My social media venue of choice is Second Life, the twenty-year-old virtual world I first encountered in my graduate school years. If you spend enough time in “SL,” you’ll likely run into virtual weddings, virtual dancing, virtual dating, virtual meals at imaginary restaurants, and – if you’re like me and visit a variety of SL churches – virtual baptisms of new believers.
This isn’t a new practice in Second Life. Over my decade and a half visiting there,
I’ve seen dozens of new churches practice what I think of as “digital
sacramentalism,” avatar performances of the Lord’s Supper and baptism via
cartoon personae. I saw my first digital
baptism fifteen years ago and the most recent just three months ago.
QUESTION: If you’re at home, alone in your room, and staying
completely dry while you watch your avatar go through scripted motions, are you
really being baptized, as some Second Life churches claim?
ASIDE #1: WHAT IS REAL BAPTISM?
Ah, for the good ol’ days, when the only arguments about baptism
were whether you could do it on babies and if mere sprinkling would even count. To be fair, however, I shouldn’t be glib
about such distinctions. The history of
doctrinal differences over baptism is rife with congregation-busting disputes
and outright violence and death (look up the Münster Rebellion and the German
Peasants’ Revolt of the 1500s to glimpse how the anti-infant baptism movement
was born of violence). For our purposes
here, let’s have a quick, oversimplified summary:
Most Lutherans remain fans of infant baptism, holding to the idea
that a saved household of faith can be baptized in its entirety, babies
included (see Acts 16:15). Most Baptists
disagree, pointing out that Scripture always shows confessions of faith being
made before any specific person is baptized.
Meanwhile, early Churches of Christ appear to tie the idea of baptism to
actually being regenerated, “saved” through the act itself (“born of water and
the spirit,” as in John 3, and baptism “for the remission of sins” as in Acts
2:37-38), a position reminiscent of age-old Roman Catholic and Orthodox ideas.
I’m not going to solve any of those debates. I am, though, going to muse a little on ancient languages. None of my regular
readers are surprised by that. 😊
Baptizó and its variants, the koine Greek terms often
translated as “baptize” in the New Testament, aren’t always translated
that way. In Mark 7:14, for example, the term is used twice to refer to washing cups, plates, and utensils. In Luke 12:50
and Mark 10:39, it’s perhaps better translated as “undergoing” something (in
this case, persecution). And at its root, baptó, it simply means
“dipped”—martyrs robes dipped in blood (Rev. 19:13), bread dipped in wine and
passed to Judas (John 13:26), and the rich man’s request that the beggar
Lazarus dip the tip of his finger into cool water to pass on a few
thirst-quenching drops (Luke 16:24).
Immersion, washing, simple dipping – for those arguing that true
baptism requires full immersion, the biblical language test doesn’t offer a lot
of solid support. Even those arguing
that baptizing (“washing”) dishes is itself “immersion” will be chagrined to
learn that Roman-province dishwashing in the time of Christ involved rubbing
plates with sand and then simply splashing them sandless with water. That’s a fun fact; drop it at your next fancy
cocktail party.
BACK TO SECOND LIFE
The most recent baptism I saw occurring in Second Life took place at
a virtual pond on the virtual grounds of a newer virtual church. It was a very pastor-centric church, by which
I mean the pastor was the center of all gatherings of the faithful – no in-service liturgical music,
no extended time of prayer and intercession by the laity, no time of congregational praise and
worship (see Ephesians 5:19-20 and Colossians 3:16-17 for Biblical elements of a church service). The Scripture reading (done by
the pastor) and the sermon (done by the pastor) were the full content of the
service, tucked neatly between opening and closing prayers (done by the pastor). Oddly, this virtual church site had, at that time, a boiler-plate statement of faith promoting “Christian baptism by immersion.” Yet here they were one evening, conducting a
digital baptism in a pixel pond.
As I watched, I wondered how a faith community could simultaneously
hold the belief that true baptism must be by full immersion in water, yet feel that showing virtual-world cartoons mimicking that act could be just as valid. I kept imagining the converted Ethiopian eunuch
in Acts 8 saying to Philip, “Behold, here is a picture I drew of some
water. What is there to prevent me from drawing
myself into the picture being baptized?”
Above I mentioned the Second Life practice of celebrating the
Lord’s Supper in a virtual world.
