[This is the third of three posts about the sacraments. Click the links to read the first about the sacraments and the second about their messy history.]

If you recall, a sacrament is the “outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.” Or the physical means by which we receive the spiritual grace of GOD. The sacraments, particularly Baptism and Eucharist, are our most common ways of receiving that grace. Lest we believe they are so neat and tidy, we covered six questions we persistently have about the sacraments, which reveals wide disagreements about their intention and nature. Now, let’s explore what it means to choose how we understand the sacraments. I’ll speak specifically to Baptism.

In the early church, baptism was practiced with two very different, though related ideas: that it was a transformation of a person and that it was the means by which one enters the Christian community. In those early years, this made a great deal of sense, as nearly all the early converts were adults and their participation in community could be stalled until they had been properly prepared. Soon after this, however, churches began to receive entire families, causing the people to decide whether or not to baptize children and infants. Many did and many didn’t. This decision brought with it problems for those two primary purposes:

1. Infants have no sin to reject and cannot reject it themselves anyway.
2. Entrance into the community was often still restricted after baptism.

The very foundation of baptism is shaken. Excuses for preferred methods are made (and still made) to defend why or why not infants should be included. However, in baptizing infants in the first place, we have opened the door to a new way of understanding community that doesn’t allow, in many cases for that early understanding of the sacrament to stand. What becomes particularly plain for us is that one of these understandings is easier to maintain in this way than the other. We can speak for very young children, but we can’t train them as if they were adults. And if we believe they are members in baptism, then restricting them or denying them Eucharist is sacramentally inconsistent.

Generation after generation has redefined the very nature of baptism, and particularly how it is used and for whom. It appears that much of the way we have redefined baptism have been based first on practical understanding followed by a theological defense. Remember that with the changing of who gets baptized (not just adults, but children, and infants in particular), the training of the new Christian is the piece that gets moved and altered. We have shifted much of that burden to the sacramental act of confirmation.

I am moved by the idea that we may need to make a conscience decision about sacraments based on making either a principal of practical consideration or theological witness of primary order. Not that we act without consideration to either, but that we recognize that our decisions must be either grounded in theology and practical application must be discovered or that they are decided for practical purposes and theological defenses are constructed.

As it is, the temptation to backtrack to the ancient traditions or to maintain mideival constructs is so strong, that we must consider our core traditions with fidelity or appropriate understanding.

My gut tells me that I rather have an imperfect sacrament born out of outstanding theological work than a great sacrament with a flimsy theological basis. What do you think?