Mike's musings

Baptism

Had one of those interesting discussions over lunch today. Started talking about emergency infant baptism: no idea why. I think it came from a discussion about how you're never off-duty as a priest. Not sure why that came up, either. Anyway, it's really interesting having intelligent atheists - or, at the very least, agnostics - at work, who are happy to discuss difficult questions, and ask sensible questions. So, given that, according to Church of England canon law, anyone can perform an infant baptism in an emergency: that is, when a child might die. This raised three questions, all of which I thought were pretty good ones:

1. can a non-Christian perform such a baptism?
2. what can be done to someone who performs a baptism in circumstances other than an emergency?
3. what does emergency baptism "get you"?

Phoned Dad (who, as a Chancellor of a couple of dioceses, knows about these kinds of things), and asked him what the law says on these things, and for his views. Here are the answers:

1. can a non-Christian perform such a baptism? Yes, we think so. Why not? There are real occasions when this might happen (though rare): for instance, if the mother was very ill, but wanted this very much, and the midwife, though not Christian, was willing to perform an emergency.
2. what can be done to someone who performs a baptism in circumstances other than an emergency? Honestly, not much: measures governing the laity have lapsed (quite intentionally, I'm sure). If the person performing the baptism were ordained (priest or deacon), then it would be legal anyway. If they were subject to any level of canon law (e.g. if they were a Reader or a churchwarden), then there might be some steps taken (for instance suspension of a license for a Reader). If they were a layperson, then there's not much that would (or could) happen.
3. what does emergency baptism "get you"? Membership into the church. There's a rubric in "Common Worship" (the replacement to the Book of Common Prayer in the Church of England) that says that if a child dies without baptism, the parents should be informed that this doesn't impact on their salvation through Christ (I need to look up the exact wording). This is interesting, because it seems to be a change in doctrine from the Book of Common Prayer (where one of the Articles of Faith would suggest the opposite), which wasn't supposed to happen without a special vote before adoption of Common Worship. This apparently didn't happen. Not that I, for one, would complain: this is very much in line with my theology on this issue.

A good discussion on Matthew and John this evening with Alan. I'm constantly surprised by how much I get out of these tutorials despite the fact that in many instances (this inluded), I get less chance to prepare than I'd really like.