Apocalypse (3)1 “The Second Coming”

It’s somewhat misleading to speak of a “Second Coming” of Christ, of Christ “returning” or “coming again”. Such expressions go back to words of the two angels who appear when the disciples have seen Christ going into heaven, when he was “being lifted up”, a cloud taking him out of their sight. At this ascension, the angels become visible to them, standing by them and asking why they are standing there looking into heaven. “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

“He will come in the same way as you saw him going into heaven.” You saw him going from you – you will see him coming to you. In essence, this Ascension experience has to do with their “seeing”, their ability to perceive; it doesn’t say anything about Christ departing and returning. Their eyes can’t follow him anymore now that he is carried up into heaven because “a distance” has grown between them, as Luke puts it in his gospel (Lk 24:51).2 Once more, it will be a question of human perception when “a cloud will bring him into your sight” – as we might paraphrase and conclude what these angels say. He has not really gone away – he has been “seen to go”, and in the same way he will be “seen to come”. It’s a question of perception, of awareness even.

In the Gospels, in the words of Christ himself, in times of earthly and also of cosmic disturbances, there will “appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven”, and people on earth “will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven” (in Matthew’s version, 24:30). In this way, Christ answers a question about his parousia, which is Greek for his “presence”, his “arrival”, his “coming”, and about the close of the age (24:3). – Would it be possible that Christ speaks about the “coming of the Son of man” when he speaks about the way he himself will once more enter human perception, human awareness, as anyhow he is “with you always, to the close of the age” (28:20)? As “lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west”, as “were the days of Noah” when “the flood came and swept them all away”, so will be this presence, the awareness of the presence of the Son of man (24:27 and 37-39) by human beings able to see him.

The “Son of Man” in his coming: are these indeed the words Christ uses when He wants to signal that human beings are starting to become aware of His cosmic presence – of Him who had become the “God of man” through death and resurrection? For many of the apostles, his contemporaries, this coming was almost at hand, was “coming” soon”, in the near future; in line with the general apocalyptic mood of the century. Yes, soon indeed he will be with us again! – that’s what they felt.

This urgency was for instance felt by Paul when he invoked an encompassing apocalyptic picture: “We who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord will himself descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (I Thess 4:15-17). Or by James, who uses an amazing picture of preparation: “Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receives the early and the late rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (5:7-8). “Establishing your hearts”: this would mean preparing your hearts by “strengthening”, by “buttressing”. The Greek word, for instance, is used about the way the abyss is there between the living and the dead, in the story of the rich man and poor Lazarus (Luke 16:26), or of the way Christ “set” his face to go steadfastly to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51). – Let your hearts receive both the early and the late rain!

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Apocalypse (4)1 Apocalyptic Times

The word “apocalyptic” is often used rather loosely, when we speak about catastrophic or overwhelming events which might remind us of things described in the last book of the Bible. In fact, hardly anything which happens to us today has this apocalyptic signature – what (forcefully) disrupts our more or less placid life is hardly “apocalyptic”, even if nowadays we use the word for such events. When we look more precisely, we must acknowledge that only what happens when the heavens begin to make their presence felt can be called “apocalyptic”, that is: when our own human world and our world of earth is being shaken up by as yet unknown, “revealing” forces.

This is what the “Apocalypse to John” is about, when after an introduction and a first vision it describes a series of events triggered off by the opening of seven seals, by the sounding of seven trumpets and the pouring out of seven bowls of wrath. We have already looked at this apocalyptic process by focusing on the Writer, on the Book and on the so-called “Second Coming”. Let’s here look at what we can find out about the process itself.

An important moment in the course of the unfolding apocalypse has come when the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before God, at the beginning of the Third Throne Vision, when the 7th Trumpet has sounded, state that He “has begun to reign” (11:17). Now, the forces of adversary in earnest show themselves in battles of various kinds: the heavenly dragon and the beast rising out of the sea as well as the beast rising out of the land. Another such moment comes when, after the pouring out of the seven bowls and the sacking of Babylon, at the beginning of the Sixth Throne Vision, the voice of a great multitude resumes with another Hallelujah, crying that “The Lord our God the Almighty reigns” (19:6). Now the die is really cast, and the White Rider and his armies begin to mop up the forces of evil, who with Death and Hades eventually all end up in the “lake of fire that burns with sulphur” (19:20, 20:2, 10 and 14).