Frankly, this practice makes a good deal of sense to me. Participants are present with one another in
voice and behavior, forming a common union (as in, communion) to
celebrate and proclaim the saving death of Christ. Participants can have their own communion
elements at home (and even the most devout Biblical literalists are satisfied
substituting cookies and juice for bread and wine). There is joint devotion and proclamation of
Christ at work. In my mind, it’s an
example of the universal communion of saints.
Does virtual baptism match up with that?
Alternatively, I have attended one baptism in Second Life that
intrigued me with its real-world tie-ins.
At this church, the requirement for virtual baptism was that it take
place at the same time as the new believer's actual baptism in real life, being performed by a
representative of a real-world Christian congregation. That moved me, I confess. It not only allowed the Second Life friends
of the new believer to participate in the celebration; it ensured that the real
human behind the avatar entered into fellowship with a physically accessible body
of believers.
The pastor of the first example I cited made no mention of a
real-world church membership when he performed his avatar baptism. I’m not certain whether the new believer was
counseled after that time to seek out a congregation. I’m not even certain if the new believer
still attends the Second Life church where he was baptized. I do know this, though: those of us assembled
were told nothing about any connection to local believers by the baptizing
preacher. All discussion was about how
the avatar being baptized was now a member of that community, the virtual-world
church. We were all led to understand
that the inanimate cartoon’s baptism by proxy was the real deal, sufficient in
itself.
ASIDE #2 – BAPTISM FOR THE DEAD
Speaking of inanimate ... if a cartoon avatar can be baptized on my behalf, who or what else can be? This idea of proxy baptism brought to my mind Paul’s much-debated comment in 1 Corinthians 15:29, presented almost as an aside in his discussion of why resurrection of the dead must be a physical reality:
Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf
of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are
people baptized on their behalf?
Latter Day Saints (a.k.a. Mormons prior to 2018) have adapted this verse into a full-blown religious ritual of being baptized for those who have died, thereby leveling up the dead in their afterlife. This doctrine explains the founding and initial growth of the Ancestry.com genealogy business, owned by the LDS church until 1997 – after all, you can't be baptized for the dead if you don't know who they are, and the digital age provided whole new tools to expand a practice started quietly in 1840.
Commentator Matthew Henry suggests a less literal interpretation of this Bible verse, reminding us of the idea of baptism by fire and persecution that might lead to martyrdom, as if Paul were saying, “Why would people risk being baptized and dying for this faith if they didn’t believe they’d be resurrected again one day?” Henry offers the suggestion in a tentative manner, probably because he knew there was only a little contextual support for the idea.
John F. MacArthur is similarly tentative in his New Testament
Commentary, suggesting after much analysis that the verse could be read: “If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they
[many present Christians] baptized for [become believers because of the
testimony of] them
[deceased faithful believers]?” In this
sense, the verse demands to know why anyone would get baptized based on the
testimony of those who then got martyred, unless of course they really believed
what they were hearing about a resurrection.
I’m about to get really nerdy with words here, so you
can skip the blue text if you don’t care to tiptoe through linguistic geekdom: MacArthur is likely wrong
in this analysis, since he chooses to render the Greek term ὑπὲρ (hyper) “because of [the dead].”
Hyper is a tricky preposition to translate from koine, but it’s
probable that MacArthur’s idea would make sense only if the preposition were
followed by the accusative case of the nominative hoi nekroi (the dead). In this Bible verse, it isn’t. It’s followed by the genitive case, tōn
nekrōn. In that construction, most
Greek lexicons agree the preposition more strongly suggests the meaning of being physically “above”
something or, in its figurative use, “on behalf of,” “representative of,” or “instead
of” the dead. While “because of” is a
possible rendering, it’s generally a minority translation.
There we go, blue is all gone.
Sorry.
To MacArthur’s credit, he gives a much more thorough analysis of
the verse than can be gotten from Matt Slick, antagonistic bad-boy author of
the Carm.org apologetics web site. Slick weighs only a single viewpoint here, citing a source claiming baptism of the dead was a
nearby pagan practice. Actually, his
claim is that baptism for a better afterlife was a nearby pagan practice in a
religion mentioned in Homer over half a millennium earlier, without evidence of
it being "for the dead." It doesn’t occur
to Slick to ask why Paul, who is trying to encourage readers to believe in the
resurrection, would use as his example a pagan practice they shouldn’t believe
in. “Here’s a falsehood that proves this
truth,” Paul would be saying.
Other interpretations of “baptism hyper the dead” include:
· A practice by the Corinthian believers of being baptized for those who came to believe in Christ, but who died before they could partake in a formal baptism (mentioned by commentator Matthew Poole, although not favored by him);
· A practice of Corinthian ancestor baptism which Paul mildly opposed or considered harmless but which he decided to use as an example anyway – again, weak because of the idea of using a falsehood to support a truth (discussed by theologian and writer Dan Doriani here).
