Contemporary Theologies Of Water Baptism
In this section we find that in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, baptism itself is a saving sacrament. For Eastern Orthodox churches, baptism begins the process of salvation and growth toward participation in the divine nature. In the Western tradition, baptism washes away the guilt of original sin. For Martin Luther also, baptism remained a saving sacrament that carried the power to drive out original sin. Subsequently, all three traditions continued to baptize infants. In the Reformed tradition, infant baptism was also retained. However, baptism does not accomplish salvation. Instead, it is a seal confirming and ratifying the saving promise found in God's Word, setting the infant on a path toward conversion to personal faith and repentance, a path that takes place within God's covenant community, the church. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Anglicans retained the Catholic understanding of baptism as a sacramental washing away of sin although this understandi…
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Chapters & Articles in Contemporary Theologies Of Water Baptism (11)
In the Orthodox churches, baptism is understood principally by means of scriptural language: baptism marks an infan…
This article describes a Roman Catholic theology of baptism by examining the images and actions of the liturgy itse…
Lutheran theology maintains a sacramental view of baptism. It links the effectiveness of baptism not with the water…
For the second generation of Reformed theologians (Heinrich Bullinger [d. 1572], John Calvin [d. 1564], John Knox […
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Anglicans retained the Catholic understanding of baptism as a sacra…
Anabaptists rejected infant baptism because they insisted that the purpose of baptism was personal transformation a…
Arguing from tradition, apostolic practice, and a theology of covenant, John Wesley insisted on infant baptism as t…
Churches of the so-called Restoration Movement are often marked by their theological view of baptism, as well as th…
The evangelical tradition is not monolithic in its understanding of water baptism. Furthermore, the importance that…
Although the various Pentecostal denominations that have flourished since the beginning of the twentieth century em…
Charismatics tend to practice believer's baptism and to maintain the practices of the worship traditions in which t…