Participating Witness. Anthony G. Siegrist

that are at the forefront of a re-formation of the Christian tradition. In addition, I hope that this book will contribute to a growing body of scholarship related to Christian liturgy and practices not confined to communities that practice believers’ baptism. Specifically, I hope to further the possibility of a form of ecumenical engagement that moves beyond, while not dismissing, the traditional contentious, polemical debates. Finally, my hope is that this work of Anabaptist theology will contribute to a renewed practice of believers’ baptism and a greater understanding of the significance of related practices. In such a spirit this project inquires after the apostle Paul’s unitary vision, in which baptism plays a crucial role: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”35

1. Luther, Babylonian Captivity.

2. Cullman, Baptism in the New Testament; Barth, Regarding Baptism.

3. Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, 6.

4. Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, 6.

5. Yoder, Priestly Kingdom, 69.

6. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I.q1.a8 (5). Numbers in parentheses refer to the page number(s) of the ET.

7. On this point George Lindbeck’s work is especially helpful. See especially “Ecumenism and the Future of Belief.”

8. Here I am thinking of both official acts of reconciliation and ongoing unofficial dialogues between various Anabaptist groups and the Roman Catholic, Swiss Reformed, and Lutheran churches. For one concrete example see G. Schlabach, ed., On Baptism. Also see Enns, “Believers Church Ecclesiology,” 107–24.

9. Luke 22:19. Unless otherwise noted, biblical quotations are taken from the NRSV.

10. Fast Dueck, “(Re)learning to Swim in Baptismal Waters,” 240.

11. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 279.

12. Luke 22:19; Matt 26:26–28; Mark 14:22–24; 1 Cor 11:24–25.

13. A helpful overview of the history and lines of tension in the sacramental tradition can be found in Fahey, “Sacraments.”

14. Jenson, Visible Words, 28.

15. Book of Common Prayer, 857.

16. Vander Zee, Recovering the Sacraments for Evangelical Worship, 29.

17. Yeago, “Apostolic Faith,” 2:177.

18. Luther, Babylonian Captivity, 124.

19. Ibid., 67.

20. Yeago, “Apostolic Faith,” 177.

21. As derived from Rom 4:11.

22. Calvin, Institutes, 1277.

23. See for example Matt 18:20 and John 14:17.

24. As quoted in Stephens, Huldrych Zwingli, 183.

25. Harper and Metzger, Exploring Ecclesiology, 141.

26. Grenz, Theology for the Community, 516.

27. Erickson, Christian Theology, 1110.

28. Jones, A Grammar of Christian Faith, 2:667.

29. Grenz, Theology for the Community, 516.

30. McClendon, “Baptism as a Performative Sign,” 403–16; also see his Doctrine, 2:386–406.

31. Yoder, Body Politics, 72–73.

32. Finger, Contemporary Anabaptist Theology, 158–83.

33. Jenson, Visible Words, 147.

34. Yoder, Body Politics, 72–73, 44–46; and Finger, Christian Theology, 2:331–51, as well as Contemporary Anabaptist Theology, 158–83.

35. 1 Cor 12:12–13.

      1

      The Undoing of Baptism

      Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” And he laid his hands on them and went on his way.

      (Matt 19:14)

Flannery O’Connor was a Catholic Christian and one of the most distinguished twentieth-century American writers of fiction. One of her short stories, “The River,” provides a provocative and disturbing picture of the baptism of a child. O’Connor’s story functions like a parable, drawing our attention to the issues raised by the baptism of children. I recount it here not as the basis for an argument, but as a heuristic for investigating what is at stake in this book’s thesis.1

“The River” takes place, as many of O’Connor’s stories do, in the religiously flamboyant American South. It begins with a young boy, a child of dissolute parents, being taken by his sitter to a “healing,” an informal revival service featuring a