Baptism and personhood

Peter J. Leithart, December 21, 2005

In his recently re-released Bioethics: A Primer for Christians, Gilbert Meilaender discusses baptism to formulate a Christian understanding of the person. Baptism, he points out, is a communal act but also individualizing: "the first thing to note about baptism is that it is a deeply individualizing act. Our parents hand us over, often quite literally when sponsors carry us as infants to the font. Deeply bound as we are and always will be to our parents, we do not belong to them. In baptism God sets his hand upon us, calls us by name, and thereby establishes are uniquely individual identity and destiny."

At the same time, baptism engrafts us into the body of Christ, which, since it is one, is a place of burden-sharing: "It is utterly impossible to exist in relation to God apart from such a bond with all the others who have been baptized into Christ's Body. We are called to bear their burdens as they are called to carry ours. SOmetimes we are reluctant to should theirs. At least as often, perhaps, we are reluctant to have them shoulder ours, so eager are we to be masterful and independent."

Baptism thus shapes what we mean by "individual": "we should not suppose that any individual's dignity can be satisfactorily described by the language of autonomy alone - as if we were most fully human when we acted on our own, chose the course of our 'life plan,' or were capable and powerful enough to burden no one."