Decisive moments of the apocalyptic process happen when the Godhead takes steps to overcome the forces of evil, of adversary, which have taken over parts of the world. What goes before, through seals and early trumpets, is all in preparation of such final apocalyptic confrontations.

We can look at one of Rudolf Steiner’s “Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts”2 for help, to understand more about the stages of overcoming cosmic adversaries. In the aphorism numbered 112 in this series, he states that the Divine Spiritual in cosmos manifests itself in the following stages:

1. By way of its innate, very own, Being;

2. By way of the Revelation of its Being;

3. By way of Activity, when the Being has drawn back from revealing;

4. By its manifestations itself, when the Divine is not anymore present in the “universe of manifestations”, but only in its forms.

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For the Advancement of the World 1: Michael’s Call1

Our title has been taken from what even in The Christian Community we call “The Creed”, although we don’t use this specific word to introduce contents in which we would “believe” in the old-fashioned sense, the word “credo” (“I believe”) lacking at the very beginning. What we find in this modern version of the Christian “Creed” outlines in nine sentences, as simple matters of fact, our human spiritual and physical setting in the world. After the crucial middle sentence which describes the Resurrection, there follows the description of Christ’s activity in the world, ongoing since His resurrection, as “the Lord of the heavenly forces upon earth”, now that He “lives as the fulfiller of the fatherly deeds of the ground of the world”. The following sentence says that, “for the advancement of the world”, in time He will unite “with those whom, through their bearing, He can wrest from the death of matter”. Here we find the background for this Michaelmas talk.

In these words the future connection of Christ with human beings is being described. Such human beings for whom Christ has become an inner reality will, according to the beginning of the last sentence of the Creed, by virtue of their own present connection with Christ be able to do their part in preparing this future connection. This will happen in the setting of the one church “to which all belong who are aware of the health-bringing power of the Christ”. It’s this church in which communities may feel united whose members ”feel the Christ within themselves”. This inner connection with Christ constituting communities will be an expression of His “health-bringing power”, and eventually will help to overcome the death within our material world. To this end, these human beings will be able to overcome “the sickness of sin” which defines their physical being; they will receive (we might even say “achieve”, as their own activity plays a part herein) the “continuance” of their human being as well as “the preservation of their life, destined for eternity”.

Between those sentences in the Creed, speaking of Christ’s future connection with human beings, as well as of the future connection of human beings with Christ, we find a sentence which puts to rest a millennium-old problem in the church. This is the question whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father only (as the Eastern Churches say) or from Father and Son both (with the “and of the Son”, the “filioque” of the Western Churches). The modern Creed here modifies its earlier use of “holy Spirit” when speaking of the birth of Jesus, and now speaks of the healing Spirit – the healing Spirit which is working through Christ.

This means that, when thinking about the “advancement of the world”, we must think of human beings “wrested from the death of matter” by the Christ who himself rose from the dead. It’s through Him, the Lord of the heavenly forces on earth, the “healing Spirit” can work. Human beings, aware of the health-bringing power of Christ, united in one church, will also be able to hope for and work towards the renewal of their whole being.

During the last festival of the Christian year, the festival of Michael, what is expressed in these central statements of the Creed comes together. Now Michael, the Archangel, calls on us to become ever more conscious of this life bringing, life sustaining deed of Christ: that more and more we make it of our life – divining it in a higher way. Responding to his call, we human beings turn to him with our heart, in order that the healing Spirit may work in us.

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Apocalypse (5) Human Evolution in the Apocalypse of John1

“We shall now survey the Apocalypse in an endeavor to see what it has to say concerning mankind’s Christian progress” (writes Rudolf Frieling). “This continually changes the scene of its realization between earth and heaven. Christianity – on the one side embodied on earth, on the other existing in heaven – increasingly develops into an important factor working in the eschatological drama. At the end, upper and lower world penetrate each other. A ‘new earth’, made new by what has come from above, joins a ‘new heaven’, which itself has been rejuvenated by what happened through Christ on earth. Out of this merging of the two there comes the New Jerusalem, which is both ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’. The Christ-Mystery, unifying heaven and earth, has become powerful within a Christendom now ripe for it. John’s Apocalypse shows in the sequence of its visions this process of ripening.” (p 90-91) Frieling adds that “from that survey we shall return once more to reincarnation” – the subject of the book of which “Human Evolution in the Apocalypse of John” is the last chapter.

