It Takes a Church to Baptize

This books has been on my reading list for a long time because of the author. Not only have I been a fan of Scot McKnight's books, but I found him to be a uniquely apt author to write on this topic as McKnight was raised Anabaptist only later finding his way into the Anglican church.

While I initially dove into this book for McKnight's perspective on infant baptism, I quickly found that this was really a secondary issue (to be sure, it does get a full two chapters dedicated to it) to McKnight's main point: baptism is a community affair. McKnight emphasizes the ideas that we are baptized into a Covenant community (not merely an individualistic statement) and that this is a work of God in us (not a work of ourselves). He frames his argument by taking the reader through the Anglican liturgy on Baptism, because in Anglicanism belief is expressed through worship (it even has a Latin phrase: lex orandi, lex credendi).

Regardless of whether I am convinced of infant Baptism (McKnight does make a decent argument that I'll have to chew on in addition to other arguments I've read since then), “It take a church to Baptize” has helped me gain a deeper appreciation of Baptism and its meaning.

Recommended for anyone interested in deepening their understanding of Baptism or learning a little bit about the Anglican faith.