I'm pleased to announce that Edmund Schlink's Doctrine of Baptism is now available from Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, just in time for the Easter season. It is the third volume in a larger project, Edmund Schlink Works, for which I am serving as the editor and principal translator. For ordering information, go here. (Volume 1 of ESW contains fresh translations of Schlink's key ecumenical essays and his book on the Second Vatican Council [After the Council]. Volume 2, which is divided into two separate books, contains his 1277-page Ecumenical Dogmatics. These two volumes [divided into three books] are also available from V&R.)
Some people may be familiar with an earlier translation of Schlink's book on baptism, which was published by CPH in 1972. The ESW edition, which offers a new translation, differs from the CPH version in other significant ways. The CPH version was an abridgement. Several sentences from the German edition were omitted, which reflected Schlink's acceptance of higher-critical conclusions. Many German words were not rendered consistently (and some were mistranslated). Unlike the CPH version, the ESW edition contains introductions by the German editor, Peter Zimmerling, and yours truly, 110 editorial notes/annotations (added by me; not in the German edition), and an extensive bibliography (also missing from the German edition).
Schlink's theology of baptism is grounded in Luther's catechetical teaching, which he thought best captures the fullness of the multiplicity of statements in the New Testament: Baptism is God's salvific action that mediates the forgiveness of sins, redeems from death and the powers of evil, and gives eternal life. The Christian life thus entails the daily return to baptism, whereby the old creature with all sins and desires is to be put to death through repentance, and the new person is to arise to live anew before God in righteousness and faithful obedience. For Schlink, it is precisely the biblical evidence that reveals the deficiency of the Zwinglian, Baptist, and late-Barthian understandings of baptism, insofar as they view(ed) baptism solely as a sign of the public confession by the person being baptized.
Schlink dealt with the basic questions of baptism in four main sections. The first chapter analyzes the historical foundation of Christian baptism. In the second chapter, he unfolded the baptismal event in a systematic-theological way. Here he stressed that baptism transfers the baptized into the ownership of Jesus Christ, and this transfer is connected to the forgiveness of sins and the gift of new divine life. Then follows the reception of the Holy Spirit and finally admittance into the church. Crucial here is Luther's teaching that the triune God is the one who is creating anew through baptism. Hence, Schlink's Lutheran stress on the effective nature of baptism. Conceiving the baptismal event as a mere symbol is deficient.
Schlink further justified this theological position in the third chapter by addressing the most important controversial questions regarding baptism, the correlation between faith and baptism, as well as the issue of infant baptism. Because Schlink viewed baptism as a "promise, sign, and act of God," he considered the baptism of children and infants as legitimate. Nevertheless, the most profound difference regarding baptism within the church traditions, still today, is not the acknowledgment or non-acknowledgment of infant baptism but the understanding of baptism as an act of God or as an act of human obedience.
In the final chapter of the book, Schlink dealt with the practice of baptism as it presents itself in the various church bodies. The starting point for his theological assessment is the observation that the immersion or sprinkling of the baptized with water and the invocation of the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit constitute the decisive action in baptism and can therefore be seen as the essential center of the baptismal event. Everything else in the baptismal rite must serve this center.
I'm hoping that the book will be read by American pastors, seminarians, and graduate students, but given the editorial notes that are unique to the American Edition, I think even lay people will find the book's content accessible and edifying.
I'm also hoping that the book might be used in ecumenical study groups or as a text that invites theological dialogue among pastors and other church leaders. It could serve as a discussion starter for a set of pastoral circuit meetings. I'm hoping that at least a few professors of systematic and historical theology will use the book in their teaching, and perhaps will even assign it as a text for their seminarians or graduate students.