Here, giving a short impression of this chapter, I will also [in square brackets] refer to the “Structure” of the Revelation to John” by Christoph Rau, which has been added to the second contribution in this series. This overview, far from able to recreate the depth and profound scholarship of Rudolf Frieling in his essay, is here made in the hope that you will, somehow, later, acquire his original text.

The image of the throne in the last of the Seven Letters (3:21) opens the great vision of Chapters 4 and 5, in the midst of which stands the divine throne. [First Throne Vision] John is drawn into the upper world by the voice speaking to him: “Come up hither” (4:1). Here, the Lamb of sacrifice brings his own deed before the Father’s throne. This is echoed in the “New Song” which is added to the “Sanctus” of the four cherubim “living creatures” of the innermost circle, in which the twenty-four elders join. This contains an ingredient coming from human beings on earth, in whose midst the sacrifice of the Lamb took place: “the prayers of the saints” (5:8); that is, of Christians living on earth. Even when these can’t join the song directly, impulses from their souls are received in the heavens, becoming visible as the smoke of incense, rising up from the golden bowls of the elders together with the New Song.

After the opening of the seals has begun, Christians who have gone through martyrdom on earth now themselves appear in the upper world, seen under the heavenly altar (6:9). “Souls” as they are (“psychai” in Greek), in their disembodied, conscious state after death they are not satisfied with their new form of existence, having not yet fully grasped the redeeming consequences of Christ’s death. The “not yet” implicit in the answer they receive, “to rest a little longer”, shows that there will be a further development of their existence after death as a result of their martyrdom. They “were each given a white robe” (6:11), that they may become more active and responsible citizens of the higher world.

When in the pause between the sixth and the seventh seal the 144,000 are sealed, we are again looking at the earthly scene. The figure, “heard” in the spirit (7:4) is of course not an “arithmetical” figure but, with its 12 times 12 (thousand), in a divine order showing the sum total of all the nuances possible of “being human”. Standing in the catastrophic and apocalyptic storms which began with the opening of the seals, in a moment of profound divine calm they are sealed on their foreheads by an angel ascending from the rising of the sun. This sealing marks a stage of development towards the resurrection body, to which Christ refers when he speaks about the food the Son of Man will give, food “which remains as life throughout the ages”, because he himself is the one sealed by the Father God (Jn 6:27).2 On those devoted to Christ, the sealing begins to work as a preparation for the resurrection of the Last Day.

The next vision [beginning the Second Throne Vision] shows Christians in the other world as “a great multitude which no man could number” (7:9) – “after this”. Here, the Greek plural for “this” indicates that a greater interval of time may in the meantime have happened, the time of “the great tribulation” out of which these Christians have come (7:14). It’s a great change from the first vision of the dead souls under the heavenly altar; now the dead are privileged to become active in the upper world in the way described to John by one of the elders (7:15-17), singing the great hymn, “Salvation to our God … and to the Lamb” (7:10). Now that the deliverance brought by Christ has arrived on the earth, has really “come” to human beings, it begins to radiate from truly Christian souls as thanks, returning “to” God in the higher world. When the Lamb “guides them” on their paths, their inner reconciliation with the terrible things they endured on earth can come about (7:17).

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First Passiontide Sunday, 2007

March 11, 2007

Last week, with its many clear nights, those of us who were up early could experience an amazingly seamless transition: the light of the moon, which day by day became smaller and smaller, fading away in the growing light of the sun.

In this way, just before the beginning of Passiontide, four weeks before Easter, we were reminded of the cosmic Easter drama: how, after the equinox, once the sun has become stronger, the light of the waning moon will be transcended by the glory of Easter Sun-Day.

But what there happened, those early mornings, actually spells out for us that the drama of Passiontide has yet to begin – a struggle, which doesn’t play out in such a flamboyant way as the transition from Carnival, from Mardi Gras to Ash Wednesday, with which the old church shocked its people into their Easter preparations of fasting and penitence.

What we face, from the beginning of Passiontide onwards, is dramatic none-the-less, in a rather personal way; and it’s a struggle, too.

O Man, speak the Passiontide prayers, as well as those of Holy Week –

O, you Human Being here on earth: Come to terms with your own situation, your inner situation, your tragic loss of spirit – as well as with your situation here on earth, with the grave waiting at the end of your life.

