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Living Baptism: Called out of the Ordinary

Author:	Clare Watkins
Published By:	Darton, Longman and Todd (London)
Pages:	147
Price:	£10.95
ISBN:	0 232 52662 1

Reviewed by Chris Skilton.

This is not a book about who should be baptised, when, and with how much water!

Clare Watkins is Vice-Principal of the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology and her writing is rooted in the Catholic tradition and has a high sacramental view of baptism. However her intention here is to write about what it means to live as a baptised person in today’s world and to explore what difference being baptised makes to that living. The first three chapters are a more consciously theological reflection on the meaning of baptism, which for Watkins means essentially to live as a disciple of Christ. For her, the renewal of the church and the hope of the world “are to be born not from ecclesial programmes and projects, but from those places where baptism is being fully lived out in the lives of ‘ordinary’ men and women” (p.24).

I particularly enjoyed chapter 3, which links baptism to vocation and to the coming of the kingdom, in which the life of the baptised is described as “life lived out in the hidden power of God’s future” (p.37).

Chapters 4-8 each relate baptism to a key area of the Christian tradition - in turn, the Trinity, the atonement, the resurrection, the Church and forgiveness/salvation. They follow a common pattern of: a theological exposition; an invitation to follow the theme through Scripture (with some suggested passages to read); reflection on some appropriate signs and symbols from the baptism liturgy; suggestions for prayer; and some practical implications for living the baptised life in the light of this truth. She points out that living as the baptised has implications not only for the individual, but for society and for the way in which the baptised community engages with the wider life of the community.

This approach is to be warmly welcomed as a creative way of showing the importance of baptism to the whole of the Christian faith and life. Ministers will find this a stimulating read as will members of congregations who have a little theological understanding and reading under their belt already. I can see clergy mining this book for baptism and confirmation preparation material. While it may be more immediately accessible to Anglicans and Roman Catholics, those from a Free Church background also would benefit from her approach and methodology - and above all from her desire to restore the importance and meaning of baptism to the heart of the life of the church and the believer. I thoroughly recommend this book.