BECOMING THE BAPTIZED BODY
Becoming the Baptized Body: Disability and the Practice of Christian Community. Sarah Jean Barton, with foreword by John Swinton. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2022. 234 pp. $44.99 (hardcover)
Becoming the Baptized Body is a re-written version of Dr. Sarah Jean Barton’s doctoral thesis, with a significant amount of space given to methodologies, the shape of the field, and reasonably dense lines of theological questioning. Although the academic shape of this work is clear, Barton has done a commendable job to ensure the work is accessible to a much wider audience.
The primary thesis Barton defends here is that the presence of people with intellectual/developmental disabilities (1) can deepen and expand notions of how to live as the baptized body of Christ. Although on the surface such a claim may appear obvious, a deeper dive into baptismal practices across modern Christianity expose the tenuous nature of this statement.
Barton does more than simply argue for the validity of inclusion, however important that move may be. Rather, she builds her methodology around the concept of ‘togetherness’ or ‘partnership.’ Rather than merely qualitative research, in which participants are interviewed or studied for descriptive insights into a particular aspect of their lives, Barton shifts towards theological ethnography. In this, her work does not simply revolve around people with intellectual/developmental disabilities. Rather, her mode of questioning, her willingness to let the participants guide, change, and direct much of the research, and even her very reasons for such questioning are thoroughly faithful in purpose.
One common refrain named throughout the book is that too often baptismal theology becomes abstracted away from embodiment and context, or else overly fixated on individuality. The overly abstracted concept of baptism, likelier to occur in traditions with infant baptism, rely on purely symbolic gestures and overly generic claims that ignore the realities of being a new creation in Christ. This serves to include a wide array of participants, but fails to offer a theology which connects to ongoing participation in the Body. Conversely, the individualized expressions of faith often found in credobaptist traditions often center academic or intellectual assent to particular truth-claims, ignoring those who cannot credibly make such statements. Intellectual disability challenges both paradigms. The failure of churches to provide opportunities for ongoing participation in the Body lands a major blow to the claims of paedobaptismal inclusion offered in infancy. Likewise, the refusal to baptize those who do not intellectually adhere to particular creedal checklists despite evidence of the fruit of the Spirit and/or existent participation in the church undermines foundational credobaptist beliefs about how God works in individual lives.
Barton’s method works to overcome common academic strategies of reaching for disembodied, context-refusing, abstract language. In short, what Barton has to say has to come from the people she is talking about, and has to work in real Christian settings. In my opinion, it succeeds on both counts.
Many academically-minded books have relatively skippable introductions, but Barton’s serves as an important step into the text. Offering some very brief but helpful overviews of the nature of disability theology, Barton also foundationally links herself (and the book) to the Anglican Communion. The nature of disability theology, however, is one of a field holding together the tensions between the niche and the universal; thus, this becomes by necessity a work of Anglican ecumenism.
In chapter 1, the notion that theology can exist in abstraction is resisted and challenged as being dangerous to lived communities, particularly communities involving persons with intellectual disabilities. “Theological abstraction results in an impoverished ecclesial imagination about the work of the Holy Spirit among all the baptized” (emphasis added), she claims, giving a succinct argument about how the particular challenges faced by disabled Christians cannot be separated from the universal needs of the Church. (2) Instead, the current theological conversation on intellectual disabilities relies on lived experience as it relates to four prominent themes – God’s image, friendship, inclusion, and embodiment. In situating baptismal theologies within these existing conversations, the need for increased focus on concrete actions as a site of real theology becomes more apparent (and better defended, given that it is standing on the shoulders of established work).
Chapter 2 is a daunting bit of writing for most audiences, as it is a research summary and contains both a significant amount of notes, data, and pages (it clocks in at 40 pages). Luckily, Barton has saved her most interesting notes for the book and included a significant number of long quotes from her participants. This gives us a better sense of who else is doing the theological work here beyond Barton, a practice that exemplifies her claim that this theology cannot come from her alone. Particularly useful here is the Accessible Summary, a practice we all might add into our writings, books, and sermons.