Come to terms with all that, and (we have to add) come to terms with the spirits of deceiving false light, of sensual unworthy craving – with their impact on yourself and your earthly situation.

Learn to turn to the Spirit, which in this your life on earth, unites you with the encompassing cosmic realities. Then you will know the real drama of Passiontide, will inwardly experience what needs to be done – before the Sun of Easter can rise, for you as well.

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A Peek Inside the Beehive; An Update From the Future Initiatives Group

Peek Inside the BeehiveThe Future Initiatives Group has been a beehive of activity throughout 2010. The current members, Ann Elizabeth Barnes, Fiona Gold, Cindy Hindes, Carol Kelly, Patrick Kennedy, and Oliver Steinrueck, were joined by two new members, Anna Claire Novotny (Spring Valley) and Eileen King (Washington DC), who has agreed to join us at our next meeting. The group has been meeting twice a year, most recently in Los Angeles, CA and Spring Valley, NY, and has had numerous teleconferences during the year. And like bees in the winter that exchange sing song, much discussion was had, and like bees in the summer, scouts have been flying all over North America searching for nectar. Funny how searching for future directions brings you smack, kerplop into the present. Here is a summary of projects to date. If you have extra energy, ideas and enthusiasm sparked by any of these projects, please get in touch with anyone on the Future Initiatives Group. Read more

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The Eucharist

First published as The Metamorphosis of the Eucharist by The Christian Community in New York in about 1954. This edition, revised by James H. Hindes, published by Floris Books in 1995. All rights reserved. NOTE: This is the complete pamphlet.

Contents
1. Introduction
2. The New Testament
3. Early Christian services
4. Archetypal structure
5. Pre-Christian mysteries and the Eastern Church
6. The western Mass and action
7. The Reformation
8. The Act of Consecration of Man
9. Gospel and Offertory
10. The Transubstantiation
11. The Communion

1. Introduction

On the eve of the event of Golgotha, on Maundy Thursday, Christ Jesus celebrated the Last Supper together with his disciples. He gave bread and wine and with them his ‘body’ and ‘blood,’ and charged them when repeating this to do it in remembrance of him. Out of this Last Supper has been developed the Eucharist, the ritual of the Mass. It is now celebrated by The Christian Community, Movement for Religious Renewal, in its new form, still containing the four main parts: reading of the Gospel, Offering, Transubstantiation and Communion.

The question sometimes arises: does this elaborated ritual really have any foundations in original Christianity? Is it based on the New Testament? The Protestant Church tried to keep close to the letter of the New Testament, and rejected everything which in the further course of Christendom seemed to have been added to the text of New Testament scripture.

There is no doubt that the New Testament is the basic, classical book of Christianity. Through the modern science of Anthroposophy, which is a science of spiritual knowledge, a new possibility is given to acknowledge the ‘inspired’ character of the New Testament writings. It is one of the tasks of The Christian Community to cultivate a new concrete understanding of the scriptures as documents of real inspiration. But we must not forget that for the first generations of Christendom the New Testament did not yet exist. The Epistles of St Paul were apparently written beginning about AD 50, the first three Gospels not before AD 60-70 and St John’s Gospel not until AD 100. It was not before the end of the second century that these writings were combined into a New Testament. The canon of the New Testament was not definitely fixed until AD 393 by the Church synod at Hippo Regius in North Africa. In this process of bringing together these twenty-seven writings, which constitute the wonderful spiritual organism of the New Testament, we venerate an act of divine guidance and providence, an act of inspiration. Nevertheless the first Christian generations had to do without these writings. Instead of this they had the apostolic nearness of the Christ event, and they had the Eucharist. The Christian Church lived for a certain time without a New Testament, but it never lived without the Eucharist from the very beginning.

The Eucharist is first mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, after the experience of the Holy Spirit at Whitsun: ‘… they broke bread in the houses with spiritual rejoicing’ (Acts 2:46). This is the first Eucharist after Holy Thursday and a first metamorphosis can be seen. The Last Supper was celebrated in a mood of leave-taking which was overshadowed by the events to come. After Whitsun a jubilant mood was experienced. The Greek word, agalliasis, means more than ‘joy’; it is a kind of spiritual enthusiasm and exaltation. The Last Supper had been a farewell meeting. After Pentecost it was like a first dawn of his second spiritual coming.
From the beginning the Eucharist was never a mere repetition of the Last Supper. The latter is like a seed which now begins growing. One cannot argue against the growing plant that it is different from the seed. There is identity, but there is also metamorphosis.

