I am reading Rowan Williams book entitled Being Christian. It is published by SPCK. Archbishop Rowan explores Baptism, Bible, Eucharist and Prayer.

I am only 6 pages into the section on baptism. However, these words strike me as deeply significant for my pastoral dilemma of keeping a consistently open policy

So it seems that, from the very beginning, baptism as a ritual for joining the Christian community was associated with the idea of going down into the darkness of Jesus’ suffering and death, being ‘swamped’ by the reality of what Jesus endured. St Paul speaks of being baptized ‘into’ the death of Christ (Romans 6:3). We are, so to speak, ‘dropped’ into that mysterious event which Christians commemorate on Good Friday, and, more regularly, in the break of bread at Holy Communion (1-2).

It is clear to me that this is probably not what the average parent who comes to my surgery to make a booking thinks they are doing. Nor, am I persuaded, that they believe it to be the case following my sometimes erudite baptismal preparation 🙂

The question then is: where does that leave us? If baptism means one thing and people something different: should we not sometimes have the courage to offer that which is different, rather than perhaps emptying baptism of what the church universal has mostly considered it to mean?