Baptism, What It Is and Isn’t:  A Progressive Christian Perspective

by Rev. Bret S. Myers, 8/18/2026

 

The Progressive Spirit of the United Church of Christ

 

The United Church of Christ (UCC) is predominantly a progressive Christian denomination that is inclusive in the diversity in which God made us all, focused on Christian behavior rather than creeds, is non-hierarchical and communal in its polity and practices, and is meaning-based, non-literal, and sometimes even mythopoetic, in its understanding of Biblical scriptures. 

 

Baptism has a variety interpretations based on denominational emphases.  The UCC holds baptism as a sacrament for people of all ages and backgrounds, and does not require a person to be baptized in the UCC in order to have that baptism affirmed.  Three traditional methods of baptism are immersion, pouring, and sprinkling of water – all of which the UCC honors in living out this sacrament.  Water has a long-standing importance in our faith tradition – from the primordial waters in the Creation story, to the waters of the flood in Noah’s time, to the Nile waters, Red Sea, and Jordan River in Moses’ time, to the waters of birth and baptism, wells and troubled seas, expressed throughout the stories of Jesus in the New Testament.

 

“Baptism may take place at any worship service where the community is gathered. In the early Christian church, the season of Lent was used as the final period for the preparation of candidates. In the scriptures that are read during the seasons from Advent up to Easter, there are many texts that teach the faith and point toward baptism. In the early church, the candidates were baptized together at the Vigil of Easter (the pre-dawn Easter service). Some local churches still perform baptisms at this service, or on Pentecost Sunday, and also baptize throughout the year” (ucc.org).  When a person decides to be baptized can be discussed with the pastor so as to consider the most meaningful times for that person and for the congregation.

 

Infants, children, youth and adults may all be baptized in the UCC.  When infants and children are baptized, it is presumed that they are not accountable for making this choice on their behalf and so the baptismal covenant is affirmed by their parents, guardians, or caretakers to rear them in the ways of Christ until they are of age that they can “confirm” their baptism by their own will – which is known the rite of confirmation.  Youth and adults, if they have not been baptized may do so when they feel the call to carry out their commitment to Christ’s ways.  They may, too, after having been baptized earlier in life, reaffirm their baptism – signifying their new commitment to live by Christ’s own virtues and values.  This is not a second baptism, but rather a reaffirmation of their baptism.  Baptism, once done, never needs to be redone according to the faith of those of us who call ourselves the UCC.

 

“Parents, in consultation with the pastor, may choose sponsors or Godparents for infants and young children who are to be baptized. Other candidates for baptism may also be given this opportunity to have sponsors. At the time of the baptismal service, the sponsors, who accompany the candidates and present them for baptism, may make promises identical to the promises of the parents concerning their role” (ucc.org). 

 

While some churches and pastors accentuate baptism as a symbol of God’s grace and forgiveness, others accentuate that grace and forgiveness are constitutive of the commitment to be transformed from one’s own ways to Christ’s ways – which is outwardly manifested in the sacrament of baptism.  The new life in Christ which Baptism symbolizes is set in motion when one determines to live by love, peace, and justice in one’s own life and in one’s interactions with one’s faith community and wider world.  Baptism is the communal response to that individual’s change of heart, mind, and soul; one which welcomes them into the universal Christian community, and nurtures them in the local church community.

 

Understanding the Meaning of Sacraments:  The Sacred that Exists within Community

 

As in most Protestant denominations, Baptism, along with Holy Communion, are the two sacraments that are practiced in the UCC.  A sacrament is that which is considered mysterious and holy, a ritual that symbolizes, and can even be a means of, God’s grace made manifest in the world.  The Latin word for sacrament, sacrāmentum, means to make holy or consecrate.  Sacrāmentum itself is derived from the Latin word sacer which means sacred. 

 

A sacrament implies that a sacred oath is being taken which will place oneself in a holy covenant with God and others.  Sacred oaths are considered the most important of all oaths; an oath never to be rescinded for any reason or circumstance.  Sacred oaths are those that stand above family loyalties, marital vows, national patriotism, social groupings, and all other places where oaths may be made.  Sacred oaths reveal one’s commitment to God/the Divine, and therefore to one’s most esteemed and honored virtues and values.  To renounce or break a sacred oath would be of the most condemnatory act that one could make; a breach of one’s core values, sacred identity, inherent dignity, intrinsic value.  Baptism, the most sacred oath in the Christian faith, should therefore never be done without due diligence in considering the extremity of commitment of those sacred vows one makes to God, to one’s faith community, and to one’s self.  Better to not be baptized than to be baptized and then defile one’s sacred oath at one’s baptism.  Jesus always had more condemnation for those who knew better and did worse, than for those who didn’t know better and did worse (cf., Mt. 18.6 and Mt. 7.21-23). 