The Last Supper, on the eve of Good Friday, is a kind of anticipation, a prophetic summary of the event of Golgotha. It reveals what Christ and his deed mean to man: that Christianity is not only ‘doctrine’ and ‘ethics,’ that Christ is not only a teacher and an example, but that he descended to earth as a divine being and transformed his divinity into humanity by going through death and resurrection. He transformed the ‘wave-length’ of his divinity into that of humanity and thus became accessible and ‘communicable.’ Now we are to ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ him spiritually in order to be more and more penetrated by his heavenly substance. The essence of Christianity can be seen in Christ offering himself to his followers: ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ me, take me into your whole being.

That which is demonstrated in anticipation in the Last Supper received its fulfilment through Golgotha, through death and resurrection. After this fulfilment the Eucharist is no longer the anticipation but now conveys the substantial radiation and emanation of this great deed.

During the forty days to Ascension and in the ten days from Ascension to Whitsun we do not yet hear about the disciples celebrating the Eucharist. But immediately after Whitsun they begin. At Ascension Christ grew into a new form of existence, definitely outgrowing his former Jesus-existence which limited him to a certain spot in the spatial world. In his Ascension, he weaves his original divinity together with his humanity which he took through his earthly life and death. Thus his resurrection body reaches its full capacity to be omnipresent. At Whitsun, in an act of spiritual awakening, the disciples threw off a certain spell of dullness and dream under which they had lived through the preceding weeks. It is a remarkable fact that the manifestations of the risen Christ after Easter were not yet able to induce the disciples to preach this message to people beyond their own intimate circle. With Pentecost they proved to be strong enough to do so. As Christ had overcome the last limitations and restrictions of his existence at Ascension, so the disciples overcame their limitations of consciousness and will power at Whitsun. Thus they started celebrating the Eucharist by ‘breaking bread in the houses.’ Christ’s prophetical saying, that he would celebrate his meal ‘anew in his father’s kingdom’ (with which he united himself at Ascension) begins to fulfil itself.

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The Essence of Christianity

Chapters:
1. The Riddle of Man’s Being
2. The Creation of Man
3. The Loss of Paradise
4. A Godless World
5. When the Time Had Fully Come
6. The Son of God and the Son of Man
7. The Mystery of the Powerless God
8. The Healing Power of the Christ
9. Christendom
10. History and Mysticism
11. Apocalyptic Prospect

Chapter 1: The Riddle of Man’s Being

The nature of Christianity is inseparable from the question of man’s own nature. Modern awareness feels this question weighing ever more heavily: ‘What is man all about?’ Human existence is no longer seen as clear-cut and obvious but is called into question. It has actually become questionable. Is there any meaning at all in being ‘human’?

How often do we see the miraculous promise of early childhood collapse and perish in the empty routine of the adult world -a promise unfulfilled, unredeemed. Moreover, we can observe how the power of human thought resulted in the awful realities of poison gas and the atom bomb, while undirected emotional power wanders into greed and hatred. We witness daily the tragedies resulting from our inability to live together in peace at every level: peoples, races, classes, neighbours, families, marriages, and even, ultimately, the individual’s struggle in living with himself. Indeed, all of us have experienced that sudden sigh within – perhaps on a walk in the country – which announces the thought: ‘How beautiful the world would be without people!’ Yet, put differently, this amounts to saying: ‘How beautiful the world would be without its crowning creation!’ This paradoxical statement brings us face to face with the whole troublesome riddle of man’s existence. What kind of peculiar creature is it who, on the one hand, is such a miracle of divine creation, and yet can be more malevolent and horrible than the wildest beast? Is there not obviously something wrong with man?

How are we to make sense of all these contradictions?

It is our very labouring with this burdensome riddle which offers us the maturity to recognize and accept Christianity. As modern men we are able to look at Christianity afresh and with the best intellectual conscience. That we are able to do so, and to see in it the great, decisive concern of humanity, we owe to anthroposophy (wisdom of man), the body of knowledge made available by Rudolf Steiner.

Although Christianity entered the pages of history only at a specific historical moment, it must be seen in a broad human context. Thus from its inception, Christianity included in its view of the world the wisdom of past ages as preserved in the Old Testament. Let us first direct our attention to this prehistory of Christianity.

