Baptism: A Users Guide (Exploring Christian Faith)

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What difference does baptism make in our daily life?. He is the winner of the National Book Award and the author of more than fifty books. Although churches may and do disagree about whether infants should or shouldn't be baptized, about whether baptism should be by "immersion" or "pouring," and about other doctrinal details-all would agree that baptism mattered to early Christians and still matters.

And yet for all too many, baptism remains a ritual hardly understood, and one that seems to lack relevance for the lives we lead from day to day.

Methodist Church

Here is a book that delves into the mystery, brings understanding, and connects the "water and Word" of baptism to the tragedies and triumphs of daily life. With good humor, sound scholarship, and down-to-earth common sense, Martin Marty demonstrates how baptism can be "used" from day to day in a vibrant life of faith.

Read Fortress Press's interview with Martin Marty, only on fortressforum. To see baptism as merely a ceremonygreatly limits the meanings ofChristian baptism, says Martin Marty,in this practical and inspirationalnew look at baptism. Martin Lutherrecommended that believers shouldbegin and end their day remindingthemselves of their baptism andthen go to work joyfully or to sleepcheerfully.

Baptism, says Marty, is at the heart ofthe everyday, life-long spiritual journeyas he explores such questions as: How did early Christiansunderstand and practicebaptism?

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What difference does baptismmake in our daily life? How does baptism manifestitself in our relationships, ourchoices, our faith?

With great insight and wisdom, authorMartin E. Marty brings us both thehistory of baptism and a useful guideto its application for everyday life. Thebook includes questions for reflectionand discussion. To see baptism as merely a ceremony greatly limits the meanings of Christian baptism, says Martin Marty, in this practical and inspirational new look at baptism.

Martin Luther recommended that believers should begin and end their day reminding themselves of their baptism and then go to work joyfully or to sleep cheerfully.

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He takes a historical and a scriptural approach, and surveys both the Gospels and a bunch of epistles. He doesn't give much credit to unbelief, or nonbelief, and he never discusses the meaning or consequence of loss of belief, or even the challenge, danger or reward of doubt for the baptized Christian. Close to the end of the book, he urges the newly baptized, as well as the mature Christian, to go out and share their faith.

Now, as an atheist-by-birth who got heavily evangelized through adolescence, I will say that I've heard few arguments for faith that made sense to me and almost none that didn't make me feel, well, a bit more hostile than the well-intentioned evangelist deserved. All that holier-than-thou stuff probably wasn't intentional, after all Equally as important, and far more damaging, is his disdain for religions other than Christianity.

In over-emphasizing the Great Commission to "go and make disciples of all nations" , he flat-out says that most of humanity--everyone who is not Christian--is unaware of their sins and unsure of what to do about them.

Jews, Muslims unaware of their sins? My mother the atheist, unaware?

Marty repeats and repeats that baptism is not "magical;" it confers an experience of "grace," and magic would be "unacceptable. Okay, we're not into witchcraft, but then what is "grace?

What does the brain go through? What does the individual see, smell, hear, taste, feel, sense internally when undergoing this grace? And if this grace is an "experience" conferred by God through this ritual, then is this ritual not, in some sense, magical? And if the ritual works--if the grace occurs, if this magical experience happens--then baptism, like any effective religious ritual, is indeed dangerous, as Marty says. But it is experience, not theology, that makes it effective--which in the end is Marty's point, although I think his experience and mine are different.

A pithy little pamphlet on the meaning and practice of the sacrament of Holy Baptism. Marty is an scholar of Christian history and so interacts with the Tradition. But this isn't a word to scholars, but to church people about what Baptism is. Apr 05, Farmgirl rated it it was amazing.

An eloquent treatise on the Lutheran concept of baptism. I wish that I had read it years ago. It gave me a new appreciation for my baptism and my responsibilities as a baptismal sponsor.

Greg rated it it was amazing Oct 02, Aaron rated it really liked it Jan 12, Daniel Ford rated it it was amazing Jan 22, Guy rated it liked it Feb 07, Judy rated it really liked it Sep 13, Stephen Frantz rated it really liked it Jun 05, Scott Pfitzinger added it Jun 24, Tom added it Dec 27, Tom Inch added it Oct 25, Adam Ross marked it as to-read Jan 01, Erik Christensen is currently reading it Feb 11, The Div School added it Mar 17, Karla Seyb-stockton marked it as to-read May 12, Jin Ula marked it as to-read Oct 15, Bill added it Jan 01, Dan marked it as to-read Mar 31, Andrew Nedelchev marked it as to-read Apr 05, Lexie Cupples marked it as to-read Apr 09, Ivy marked it as to-read Aug 09, Bri added it Jul 01, Tom marked it as to-read Sep 24,

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