A Common Pastoral Question

Q: Someone in our church has an intellectual disability and we are not sure if she has a clear understanding of the Gospel. Should she be baptized?

We recently received a question similar to this, and it is one that has come up on multiple occasions. This post is not intended to be a comprehensive answer, but rather to point in the direction of potential responses. We recognize that there are many different baptismal traditions and, while this article references sources that practice “believer’s baptism,” we hope that it will be useful for framing the conversation in a variety of contexts.

We Don’t Fully Understand the Gospel Either

I think of Paul’s statement: “I see in part, I know in part, but one day I will see and know in whole.” All of our knowledge falls so far short of the complete revelation of God—His immeasurable love and grace, as an example. Does God reject us, or give us a grade based on the simplicity of our understandings? No, He accepts us right where we are. He then works with us on the little we are able to understand. I think of St. Anselm’s principle that God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” God is always greater than our understanding.

Faithfulness Means Acting on What We Know

It is helpful to re-orient ourselves to what we already know. While in-depth understanding of the Gospel and rigorous preparation for baptism is wonderful, at its heart lies a message of simple faith.

One of my favourite passages on this truth is 1 John 5:1–2. We become children of God when we believe that Jesus is the Christ. John does not say this is demonstrated by reciting Creeds from memory; rather it is shown in loving God and God’s children.

Love God
Obey His commands

Baptism is an act of obedience in response to God’s love, just as Christ was baptized in obedience to His Father. It was this same love and obedience that brought the Son of God to die on our behalf.

The Gospel Is Embodied

Christians in modernity thought their task was to make the Gospel intelligible to the world rather than to help the world understand why it could not be intelligible without the Gospel. Desiring to become part of the modernist project, preachers and theologians accepted the presumption that Christianity is a set of beliefs, a “worldview,” designed to give meaning to our lives.
~ Stanley Hauerwas

This is an overly intellectual way of saying that we tend to over-intellectualize the Gospel. Viewing the Good News as a set of beliefs has turned proclamation into a lecture. To receive the Gospel becomes passing a test on “What is the Gospel?” rather than embracing it in faith.

At the Summer Institute on Theology and Disability in Atlanta this year, much of the conversation reflected the need to reclaim an embodied theology. In our embodiment we proclaim a tactile Gospel. As John reminds us:

“We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands.” (1 John 1:1)

We proclaim God’s love, mercy, acceptance, forgiveness, and hope through all of our senses as we live the Gospel in action.

We Are Baptized Into a Body, Not an Island

Another product of modernity is hyper-individuality. Baptism, though, is a sign of community—welcome into the Body of Christ.

Mark 2 tells the story of a man with a disability who was forgiven through the faith of his small community. No one comes to faith alone; we learn faith in community. And that same community welcomes us into baptism.

Melissa Florer-Bixler writes for the Anabaptist Disability Network that:

“Baptism makes us into the people of God by compromising all competing allegiances… including family, nation, wealth, and even capabilities.”

As the Body of Christ is obedient to His Great Commission (Matt 28:19), the new disciple is obedient to “baptism into death” (Rom 6:3) and rising from the water to be welcomed into this faithful resurrection community.

Baptism as an Act of Belonging

Jason D. Whitt, writing from the Baptist perspective, describes baptism and communion as “acts of belonging.” He writes:

“Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are acts of threefold agency: God, the Church, and the candidate… When people turn to Christ in faith and become new creations, it is the Church that forms them into the new identity discovered in the Gospel narrative.” [1]

Baptism is a sign of belonging to community. It is not intended to be a surface-level act of compliance, but an an act of obedience that forms one’s identity as part of a larger Body. We can go on to observe that not only is baptism a communal act that forms the identity of the person who is baptized, it is an act of an individual that forms the identity of the community.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes that “we are baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body (1 Cor 12:14).” Building on this metaphor, Paul writes that each member helps to form the identity of the body and “those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable (1 Cor 12:22).”

Melissa Florer-Bixler describes how this changes the question that we ask about baptism:

“The question is not whether we should baptize people with profound disabilities. The question is whether we can be the Body of Christ without them.”

Changing the Question

I hope that these thoughts have been helpful as you consider baptism and intellectual disability. The principles we’ve explored should be transferable even though the examples primarily focus on profound intellectual disability and believer’s baptism.

Rather than focusing on intellectual capacity, perhaps the questions should be:

1. Has she experienced the embodied Gospel in the life of the church?

This may mean that we need to expand our understanding of what it means to embody the Gospel. While proclamation of the Gospel will still include sin, confession, faith and repentance, we will need to learn to express these in ways as diverse and embodied as the people who we encounter.

Vertical Habits (Calvin Institute of Christian Worship) offers accessible and relational language for expressing deep spiritual truths.

2. Has she found belonging in the Body of Christ?

This may mean that we need to open our doors wider, to practice deep hospitality where people with disabilities of all types experience belonging in a powerful way.

Feel free to connect with Karis Disability Services or explore Karis’ Church Resource Toolkit for resources on accessibility and welcome.

3. Does she seek to be faithful to Christ and express her gifts in community?

This may mean embracing the diverse ways people contribute to the Body of Christ.

Whitt reminds us that people with intellectual disabilities may:

“teach about patient perseverance, or living in a moment without concern for tomorrow. For some people with profound cognitive disabilities, their gift to us may be simply presence—being and not doing. Other gifts may be gentleness, peacefulness, joy, wonder, or simply silence.”

How prepared are we to receive gifts in the diverse ways that God has given them?

Becoming the Kind of Community Where Baptism Makes Sense

In exploring these aspects of faith, we find that the real question should be “how prepared are we as a community to receive people fully into the church?”

Yes, we should baptize people with intellectual disabilities.
Yes, we should prepare people for baptism and discipleship.

Ultimately, though, we need to work toward being the kind of community where the Good News of Christ is inescapable. Where, through our love, service, forgiveness and grace with one another, we live into the reality of who we are as the Body of Christ. Baptism is the sign of belonging to this Christ-shaped community.

We would love to hear your stories and insights. What are your thoughts or experiences with baptism and disability?