1:13 and Ephesians 4:4-6 he says,] Christian unity is, above all, not a demand, not a call, but already a gift to be received and further realized gratefully…. Through baptism all are incorporated into the one Christ, the one church, the one body of Christ (Images of Baptism, 121, emphasis in original).

The Community of the Church as the “Communion of Saints”

To be incorporated into that body is to be incorporated into communion with the “great cloud of witnesses” who have gone on before us and who, according to the Letter to the Hebrews (11–12), fill the great stadium to cheer us on as we follow Christ, our great pioneer in the pilgrimage to the eschatological City of God (Images of Baptism, 128).

His trinity of images speaks to our current context, evoking ways to imagine the church that can inspire us

  • To be a priestly community “not … bent on its own survival or self-preservation” but for the sake of others;
  • To live with gratitude that, in spite of the fractured witness of the church, we, as the body of Christ, are already one;
  • To rest in the assurance that the communion of saints transcends space and time; we are not alone in our priestly pilgrimage.

We have made it possible for readers to comment on our blog posts. What insights have you gained from this series on Images of Baptism? We would gladly receive your comments.

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Image: Padua Baptistry
Frescos by Giusta de’ Menabuoi, 14th century
Photo, © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro, 2016
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Communion_of_saints_-_Baptistry_-_Padua_2016.jpg