Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mangoe@mimsy.umd.edu (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: pagan baptism? theory and practice Message-ID: Date: 6 Nov 90 03:15:47 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 Lines: 35 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Mike Siemon writes: >In case it is not obvious, the "reasonable doubts" above amount to a >rather blanket unwillingness to accept baptism by other denominations >of Christians. Well, I read things a bit differently, and the clue for me is the catholicity (as it were) of the specific objections. All of these complaints are of the "was it done right" category. The same objections can be raised about *any* baptism, RC or protestant. This is particularly obvious in the Presbyterian and the Anglican objections. Even in RC practice there's no requirement that your underwear must get soaked; having grown up presby, I don't see how they can honestly think that a person can be baptized by sprinkling and not get water on them. The objection about anglican theology is even more suspect. Perhaps this suspicion made some sense in the days of latitudinarianism; it doesn't make sense today, and it's an equal peril with the RC church. What we have here is propagandizing. If RC and anglican positions here are to be compared, by theology the two communions should have the same rules (modulo the possible additional anglican restriction about ministers, which doesn't figure here). The difference, it seems to me, is basically politics. And that seems to be what you get in practice. My experience is that the RC church will indeed push for a conditional baptism, but that if you are insistent, they will back off. An interesting twist here is that the putative anglican position is basically the same as the orthodox position, the difference being in the vision of what consititutes the church. -- C. Wingate + "Our God to whom we turn when weary with illusion, + Whose stars serenely burn above this world's confusion, mangoe@cs.umd.edu + Thine is the mighty plan, the steadfast order sure mimsy!mangoe + In which the world began, endures, and shall endure."