Summary

This is a good, easy to read, book on baptism, or more precisely ecclesiology, since baptism is really about who is the Church. Leithart combines exegesis, typology, anthropology, philology, and sociology in a way which affirms a high view of baptism. He approaches this topic in fresh ways which are genuinely helpful. Most books on baptism are fairly standard, and once you’ve read enough of them, you know what to expect. But Leithart brings real, fresh, insights. Some of the chapter titles humorously point to Leithart’s profundity. Chapter 2 – Baptism is Baptism. Chapter 3 – The Body of Christ is The Body of Christ. Chapter 4 – Apostasy Happens. At its essence, Leithart is retrieving the catholic doctrine of baptism. A view which truly recognizes our union with Christ, and therefore resolves many soteriological problems and questions. For anyone wanting to jump into the dreaded Federal Vision discussion, this is a good book for that.

Here’s a sampling.

Sacraments are Not Symbols

Leithart pushes against the classic Augustinian categories of sign and thing signified. While I would still hold to Augustine’s categories, and I think Leithart actually continues to hold them as well, it is well worth listening intently to what Leithart is saying, as it is true.

“For Lady Macbeth and many Christians too, ceremonies and symbols are more or less unnecessary adornments or enhancements of real life. The key assumptions in this view are a) that natural or literal reality is non-symbolic, and c) that ‘real [i.e., non-symbolic] life’ is the foundation on which we set up pretty symbols. These assumptions are false.

Sharp distinction between sauce and meat, between normal/natural and ceremonial, or between ‘literal’ and ‘symbolic’ dissolve on inspection. With regard to language, there is no clear line between literal and symbolic. In an important sense, all language is ‘symbolic’ because it employs visual symbols or sounds that mean something other than themselves. Even if we put that point to the side, it is still evident language exists on a spectrum from less metaphorical to more metaphorical language. There is no clear boundary line.” (p. 19)

If you want to know more about how all language is symbolic, or to put it differently, that there is no such things as a literal interpretation, check out Jonathan Pageau’s videos on these topics. Here’s one.

Faith Described

When anyone in the Federal Vision crowd talks about faith, I’m all ears. It resonates with my own reading of Scripture. It sounds like truth. Leithart is no exception. He talks for several pages about what faith is.

“Faith is, as the Reformers insisted, trust. Faith is also entrustment. It means identifying ourselves with Jesus and His Kingdom against all assaults, criticisms, persecutions, and threats, trusting that God will, sooner or later, vindicate us. Faith expresses itself in a life of loving, worshiping, and following Jesus. Faith is allegiance to the Son, taking His side in the great war that is human history. Faith is keeping faith, being loyal to the troth that is plighted in our marriage to the Son. Faith means believing what God says. Those who have faith respond appropriately to all God says, joining in His joyous song, trembling at His threats, believing that His promises will come to pass, obeying His commands. Faith is a gift of God, and only those who have faith until the end will be saved. Only those who believe, who have faith, who keep faith will be married to the Son in eternity. The Christian life is faith from first to last.” (p. 85)

The Sociology of Infant Baptism

The appendix to this book is fantastic. I believe it has been published in part with the title Do Baptists Talk To Their Babies? For Leithart, the question, “Why baptize infants?” is similar to “Why speak to infants?” Leithart persuasively argues for infant baptism and communion in a fresh way that pairs Scripture with what we might call natural law. He makes a Biblical and sociological case for the rite, with of course, the Baptist position as his foil.

“The coming of a new creation does not dissolve the web of unchosen circumstances into a shapeless mound to be molded by autonomous choice and consent. [Then in the footnote we read:] One of the great challenges to Baptist theology, on that has not, to my my knowledge, been accepted, is to justify theologically the transition from the Old order, where choice was obviously not the be-all and end-all of the religion of Yahweh, to the New order, where choice, on the Baptist view, takes a much more prominent, even crucial, role. What is it about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that justifies this fundamental difference in the shape of religious life? [End footnote.] Contrary to existentialists, the human problem is not that we face unchosen givens; the tragedy of the human situation does not lie in our ‘thrownness.’ [He’s using Heideggerian language here] Adam was thrown into a garden, wholly without his consent, and yet the Lord said that Adam’s situation was ‘very good.’ The problem then is not the reality of unchosen constraints and givens but the nature of those givens the tragedy of the human situation – which is not really tragedy in the classical sense – is that the trajectory of human life in Adam is a trajectory toward the grave.

From the perspective of infant baptism, we can see that what the gospel announces is not absolute choice, but an alternative givenness, equally unchosen. Baptism does not liberate us from society, but from Adamic society, with all its pathologies. Baptism engrafts us into an alternative society that, like the old society, begins to impose its patterns on an infant as soon as he enters it. Life still begins with a trajectory, but this alternative givenness has been reordered and redeemed so that its trajectory is directed (however imperfectly) toward righteousness and life.” (pp. 123-124)

Leithart is pointing out that there are many things in life that we don’t choose. They are given to us without our consent. Our citizenship. Our parents. Our geography. Religion is similar. No one is raise in a religiously neutral environment.

Conclusion

Good book. If you’re working through what to think about baptism, especially paedobaptism, check it out.