Speech for General Synod Debate

The opportunity to share in this particular dialogue between representatives of the Church of England and the Church of Scotland has been one of the more pleasurable and informative tasks which has been given to me in recent years.

A central theme in the Report, (as has already been highlighted), is that of living out our common baptism.  I would like to reflect for a few moments on that theme.  Members of Synod may be interested to know that some of our prior discussion to the work on producing this section of the Report included a discussion of the seminal Anglican - Roman Catholic International Commission’s Report The Church as Communion.  It was noteworthy and, to some of us at any rate, perhaps a little surprising just how well informed our Presbyterian partners were on the Report.  The criticism was made, one now generally accepted, as ecumenical conversations have moved forward, that the ARCIC Report on Communion placed most of its emphasis on eucharistic communion and little on the life of communion that flowed from our common baptism.

Indeed, one of the participants went so far as to refer to the relatively recent decision of our Roman Catholic partners to recognise the authenticity of baptism celebrated within other Christian communities as being ‘potential dynamite’.  The more we pay attention to what it might mean to share a common baptism the more a number of our presently entrenched positions within the life of our churches would come under threat until, perhaps one day the dynamite would explode and reconfigure the whole edifice.  It was interesting in this context to learn more of the Roman Catholic - Reformed Conversations and of the more detailed exploration of baptismal communion explored within them.  We learned, too, of the developing talks between Scottish Roman Catholics and members of the Church of Scotland as they explore the implications of their common baptismal understanding.

Baptism results, as one of our Church of Scotland participants put it in ‘bondedness’.  We share in a common baptism and so are bonded together.  That applies as much to Christian churches and communities as it does to individuals.  We may not like it at times but we are utterly incapable of shaking off each other.  That is because Baptism establishes an unbreakable link between Christians and therefore an unbreakable mutual obligation to each other.  Thus, incidentally, we are not far from the language of covenant and that mutual obligation that  we are seeking to strengthen within our own Communion.  In the theme of Baptism bondedness there might be important messages, too, for our debates on other matters at this Synod.  Interchurch families, of course, cry out for us to press this theology of baptismal bondedness to its very limits.

Meanwhile, given the often painful histories of relationships between our two national churches, however modest a step in reconciliation this present Report might be, in its emphasis on living out our common baptism, there is the potential dynamite that will, in God’s good time, generate the series of explosions that will bring us to ever fuller reconciliation.

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