 

Sacraments are communal in nature.  They are not done by a single individual, but as a covenant participated in within the context of community.  A sacrament is an outward visible sign (a ritual done in community) of an inward and spiritual grace (a personal commitment to a new life and way of being in accordance with God’s own values and those of the wider faith community).  Sacraments are a means of nurturing, cultivating, and dispensing divine grace, and a sign or symbol of a spiritual reality working within and between us that is manifested in our behavior and interactions with the world around us. 

 

While sacraments are visible rituals we perform, they are intended to trigger in us a Spirit by which we live into and grow from throughout the rest of our lives in all our thoughts, emotions, perceptions, words, deeds, behaviors, and practices.  In other words, our characters are to be transformed as we let Jesus’ virtues live in and through us.  This is a life-long process, not a singular act – which is why we are told to “remember your baptism.”  Remembering our baptism is not a cognitive act of bringing back to memory an event that happened in the past, but rather is a holistic affirmation that the virtues and values we claimed to uphold and prosper were to be continually lived out in all of the days of our lives. 

 

Baptism as a Sacrament Rather Than Merely a Ritual…As Covenant, Not Declaration…As Transformative Spirit, Not Fire Insurance

 

When Jesus’ disciples baptized people (Jesus, by the way, never baptized anyone), those people became part of the commune of people who followed Jesus not only in theory, but in actuality.  They gave up their possessions, and became interdependent members of his “Way” – the name they called themselves in living by egalitarian values.  Baptism was the intentional reorientation by individuals to give up their lives as individuals and become a part of this collective of people who were intent on creating the kindom of heaven on earth through practices of compassion, loving-kindness, mutual support and kinship, rejection of personal possessions, egalitarian justice, peacefulness and nonviolence.  People were expected to both be responsible in building up the community, and being accountable to its system of virtues and values that were the opposite of the domination culture of the Roman Empire.  This is what it meant to live in covenant with God and with one another.  Obligations by all sides are taken seriously, and are lived out in relationships of spiritual and ethical accountability to one another and God, as God is similarly obliged.  Baptism symbolized that we are to die to our old lives and selfish ways and be cleansed of those old values, so that we might be reborn into the kinship of loving and equitable community – one where the Golden Rule was not merely conceptual, but structural. 

 

Baptism is a sacrament designed to make one a part of the Christian community worldwide, but which gets lived out in the local faith community of one’s choosing.  It is not an individual act that is to be done individually apart from community, for it involves a commitment on both the person being baptized (or their parents, sponsors, or caretakers to train the baptized one) to live by Christ’s own virtues and values, and also on the congregation or faith community in which the baptism takes place to treat this person as a member of the faith; and therefore with both the privileges and the responsibilities of that membership.  Baptism, as Tertullian, stated in the 3rd century CE, is both an oath with, and an initiation into, the Christian community.  And as the UCC declares:  “The sacrament of baptism is an outward and visible sign of the grace of God. Through baptism a person is joined with the universal church, the body of Christ. In baptism, God works in us the power of forgiveness, the renewal of the spirit, and the knowledge of the call to be God’s people always” (ucc.org).

 

Unfortunately, baptism in the American context of hyper-invididualism has been watered down considerably in many churches, essentially being construed as a “fire insurance” guarantee for individuals not going to hell.  This is not a UCC or progressive understanding in the least; indeed, quite the opposite.  Jesus would be appalled that so many have come to see baptism in this corrupt understanding of the purpose and meaning of baptism. 

 

Baptism is not “fire insurance” or a form of indulgences for buying one’s way into heaven, and it is certainly not a ritual for individuals to receive and then feel free to go off and do their own thing outside the responsibilities they have to the faith community.  It is not a declarative statement that one is a “believer,” but a commitment to a changed character in which transforms one’s practices and deeds in the world.  It is a communal event in which oaths are to be declared by both the baptized one (or their caretakers) to nurture oneself in the ways of Christ, and also by the local faith community to assist in the encouragement and nurture of those virtues and values of Christ as taught by word and deed for the edification of the baptized.  Baptism is a covenant we make with God and the community of the faithful in whom we choose to live by Christ’s own virtues and values with mutual accountability for one another.  American individualism has perverted this view, which goes back to Jesus himself, and has given up moral and spiritual accountability in Christian community for a “feel-good” assurance that oneself, as a private individual, is protected from hellfire by baptism. 

