Let clarify my use of the term sacrament. Some evangelical churches call the Lord\u2019s Supper and baptism ordinances, to suggest they are actions Jesus commands us to participate in, and that they signal our faith in and obedience to Christ. The term sacrament includes these two ideas and another crucial one: that they are means of grace. By \u201cmeans of grace\u201d I\u2019m not proposing any specific theology\u2014whether trans- or consubstantiation, whether real or symbolic presence. But for all believers, Communion and baptism are practices in which one\u2019s faith is deepened and strengthened, and that sort of thing only happens by God\u2019s grace. This is what I mean by \u201cmeans of grace\u201d in this article, and why I will use the word sacrament to talk about them.<\/p>\n
As I said, I believe these sacraments are in a profoundly low state in many areas of evangelical church life.<\/p>\n
Take baptism. Even among churches that believe Matthew 28:19 is the church\u2019s rallying cry\u2014\u201cGo make disciples of all nations, baptizing them \u2026.\u201d\u2014the sacrament is no longer central to their mission. It would be difficult to come by statistics that suggest the problem, but one anecdote suggests it\u2019s a serious one. I belong to an Anglican church in Wheaton, Illinois, which meets not far from Wheaton College. The charismatic singing and Bible-centered preaching attract many Wheaton College students to attend worship and to become members. However, to partake in Communion, as well as to become a member, one must have been baptized. The pastors are continually surprised at the number of Wheaton College students\u2014no doubt some of the most earnest, devout, and intelligent young believers in the evangelical world\u2014who have yet to be baptized. One would have thought that their churches would have attended to this matter long before they left home for college.<\/p>\n
Another sign of the problem is the deep fear some evangelicals have of baptism. I attended an independent church in Dallas, Texas, on a Sunday on which they were having a mass baptism for some 400 people. This speaks well of the effectiveness of their outreach and their desire to obey the commands of their Lord. As part of the service, four or five people came on stage and were interviewed by the pastor to help them give their testimony. At the end of each testimony, the last question the pastor asked each was this: \u201cBut you don\u2019t believe that baptism saves you, right?\u201d It wasn\u2019t just the question, but the leading way in which it was asked time and again that suggested to me that the pastor was deeply afraid of the power of the sacrament. And the fact that he also asked this right before each person was baptized went a long way into ensuring that the sacrament did not become a means by which God broke in and blessed the recipient but became all about the horizontal: an act of the person\u2019s faith.<\/p>\n
The state of the Lord\u2019s Supper is in a worse state.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Christianity Today Whatever Happened to Communion & Baptism? https:\/\/t.co\/bI4WsXIDFx<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/t6ec1BLhug<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/ZZkU3QtWwP<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Religion News (@Religion_News_) July 10, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n