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Baptism must be seen near the heart of our faith and presented as significant, but not allowed to separate Christians into groups of resentment or condescension. It must not become the "water that divides us" but the water that witnesses to our commitment to Christ.
Calvin Miller

As a pastor, I like to envision myself as a great champion of the Christian faith. I have always thought it would be nice to die a martyr for some great theological truth — to gasp out my final breath for the ultimate victory of orthodoxy over classic Arianism.

However, I pastor in suburbia, where volleyball leagues get more attention than questions about Christ's deity. So most of the time I find my life given to more ordinary things. After all, most suburbanites can't understand why I take Christianity so seriously when there are sod webworms and dandelion epidemics.

Yet doctrinal issues are basic to faith, even in suburbia.

In today's world, one of my challenges as a pastor is dealing with "private faith" — people wanting a personal, but not visible, relationship with God. They like the security of feeling they know God, but they don't want anyone else to know they know him. They "accept Jesus," but reject demands to openly proclaim their allegiance.

Maybe this is one reason Jesus instructed his followers to make disciples and baptize. The doctrine of baptism is not just a damp aggravation Jesus tacked onto church practice to annoy those who come to faith. It is "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," an act of obedience, a public statement of faith.

Perhaps Jesus knew that a faith never publicly expressed had little chance of surviving. Certainly the church, throughout history, could not have survived unless believers had been ...

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