The intolerable intolerance of Anglican ambiguity

An Anglican priest recently affirmed that both believer’s baptism and infant baptism are acceptable, and that both going to a gay wedding and not going to it are acceptable. He compared the two issues, saying they “mapped perfectly onto each other” as examples of where it is appropriate to have ambiguity of position, to hold different approaches together. In either case, they affirm both options as within the pale of judicious Christian practice, and the choice between them as merely “a secondary issue.” Have your baby baptized or wait until they reach the “age of reason”—either way, they’ll get baptized eventually, and that’s all that matters, because, after all, God doesn’t really look on baptized children and unbaptized children any differently. Go to the wedding or don’t go—neither choice necessarily cooperates in the transgression of a line that God draws.

But in making these claims of tolerance, this Anglican position cannot but become intolerant of those who hold to either side exclusively. What these pastors reject as unacceptable is the assertion that either option is definitely wrong. Someone who claims “It is wrong to withhold baptism from one’s baby” or “It is wrong to attend a gay wedding” are only speaking their personal opinion, most likely out of an ill-advised spirit of contentiousness and a lack of Christlike sensitivity; the claims are not and cannot be objectively true.

But what if God does look on baptized children differently than unbaptized ones? What if baptism is not just a symbol, but a sacrament that makes a person, no matter their age, part of God’s family, part of his Body?

And what if going to a gay wedding does in fact transgress a line that God draws, because the act of attending a ceremony inherently endorses its validity, and God denies its validity?

The terrible thing is not just that these two things are true. It is that many Anglican clergy, by their academic rigor, their excellent knowledge of Scripture, their claim to conformity with the precedent and heritage of the historical Church, do very well know them to be true, and yet tolerate their contradictions, in the interest of civility and some sort of generous or mere orthodoxy that does not ruffle the feathers of the urban center.

It is not like Christ, who said “let the little children come unto me,” to withhold a blessing from a child. Nor is it like him to give a false and misleading blessing in the interest of love. It is no favor to anyone to pander to the spirit of the age, or to speak out of both sides of your mouth. “I would rather that you were hot or cold…”

Anglicanism has survived for hundreds of years by occupying a contradictory via media between mutually exclusive propositions, by adept use of the technique of not following things through to their logical ends. But as the world approaches the coming of the Lord, the bad will get worse, and the good will get better. The watersheds of ideology will be made plainer—Satan and his Minions against Christ and his Church Militant. Against all those who quibble in the middle, insisting upon lukewarmness, the nausea of the Spirit will grow and reach its inevitable consummation.

How Baptism can be called necessary for salvation

Say there is a fire in a building and two men are trapped inside. A fireman appears and says, “I’m here to save you!” The men say, “Thank God! How do we get out?” The fireman says, “I know the way. Tie this cable that is around my waist around yours, and then follow me.” But the second man replies, “Why do I have to tie the cable around my waist? It might get tangled on the debris. Let me just follow you.” So both men follow the fireman, but only the first man ties the cable around his waist. Now, as they are escaping, a burning wooden beam falls and blocks the door. Other firemen appear on the roof and are able to pull up the fireman and the first man by the cable to safety. However, the second man was unable to climb out. He called up to the fireman as he was perishing, “Why didn’t you save me?” But the fireman called back down, “Why didn’t you trust me?”

The parable is imperfect, but the point is simply this: One cannot truly have faith in something if he rejects commands to demonstrate that faith through action. The ordinance of Baptism has always been associated with faith. It is the action that seals faith, just like tying the cable around his waist sealed the faith of the first man. That is the sense in which it can be called necessary for salvation, not as a replacement for true faith but as its necessary manifestation.

Baptism as a symbol

I was recently visiting a church where the pastor, during the baptism ceremony, repeatedly emphasized the importance of the heart-decision to follow Christ and deemphasized the importance of the baptism ceremony. “What’s happening here is just a symbol,” he kept saying. I agree. But in my study of symbols in communication (an excellent slice of communication theory) I learned of the inseparable interaction that occurs between the symbol and the thing signified–they are symbionts that together establish meaning and create reality. There’s a lot of weight in a symbol. Especially a sacramental symbol modeled by Christ Himself. I found a great excerpt from Piper on this:

“Sometimes we refer to baptism as a symbol. That may be saying too little, unless we remember that there are two ways to symbolize something. If you write the word LOVE on a blackboard for a group of 2nd graders and say that is the English language symbol for a commitment of the heart to someone’s welfare, that’s one kind of symbolism. But if you take your girlfriend out to a lagoon and sitting with her under a tree you pull a diamond ring out of your pocket and ask her to marry you and offer the ring as a of your love, then you are doing something very different—you are expressing love through a symbolic action. The teacher who writes LOVE on the board need not have any love. But the giving of a diamond ring is love in action.

Baptism is a symbol of faith in that second sense. It is an expression with the whole body of the heart’s acceptance of Christ’s lordship. Why is this so fitting that Jesus commanded it of all his people? I think it is fitting because what happens in becoming a Christian involves the body as well as the heart. In conversion the heart is freed from sin to be enslaved to God. But in Romans 6, Paul really stresses that our bodies too are involved in this change over. For example, verse 13: ‘Do not yield the members of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.’ It seems fitting that since the lordship of Christ lays claim to our whole body, we should express our acceptance of that lordship with an action of the whole body.”