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Baptism in The Christian Community

Translated by Eva Heirman. First published in 1982 in Dutch under the title Noem mij bij mijn diepste noam. Doop en geboorte in de Christen gemeenschap by Uitgeverij Christofoor, Zeist. in 1982. First published in English by Floris Books in 1985. © Andreas Stichting, Den Haag 1982. This translation © Floris Books. Edinburgh, 1985.

NOTE: This is abridged from the original.

Contents

1. Why Baptism? Baptizing small children. Preparations

2. Godparents and their task. Looking for godparents

4. The form of the service and the substances used

5. The Christian Community. Church and membership

6. The influence of Baptism in everyday life

1. Why Baptism? Baptizing small children. Preparations

Baptism has always held an important place in Christian religious life. Many people, even those who rarely go to church or have lost their faith, still wish to have their children baptized. But tradition does not necessarily justify the continued existence of this sacrament in a modern conception of Christianity. Insights into the process of incarnation, birth and baptism, or observations and experiences concerning the effect and meaning of the sacraments in a Christian community, can lead to a conscious decision to have a child baptized.

Here we arrive at an important question: May we make decisions for a child that is not yet capable of his own decision-making? Obviously, he cannot understand what is entailed. Should we not go back to adult baptism? To find the answers we have to look more closely at the source and development of Christian baptism.

The Gospel describes how John the Baptist baptized in the River Jordan those people who came to him of their own free will. The event was so moving that those involved confessed their sins and experienced a complete inner change. This was possible because it was not a shallow symbolic act but an act of initiation whereby man is brought into connection with his divine, heavenly origin. John brought people to the brink of death through drowning, so that the spirit in man freed itself from the physical body and the inner eye opened to the spiritual world. That is why the Gospel speaks of a ‘turning’ (Greek metanoja) rather than ‘conversion’ as it is so often translated. It was a dramatic experience, and that must be one of the reasons it was a sacrament for adults.

The object of the baptism as John the Baptist performed it, was twofold: the cleansing (katharismos) and enlightening (Photismos) of the recipient. These two elements are very noticeable in the way the Christian baptism was originally carried out. Through baptism the soul was purified. As Paul expressed it: ‘but you were washed’ (lCor.6:1l). The vision of a higher world was experienced as an ‘enlightening’. In Roman Catholic circles it is still the custom to give a baptized baby a white cloth and a candle as christening gifts; in this way both elements are expressed.

Only adults were baptized during the first few centuries of the Christian world. We can assume that the danger involved in infant baptism by submersion became too great and that therefore, by about 350 AD, an infant baptismal ritual was introduced. With this, naturally, the whole character of baptism changed, but this was not carried through to completion in the Churches where it is still essentially an adult undertaking carried out on infants. Infant baptism retained both the confession of sins and the joining of the church. This cannot be demanded of a child, let alone a baby. Still, questions were put to the child and answered by the godparents on his behalf. Only when Baptism acts as a spiritually sacramental addition or completion of birth, can we speak of a true ‘child baptism’ as in The Christian Community. Subsequently, the main reason for an adult form of baptism falls away as this is not essential to commit oneself to a community. Who then would wish to deny a child this gift when he can freely receive it!

Apart from these points we need not place too great an emphasis on the question of making decisions for a young child. We shall have to make countless decisions regarding diet, clothing, and education throughout the child’s life. And we should realize that by not baptizing the child we have also come to a decision. Maybe the unborn or newborn child can influence our decision. It is not unusual for parents to have a definite feeling that their children helped them to decide. It is important to ask oneself ‘Why do I want to have this child baptized?’ even if other children in the family have already been baptized.

The search for godparents should begin before the birth so that they too can prepare themselves for the birth, the baptism, and their specific tasks as godparents. Often, only one consultation between parents, godparents and priest is possible owing to inadequate or late preparation and this is not really enough. The quality of anticipation is greatly enhanced when we increase our awareness of the meaning of baptism and the shared responsibilities it entails. Some people may feel this to be premature, but the experience of others indicates that preparation for baptism before the actual birth is very valuable. For the child it is best to be baptized as soon as convenient, preferably within the first six weeks of life. (In The Christian Community it is unusual to receive this sacrament beyond the fourteenth year.) Ideally, the godparents should also experience the sacramental life of the Community before the Baptism, so that they gain some perception of it and it is in the best interest of the child if they also meet those with whom they will be sharing their responsibility, namely the congregation.

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