· The practice of waiting until being on one’s deathbed to get baptized, being "as good as dead" (a practice out of place, however, in the age of Paul, discussed in the grandiosely titled commentary Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible);
· The idea that “the dead” here meant the Messiah, referring to "the dead One" as plural in the sense of the royal “We,” with believers baptized for His (Their?) sake (an imaginative rendering mentioned in Barnes’ Notes, without Barnes giving it any credulity);
· A reference to Hebrew body-washing rituals for the newly dead, using the more generic "washing" interpretation of baptízontai I talked about earlier (found in three of the commentators mentioned above: Barnes, Poole, and Gill).
So, who’s right? I’m going to make a bold assertion here: We don’t know and we likely never will. I realize it’s odd to speak with such certainty about an uncertainty. And I’d be more than happy to be proved wrong by a new discovery in some Asia Minor cave with ancient scrolls entitled “How My Corinthian Pals and I Baptized People for the Dead and Why We Did It.” An openness and willingness to grasp other ideas does me good. My research this month led me to appreciate those like John MacArthur and Dan Doriani who are willing to make their best guesses but who, unlike Matt Slick, don’t speak with absolute conviction about a single conclusion.
WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO SECOND LIFE
So, what is it that makes me hesitant about virtual-world
baptisms? Am I just being judgy because it seems different to me, a little unorthodoxed, or is there something deeper that concerns me
about it?
I guess I don’t trust
virtual communities to be actual, durable communities. I’m wrong to feel that way in some cases,
since I know several churches in Second Life where the congregants have direct
connections with the pastors, able to reach them by phone, even to visit them
in real life. Sometimes, the pastors
really are pastors, too, ordained and serving congregations in the real world.
So I suppose I have questions for those other SL pastors:
- Why are you baptizing this avatar? Does the real-life person behind the avatar not have access to a real-world church? Is that why they came to you?
- Where do they go now? Do you know where they can connect with other Christians in real life? Can you direct them to a nearby congregation for church fellowship?
- Is this virtual baptism performative? Are you doing it because it’s a cool expression of your virtual pastorship, displaying for all to see that you’re digitally legit? How much Self is in your Service?
- What discipling comes next? Are you starting on a new path, side-by-side with this new believer, taking them under your wing in a Priscilla & Aquila manner to teach them The Way?
- Three months from now, will you even know where the person you baptized is?
Organizing my questions like that reveals my true concerns to
me. No, I guess I don’t care whether the
water’s real. Water baptism is a symbol. It's a symbol of spiritual
death and resurrection into new life, and when it’s in Second Life, it’s a
symbol of the symbol. It’s accepting the
resurrection of Christ and the salvation His death opens to us that matters to
me, not whether the baptism is by sprinkling, pouring, immersing, submerging,
or even by pixelized plunking. We’re not
baptized to get saved, we’re baptized because we’re saved (oops, I’m
revealing my Anabaptist leanings there; sorry, Luther).
Here's the rub: We’re baptized into a community, demonstrating
that we’re joining that community. Yes,
baptism is a metaphor, but it reflects the reality of becoming a part of the
body of Christ. How much of a body is SL? If I’m in Second Life,
you can’t hug me after my baptism, not really.
You can’t lay hands on me in blessing or join your hands with mine in prayer. You can’t sit next to me warmly, being quiet
by my side when neither of us has the words to pray as we ought.
We are Body, and we join Body through baptism. But a digital world is dispersed. If our hand is in Los Angeles and our head is
in Detroit, our knees in Paris and our eyeballs in Zurich … then what kind of Body
are we? Better asked, what kind of Body am
I baptizing you into if I'm your digital pastor? Am I telling you, “We’re
your church now! Welcome to the
Body! You’re a detached leg, but you’re
fine. You don’t need the rest of us parts
nearby. God bless, brother!”
So I return to the question I opened with, slightly modified: If
you’re at home, alone in your room, and staying completely dry while you watch
your avatar go through scripted motions, are you really being joined to the
Body of Christ?
Or are you one lone part, cut off from the other parts, all spread
around the world with no real connection, no physical joining, scattered
carnage pretending to be alive?
Did they baptize you, really?
Or were they simply baptizing pieces? Baptizing the dead?
Marana Tha,
YoYo Rez / Yolanda Ramírez