Chapters 3 and 4 seek to uncover a deeper understanding of baptismal practices as found in Biblical and Pauline accounts. The shift between descriptive data reporting and truly theological claim-staking becomes evident here, with Barton affirming disabled identities as part of the re-narrated Christian life in baptism: “Christians with intellectual disabilities do not face theological barriers to this full baptismal union with Christ. Rather, it is ecclesial imaginations about Christian identity and discipleship that hold the power to distort Jesus’ work in and through disabled Christians because of their baptismal unity with Christ.” (3) For those immersed in disability theology, much of this work comes as more of a reminder that the good work already done in the field still faces an uphill battle in terms of application. For those outside the field, these chapters will be filled with excellent entry points into larger conversations on personhood, participation in the life of Christ, and the inauguration of the Kingdom.
Shifting into current practices, Chapter 5 mines baptismal liturgies for already present disruptions to ableist thinking within church settings, as well as offering some critique. In particular, the tension between who is participating (the baptized person or the whole community) offers a helpful framework for expanding our vision of baptismal life, while the binary between who can speak for themselves (a significant tension between paedobaptism and credobaptism) is resisted by the presence of many disabilities. Likewise, Chapter 6 highlights that the already-existing presence of disabled people in the Body of Christ essentially mandates an improved understanding of what baptismal life calls Christians to. Finally, Chapter 7 revisits the supposedly ‘ancillary’ aspects of baptismal practices that sit beyond but are connected to the rite itself. Preparation, testimony, and reaffirmation are aspects of baptism that reconnect the specific ritual to the universal practice of it within Christian churches, foundational to the actual lived experience of baptismal life (inclusive of disability experience). Here, the reader will find some challenging but hopeful practices that can reframe baptism immediately, especially for those in traditions where the Eucharist is celebrated weekly (or in traditions where baptismal remembrance is regularly practiced).
The named methods of reaffirming one’s baptism in embodied and tangible ways are described as particularly useful for those with intellectual disabilities and/or those who do not use symbolic language. As a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) tradition, where communion is celebrated at every worship service nearly universally even in our famously open-ended polity and theology, Barton’s challenge to more clearly link baptismal affirmations to regular practice is a useful call to action. Rather than subtle shifts in language, perhaps lost on the majority of the congregation, Barton’s work inspires a sense of boldness and more decisive action – drawing connections between the fount and table more explicitly and relying on the senses more freely.
Ultimately, this is a challenging read. Because it seeks to say something about a Christian tradition, it must attend to theology, practice, ecumenism, lived reality, and social difference. To balance these, giving enough time and attention to the particular concepts within each while holding them all together, Barton relies on her method of deeply journeying with Christians with intellectual disabilities as baptized partners. As a result, the book remains cohesive, and Barton opens the door for future work where theology can be done not just in describing life or by abstracting thoughts from behind a writer’s desk, but in the messy intersection of the two.
Academic theologians will gain methodological insights, particularly on often-sticky issues regarding guiding questions and language barriers between the researcher and participant. Barton’s work forces us to ask, ‘where is theology?’ in a way that resists too quick a response. There is perhaps a kinship in her work with that of the ‘Schmemann School’ of liturgical theology, locating the focal point of theology itself not in the pages of scholarship but in faith found among the pews. Those outside the academy may find the length and depth challenging, but the insights into baptismal practices and embodied theology are well worth the read. This research helps expand the field of disability theology into more specific questions on baptism, but given the centrality of this within the life of the Christian this book will offer broader insight to clergy, congregational leaders, and theologians alike.
Despite the growing evidence that identity-first language (“disabled person”) is generally preferred to person-first (“person with a disability”) for a significant number of reasons, these trends do not necessarily reflect the broader views of the intellectual/developmental disability community in particular. Language is always malleable and political, and so I mirror Dr. Barton’s language while asking for grace for those who identify in alternative ways. See Barton, 188n14.
Pp. 24.
Pp.99.