 

Most progressive Christians do not believe in a hell, as that goes beyond what is deemed as a loving and just God.  Baptism is not a guarantee of any kind that keeps one from suffering, now or later, negative consequences of one’s actions and practices in the world.  We are to be held accountable for our own actions, practices, and behaviors, and no religious ritual or belief will atone for our sins.  We are to inculcate Jesus’ virtues and values into our own character, and then go and do likewise.  That is our saving grace, as Jesus made clear.  

 

Baptism as Oneness of Spirit and Character with Christ…As Transformative, Not Performative

 

Our spirit is to become one with Christ’s spirit.  We are to follow in his ways; not merely believe right beliefs and do right religious rituals.  Jesus condemned the religious leaders of his own day for their attempts at making faith a matter of beliefs and rituals rather than of virtues and loving relationships.  Mere beliefs or religious rituals are not what God desires, as the prophets, including Jesus, declared repetitively.  God is said to condemn those who think that saying the right thing or performing the right ritual will make them righteous before God, rather than actually living by God’s values.  Consequently, baptism is the commitment to a life in Christ in which one will refuse to act in ways that are not in harmony with the love, peace, justice, generosity, gentleness, and other virtues that Jesus manifested in his own life and told us to go and do likewise. 

 

Baptism, therefore, is not to be treated as a ritual that puts oneself in better relationship to God by merely doing it.  Baptism is not performative, but rather transformative.  Baptism is a ritual, lived out continually for the rest of one’s life, that symbolizes one’s commitment to put oneself in better relationship to God and all people and all creation.  Baptism is an outward symbol (a communal ritual) of that inner grace (commitment to Christ’s virtues and values).  It affirms our relationship to the Christian community in which we uphold and encourage one another to “go and do likewise,” as Christ showed us the way.

 

Baptism as Entry into Egalitarian Community (i.e., the Kindom of God)

 

Baptism invites us to a this-worldly egalitarian community and way of life in which we no longer see ourselves as individuals and those in competition with one another as human empires convey.  Baptism invites us to no longer make distinctions between ourselves and others.  As Galatians 3.26-28 states, “For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ Jesus have clothed yourself with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

 

The community, here on earth, in which we no longer differentiate ourselves from one another, but see us all as siblings or kin of one another, is symbolically evidenced through the sacrament of baptism – where our very spirit is transformed to see the world in a new light; the light of Christ living in us.

 

Baptism is this-worldly oriented rather than other-worldly oriented.  It makes no presuppositions about an afterlife, but asks us to change our lives here and now for the benefit of all.  When people did acts of compassion and loving-kindness, Jesus told them that the kindom was near; sometimes even claiming that the kindom was already within them.  Baptism should never be construed as a ritual that helps you get to a better place in an afterlife.  It is a sacrament which is to help you to live your best life here and now, and to make sacred your thoughts, words, and actions in this life.  The community we are to be baptized into is this earthly one, which together we are to make heavenly. 

 

People in the UCC have varying ideas as to what does or doesn’t happen in any possible afterlife.  But what we can largely agree upon is that this life matters.  We are to be followers of Christ in this life – by our actions and practices.  Baptism is seen as our commitment to do that very thing.  Do all the good we can, here and now, to all we can, and for as long as we live these earthly lives.  God can decide what happens next.  But it is our commitment, made through our baptism, that reminds us for the rest of our lives that we are to live by the same spiritual and moral virtues, and egalitarian values, that Christ Jesus revealed in his words, practices, and actions in building loving relationships among all peoples and all creation. 

 

Once baptized, we are committed to life to follow in Christ’s ways – not our own ways, and not the ways of the world.  Baptism washes away the soot of human empires, and bathes us into the healing waters of loving-kindness towards all creation. 

 

Are You Interested in Being Baptized?

 

If you, or someone you know, is interested in being baptized, I invite you to have them read this article and then come and talk with me about your intentions, questions, and concerns.  Conversations with the pastor are prerequisite for all baptisms, given the covenantal nature and sacred vows of this sacrament.  I look forward to hearing your story, and discovering how God is working through your life such that you would like to be baptized with the support of this congregation, and how you might see yourself as a blessing to our church.

 

The First Congregational United Church of Christ is a progressive community of faith where we seek to live the way of Jesus rather than merely believe things about Jesus.  If this sounds like who you want to be, we are excited to meet you and welcome you into this congregation – in hopes that we can learn from and nurture one another towards growing closer to Christ in all we think, say, and do. 

 

Come join us in being a blessing to one another and our world around us!

 

Rev. Bret S. Myers

Pastor and Teacher

Office:  (712) 239-3385

Email:  revbmyers@yahoo.com

 

 

First Congregational United Church of Christ of Sioux City

Rainbow commas remind us that God’s Spirit is still speaking in this world – to all of us!