Baptismal Regeneration in BCP?

adrian reynolds
1 Comment »

I've a question that I want to gently ask my Anglican brethren. I hope to be enlightened. The Jerusalem declaration (read it here) gives a lot of weight to the Book of Common Prayer. Good. I like it, on the whole, even though I am not a liturgy man. But the baptism service puzzles me. I don't think Cramner had everything worked out, and he was still appears very Catholic on this. For example, here is BCP prayer accompanying baptism...


Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this Child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks unto Almighty God for these benefits; and with one accord make our prayers unto him, that this Child may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning....

I don't think you can argue that this is a hopeful promise kind of prayer, in normal covenant language; it is much more foreceful than that. I don't suppose the most covenantal evangelical would argue that the child is regenerate, so what is this all about?

It's a genuine question, and where I am most uncomfortable with the BCP (a vicar I know who uses BCP told me he just ignores this prayer; but it is a pretty significant part of the baptism service). Answers please.....

1 comments:

Marcus said...

It was one of the reasons I decided I wasn't an Anglican 20 years ago. I just couldn't go through with ordination training promising to respect this. I am certain Cranmer did mean baptismal regeneration. I don't wholly blame him - he accomplished a huge amount given the circumstances he was working in, and BCP rescued the CofE for several hundred years.

I have dear Anglican friends who deeply want to ignore this issue or treat it as an unimportant secondary. I respect their desire to fight for the heart of their communion. But to fight by pretending extremely poor foundational theology doesn't exist makes any victory phyrric at best.

Its hard not to think that a theology of baptismal regeneration followed, rather than preceded, a legal requirement to do it. I can't but think that Anglican ministers were civilly required to do it and set about finding convoluted theological justification for something that they de facto had to believe if they wished to minister in the C of E. I think theology followed practice.

4:05 PM

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