I am a relatively new to Anglicanism and would love to hear thoughts from you guys.
When I was born my father was a lapsed Catholic (still is) and my mother was an Anglican. I was christened by sprinkling at a university church in a "Protestant" service that was not specifically Anglican but for any staff/student children who were from an infant baptism tradition. Before I was old enough to remember my mom joined an evangelical non-denom church in which I was raised. This church practices believer's baptism but was legalistic and corrupt in many ways - I was aware of this at a young enough age that I was never baptized and stopped attending once I left home for university.
Glad you left that place, and welcome to Anglicanism!
I felt drawn back to God and have started attending a charismatic Church of England congregation which I really am grateful for and I feel myself growing spiritually for the first time in my life. But here is my issue - I feel like I need to be baptized by immersion. In church on Sunday we read Mark 1 and it is very clear that Jesus went into the river, was immersed, and rose out of the water when he heard God's voice. I think we as Christians should be emulating this unless there is a lack of water somehow.
1. Immersion is
not submersion. This is a very common mistake among many; to be immersed means to be within the water whereas submersed means to be under the water's surface and plunged in.
2. Anglicanism, like orthodox Christianity, absolutely rejects any sort of legalism when it comes to the method of Holy Baptism. The late 1st century ce Apostolic Witness, the
Didache, makes it very clear that both submersion and affusion are both perfectly acceptable, and even immersion and non-immersion are both perfectly acceptable.
Whereas immersion remains the ideal, the real symbolism doesn't change one bit.
If you
really feel this strongly about it, I would suggest doing some research on ancient baptisms rites and methods, like the
Didache. You will come to learn that any insistence on any one method of getting baptized would seem silly at best and legalistic (and heterodox thinking) at worst.
If you simply
prefer to have an immersion-style baptism, you need to speak with your priest, but you must understand that the priest's decision is final.
My CofE church is more open in that it doesn't require infant baptism and allows members to just do a dedication and let the children decide when they are old enough.
...which I must says goes absolutely contrary to historic Anglican belief and practice, both before Edward VII and after. Infant "dedications" is a recent phenomenon and is a borrowing from Radical Reformationist Protestant theology that is incompatible with not only Anglicanism but even Presbyterianism and both Calvinist and Zwinglian theology as well.
I know they baptize adults by immersion but I've never heard of someone who was christened as an infant doing that. I have heard there is a "renewal of baptismal vows" that can go along with an immersion, but I'm nervous asking about it if it's very unusual as I don't want to make the priest question why I'm an Anglican if I don't accept the mainstream doctrine.
If you want to be an Anglican, you are going to be acknowledging, whether you wish to or not, the ancient Christian theology of
lex orandi lex credendi; what you pray is what you believe. Our official liturgies are more than just rites and rituals; they are what we believe as Christians and as Anglicans. You need to ask yourself whether you can, in good conscience, follow this orthodox practice while crossing your fingers behind your back.
The solution of course is to drop the Radical Reformationist stance you appear to have, but if you cannot do that, you will have an irreconcilable issue if you join our church. The other solution is to join one of those Protestant bodies, although I would hope you would not do that as it would place you outside orthodoxy.
And if anyone is in London do they know of CofE churches that do immersion baptism/baptismal renewals? I don't think my church even has a pool or basin to do it.
One Lord, one faith,
one baptism. This is straight out of Holy Scripture (St. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians) and our theology about it can be found in the hymn "The Church's One Foundation" (in which one line goes "one Lord, one faith,
one birth, thereby agreeing with the ancient and orthodox Christian belief that in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism we are born anew ["again"] for in baptism we are unified in Christ's own death, descent, and resurrection). You will not find such that can offer a "second dip" while honestly be adherent to Anglicanism. It is a belief among the Radical Reformationists, whom opposed not just Anglicanism and Vatican Catholicism, but also Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli.
Furthermore, I for some reason have a hard time believing your parish doesn't have some sort of font. The only reason why it might not is if there was a convenient local source of water, but even so, even at the height of the 1552 (which latest so shortly thank God), fonts were still standard.
You say you had a "sprinkling rite" as a child, which, although your chosen language suggests otherwise, sounds like a baptism. That means, while you might not think so, you have been baptized. If not for whatever, then I really don't understand the issue you have. Mature children and adult converts to Christianity or those in that age range who convert to our church from a tradition that doesn't practice paedobaptism or even rejects it always receive Holy Baptism.
However, going back to my previous point earlier, if that
was a baptism, then you cannot receive another; it goes against the very clear proclamation in Holy Scripture and it goes against the doctrines of the Early Church and the beliefs and practices of the Anglican faith, no matter what communion. What
does exist is Confirmation if you have been baptized before, in which you are formally received into our church by the bishop. You
cannot have any sort of "rebaptism" in our church; we reject anabaptist theology as completely unorthodox.
