Participating Witness. Anthony G. Siegrist
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were first-generation Anabaptists. Yet, since they assumed the propriety of marriage and having children, the scenario of adult conversion could not remain static. Thus, over time, Anabaptist groups have developed various ways of incorporating children. Some have been more successful than others. One method has been a simple adaptation: baptize children—instead of just adults—still assuming of course that these children make a confession of faith. In contrast to the representative sample from the sixteenth century, a 1973 study by Leland Harder and J. Howard Kauffman of four Mennonite denominations and the Brethren in Christ Church showed a downward trend in the age of baptism running through the twentieth century. At the time of that study the median age was just under fifteen.12 Similar observations have been made at the beginning of the twenty-first century.13 And this trend seems to have resonance beyond immediate members of the Anabaptist family. The Baptist theologian James Leo Garrett, for instance, has observed that in some Baptist churches children as young as six are baptized.14 Another Baptist leader, Brian Haymes, attests to something similar. Haymes is from the United Kingdom, and he recounts a visit to the United States, relating that upon meeting other Baptists there he initially was appreciative of their passion for believers’ baptism, but then was “stunned as they [told] me they baptize children of six or seven years of age.”15 Haymes goes on to tell of one of his students who was baffled by similar observations.
Heirs of the Radical Reformation are now regularly baptizing children, pre- and early-adolescent persons. Certainly there is always a variety of trends at work across the spectrum of Anabaptist groups in North America. My point is not that every group and every individual fits this trend. This sociological snippet demonstrates that the practice is fluid. However, even if only one pre-adolescent child is baptized as a believer, that event would beg for an explanation. The fact that these aberrations seem to have become more common suggests a broad shift pointing to a widespread theological change. The assumption behind incorporating children through believers’ baptism is that the practice still upholds the central Anabaptist affirmation that individuals should be baptized only after making a confession of faith and a genuine decision to begin a disciple’s form of life. It might appear as though this attempt to secure the outcome of our children’s faith development were the only real option for Anabaptist communities today. However, the example of one Anabaptist group stands in contradistinction to this trend—the Old Order Amish (Amish). Their practice shows that, even in the twenty-first century, Anabaptist communities do not need to baptize children.
Anabaptist Practice of a Different Order
The contemporary Amish draw their name from the seventeenth-century rigorist Jacob Amman who led his followers to separate from the larger Anabaptist movement over a number of issues, notably a more demanding application of the Dordrecht Confession. The followers of Amman later immigrated to North America and today the Amish have settlements in over twenty-five states and one Canadian province. They are known for their close-knit communities and their particularly leery approach to technology. For instance, many Amish communities loath the interruption to family life caused by telephones, and as a result some relegate them to small sheds located at the far end of their laneways. Where Christians in the revivalist tradition focus on an individualized and experiential appropriation of faith, the Amish take an approach that, though not entirely unemotional, is highly rational and irreducibly communal. The Amish understand themselves to be mutually accountable for matters of faith and practice. For them baptism is not only an event testifying to the relationship of the individual to God, but just as prominently it marks a change in the relationship of the baptismal candidate to the church community.16 In fact it is difficult to say that Amish theology could speak at all of a relationship with God without the community of the church.
An important aspect of the coherence of the Amish approach can be observed by attending to the dynamics of the period of young adulthood that some communities call rumspringe, or a time of “running around.” This important exception to the generally highly disciplined and communal character of Amish life constantly catches the attention of outsiders. Non-Amish find this apparent anomaly particularly intriguing since its occasional manifestation as “worldly living” contrasts so clearly to the subdued reputation of Amish adults. One example is the fact that most Amish communities forbid the owning and operating of cars by their members on the grounds that these vehicles scatter families and easily become opportunities to display pride and competitiveness. Yet non-Amish neighbors know that some young Amish, usually males, do own and operate cars. Occasionally these Amish-owned vehicles are even equipped with after-market sound systems. On the surface this double standard seems hypocritical. However, what outsiders often fail to realize is that, even though the Amish do encourage their children to consider the possibility of being baptized in the future and seek to raise them in light of the community’s understanding of the gospel, those who are not baptized—even the children of Amish parents—are not required to live according to the discipline or rule of the church. The adolescent freedom of rumspringe endows the act of joining the church with greater meaning. John Hostetler, a prominent scholar of Amish life, tells us that in Amish communities, young people are reminded that it is better not to make a vow, such as baptism, than to go back on one once made. Because of the seriousness of this event it is often delayed until early adulthood, near the time when Amish young people commonly get married.17
Amish children are taught how to live according to the gospel and are nurtured in a spirituality that stresses the virtues of forgiveness and humility. The direct preparation for baptism, though, is a discrete sequence that usually takes six to eight weeks. Particularly important for young men to consider at this point is the assumption that in choosing to become a baptized member of the community they publicly state their willingness to serve as the community’s minister, should they be asked.18 A contemporary Amish-oriented publication illustrates the larger point well. It has the rather flat title, 1001 Questions and Answers on the Christian Life, and is an Amish reworking of an older question-and-answer-ordered Mennonite text. The following two questions are most relevant:
Q: Should there be an age limit in the baptism of children?
The New Testament gives none, but it does teach us the seriousness of baptism and of becoming a member of the Bride of Christ, His Church (Eph 5:27; Matt 18:15–18; 1 Cor 12:12–27). This decision to serve God is the most important event in one’s life. It is not for children but only for those who have reached the age of understanding and maturity. The new birth comes to a thinking, surrendered believer, not to an immature child who is easily influenced and hardly able to comprehend the gravity of the matter.
Q: How then can we know if a person is old enough for baptism?
We believe a person is old enough when he is mature enough (1) to recognize he is lost without a Savior, (2) to understand the conditions of salvation, (3) to renounce the world and its sins and his own flesh and blood, (4) to accept the blood of Jesus as the atonement for his sins, and (5) to solemnly promise before God to help labor and counsel in the church, and to not depart from the faith, whether it means life or death. According to article twenty-one of the Thirty-Three Articles of Faith, Christian baptism can “be given to none but those who are regenerated by faith, dead to sin, desire the same, rise from the death of sin, and walk in newness of life, observing whatsoever Christ has commanded them.”19
Baptism, in the Amish view, implies saying “Yes” to Christ and “No” to the world. It commits one to the community of faith and grants access to the resources of grace that lie within it. It makes individual pride and desires secondary to the discernment of the community.
Amish baptismal services communicate even more of the community’s understanding of the centrality of baptism to the life of the Christian.