Making Christians by Sacraments

Extract

The description ‘making Christians by sacraments’² which has sometimes been employed by leading Baptist circles in Sweden has indeed almost become a catchword, intended to be used against the larger churches and to set the stamp of low worth upon them. Above all it is meant as a rebuke because of the way in which they receive their members. The term is undeniably most fitting and, in more than one respect, significant. The churches have always gone on the presupposition, and with more or less insistence stressed the fact, that their members become Christians by means of a sacrament, i.e. baptism. They are confirmed in the Church's fellowship by means of another, i.e. the Lord's Supper. The churches cannot defend themselves against the accusation that the term ‘making Christians by sacraments’ implies by trying to explain away or lessen the significance of the sacraments nor have they any wish to do so. Such a defence would involve nothing less than a denial of the facts. Without the least embarrassment, however, the churches can defend themselves by maintaining that the practice described as ‘making Christians by sacraments’ is the only one which corresponds to the attitude of Jesus and the Early Church towards the nature of the Christian fellowship and that only where it is practised can the real nature of the Christian Gospel be fully indicated.