Reflecting on the synthesis of Church and State in the Medieval West—in its Catholic and various Protestant flavors—scholar and pastor Peter Leithart writes that “we are all (or virtually all) Anabaptist now.”  By that, I take Leithart to be saying that the Anabaptists and their spiritual descendants unleashed societal forces that wedged Church and State apart at the baptismal seams.  It used to be that citizenship and church membership were tied at baptism.  To fail to baptize an infant was an act of sedition, and the 16th century Anabaptists paid dearly for their defiance.

But now in the West, and particularly in the United States, to be a Christian is one thing and to be a citizen is another, and that’s that—regardless of the age of the baptizand.  As a recent article in the New York Times put it, Christian faith lived in our culture is something “voluntary, improvised, provisional.” The Anabaptists won.

Or did they?  

Like all movements, 16th century Anabaptism quickly transitioned into a second generation phenomenon.  Then as now, people come to faith within families and faith communities, making their decision to follow Jesus gradually from within a matrix of parental influence and social norms and benevolent peer-pressure.  Even for Anabaptists, the decision to follow Jesus represents a step of continuity with those who came before us. 

Continuity with and influence of the community of faith leads to what some have derisively referred to as “postponing infant baptism by a few years.”  We long for some pure decision, more epiphany than progression, possibly snapped to under the golden lights of the tent meeting on our own personal Damascus Road.  But five-hundred years on, we’re all paedobaptists now.

The radical quietness of most Christians’ journeys means Believers can sometimes fear for the authenticity of their faith, regardless of age of baptism.  Did I really make the decision to follow Jesus for myself, or was I just going with the flow?  Some scrupulous folks will even concoct a crisis in hindsight—anything to have an actual conversion story that shows we made our decision for Christ freely and fully.

What’s more, seeking to disentangle the faith of the community from the faith of the individual can lead to confusion around whether unbaptized children should receive communion.  Naturally enough, children of church-going families understand themselves to be part of the community of faith that they were born into.  They pray the prayers and sing the songs and want to follow Jesus.  From a tender age they demonstrate faith—though one not yet fully actualized.  In most Anabaptist circles, these hungry little ones have not been baptized, which leads to a conundrum: should they commune?  If baptism is the doorway into the church, and the Lord’s table is the church’s sustaining food, then what’s the place of unbaptized children? (See the order in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4: baptized then ate).

The reality is that the challenge of age of baptism lies in the character of the gospel.  The gospel is both a fresh, individual encounter with Jesus Christ as well as a truth that is handed on by the community of faith (Acts 2:38-39; Luke 1:1-4; 1 Corinthians 15:1-10).

This is why from the beginning, the Apostles baptized households—those Graeco-Roman family-plus units whose identity and faith came in the collective rather than the individual (see Acts 16:30-33 and 1 Corinthians 1:16).  In this way, the church recognized that the decision to faith in Christ begins in and leads into the community of faith.  

The presenting issues of the Reformation have thoroughly shifted.  In this age in which we’ve all become both Anabaptists and paedobaptists, might there be more common ground on baptism than we might have imagined?  Might even the shared Anabaptist and paedobaptist emphasis on entering the community of faith in baptism lead to a deeper recognition of our vast common ground?  

We aren’t as far apart on baptism as we once were.  Maybe Christ is leading us to grow closer.