BEING BAPTIZED

 In class the term "being baptized" is often used in some way.  Since baptism is an important concept in Christian Ethics, I probably should have spent more time teaching how to understand what baptism means.  There is so much to say about this, but I think the writer in the following essay describes very well why baptism is no mere ritual.  What follows is just the opening of an excellent review essay written by an acquaintance of mine, James K.A. Smith, who was working on his doctorate in philosophy at Villanova University when the events he described took place.  I encourage you to read the whole review at http://www.calvin.edu/~jks4/philchristi.pdf 

 

Epistemology for the Rest of Us: Hints of a Paradigm Shift in Abraham’s Crossing the Threshold

James K. A. Smith

Department of Philosophy / Calvin College / Grand Rapids, Michigan 

 

I would like to invite you to a tiny little mission church in north Philadelphia.  It is the site of one of my most treasured memories of ministry, but also an event that constantly challenges my inherited paradigms in philosophy of religion.

 

It is an early winter evening, so darkness presses against the windows of the rented sanctuary as a small group of believers are gathering; light and song push back against that darkness and oozes out of the cracks of the aging, tiny structure. We have gathered for an evening service of celebration as several members of a neighborhood family, new to the church, have presented themselves for baptism. Over the past several months we have witnessed a transformation in the mother and some of her children and tonight they make public profession of their newfound faith by dying and rising in the waters of baptism. The father and some uncles have come for the service to honor those being baptized, but as with previous visits to Sunday worship, they remain aloof, distant, and unengaged. But tonight that will change.

 

Baptism in a Pentecostal church brings together the charismatic and the sacramental: their baptism is situated in a narrative enacted through song and sermon, echoed in the story of their testimonies as they present themselves for baptism. And as they are baptized, Pastor Billings draws upon the materiality and physicality of the sacrament as a picture of the Gospel itself. Tonight it’s not just a matter of telling, but a matter of showing. As the mother emerges from the water it feels as if we are witnessing the resurrection itself.  Pastor and parishioner embrace in tears as the congregation can no longer contain its “Hallelujahs!” and shouts of praise; their songs and prayers become the sound track of resurrection. He is risen! She is risen! As the teenagers are baptized, they each renounce the Evil One and pledge allegiance to the coming King. They have a new story, a new love, a new desire.

 

And then we notice that slowly the father has made his way to the front of the sanctuary. He has been gripped by something in what he has witnessed.  As others notice, a hush comes over the congregation. His brothers with him, we see the father quietly but urgently speaking with the pastor, and then a laugh of surprise and joy breaks across the pastor’s face as he embraces the father and assures him, “Of course!” The men have come asking: “Can we be baptized, too? Can we become Christians?” The waters of baptism stir once again and the sound track of resurrection becomes even louder as an entire family is enfolded into the family of God.

 

Just what happened there? More to the point, to what extent can the regnant paradigms in philosophy of religion think or make sense of a scene like this one? This father’s desire to embrace the Christian story—and be embraced by Christ—was not an instance of intellectual resolution. Christ was not the “answer” to a “question.” Jorge was not drawn to “theism,” and when he, too, emerged from the waters of baptism he did not rise with a new “perspective” or “worldview.” He didn’t die to skepticism and rise to “knowledge” (cf. Rom. 6:1–14). Something other, something different, something both ordinary and extraordinary was witnessed there. Are the dominant frameworks in philosophy of religion able to do justice to what happened there in that tiny sanctuary on a winter night? Or are they plagued by a kind of reductionism and rationalism that is poorly calibrated to understand a scenario like this one? What picture of the “believer” is assumed in our philosophies of religion?

 

 

Abstract:

William Abraham’s “canonical theism”calls into question standard strategies in philosophy of religion

which

(1) strain out the particularities of Christian faith, distilling a “mere theism”

and

(2) position Christian faith within a broader, “general” epistemology.

 

I evaluate Abraham’s call  for a philosophical approach that honors the thick particularity of Christian faith

and makes room for the unique epistemological status of revelation.

I conclude that

Abraham’s promising project could be extended to more radically call into question

the “intellectualism” that characterizes contemporary philosophy of religion.