Participating Witness. Anthony G. Siegrist

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Participating Witness - Anthony G. Siegrist Princeton Theological Monograph Series

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shared meals and worship are also occasions for learning to talk rightly about God.

      Participating Witness began as a doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of Professor Joseph Mangina. His advice had the uncommon quality of being both patient and incisive. Along with Jim Reimer and George Sumner, Joe helped me clarify what it was that I was trying to say. That fact that two of my committee members were Anglicans pushed me to understand my own tradition more clearly. The attention of a number of other readers has helped me avoid needless errors. David Nadeau, Karl Koop, Reid Locklin, William Kervin, David Siegrist, Jeremy Bergen, and Ruth Sesink Bott have each read the manuscript at one point or another. I am thankful for their feedback. I am also thankful for the publishing expertise of the folks at Wipf & Stock. The errors that remain are my own.

      This project could not have been completed without the ongoing encouragement of friends, family, colleagues, and students. Yet I am indebted to Sarah most of all. There is nothing I can write to adequately express my thanks for her companionship. Thanks also to Amos and Elias for being part of our family. They both add so much.

      Introduction

      This is valuable counsel expressed in an important forum, yet it is also demonstration of the fact that despite important commonalities, the deep differences over baptism are not going to be resolved in the near future. It is now time to forgo attempts to prove one traditional form of the practice right or wrong and to pursue instead how baptism might aid us in the task of being faithful Christian communities in an era marked by fracture. Even though sociological and political tectonics may yet destabilize the divide, the working assumption of this book is that the gift of unity on this issue has not yet been granted to the church. Each way of understanding and practicing baptism possesses an internal theological coherence, but neither can be rightly elucidated according to the assumptions of the opposing view. This is evidenced by the protraction of the debate and the ancient legacy of each tradition. Therefore, even though the divisive practice of baptism presents the issue with which this book wrestles, my argument will be developed in such a way as to avoid both tired polemics and undue ecumenical optimism.

      Assumptions

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