Understanding Baptism in the Episcopal Church

From Scott Gunn's blog:

It’s difficult to separate baptism and eucharist, but as this is a gathering focused on baptism, allow me to just say some fairly obvious things our prayer book teaches us about baptism. The catechism says, 

Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God. 

And

The inward and spiritual grace in Baptism is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God’s family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit. 

Let’s pause here and say a few things about four aspects of grace conferred in baptism.

1. Union with Christ in his death and resurrection. There it is, the Paschal mystery. And, yet, I rarely hear mention of the Paschal mystery, let alone sermons about it. Perhaps, if we want to recover some sense of baptismal identity, we would do well to heed St. Paul’s advice a bit more often and preach Christ, and him crucified.
2. Birth into God’s family the Church. Here, the question of “Are you born again?” is settled. Yes, we are born again in our baptism. And in that birth, we are adopted into Christ’s body, the church. It is puzzling to me why some of us continue to wonder about the markers of whether someone is inside our outside the church, when our liturgy and our teaching are so clear. (As an aside, we should absolutely care for and minister to those outside the church, following the example of our Lord Jesus. He fed the multitudes. But he also had high expectations of those who had committed to be his disciples.)
3. Forgiveness of sins. The slate is wiped clean in baptism. To say this is to acknowledge that our slate was covered with sins in the first place. I mention this because a priest I know was recently chastised by her rector for mentioning “sin” in a sermon. “Don’t use that word,” the rector said, “use ‘shortcomings’ instead. It is so off-putting to talk about sin.” If we cannot see our sins, we cannot see our need of redemption. And if we cannot see our need of redemption, it is not surprising that baptism is reduced to a token rite of passage.
4. New life in the Holy Spirit. Here we are reminded that baptism is both by water and by the fire of the Holy Spirit. How can anyone say “nothing is happening” in baptism when the cleansing fire of the Holy Spirit descends upon the newly baptized, offering new life in the grace of the Holy Spirit?

Not only does our prayer book insist that something life-changing and world-changing is happening in baptism, but the entire prayer book offers an ecosystem founded in baptismal ecclesiology. You can see it manifest nearly anywhere you look.

Read his whole article.  It will help you with what we believe (theology) of baptism in the Episcopal Church.