Baptism & Identity
As a follow-up to my earlier post, here’s some more about identity and “the real me,” this time from Peter Leithart’s very enjoyable Against Christianity:
Many Christians say we cannot be sure that anything has changed once someone is baptized. What are we saying? In baptism, God marks me as His own, with His name. God makes me a member of His household, the Church. If we say nothing important has happened we are suggesting that we have some identity that is more fundamental than God’s name for us, some self that is beyond God’s capacity to claim and name.
“Of course,” we object, “God says I am in His family, a son, but I’m really something else.” That is a most egregious claim to autonomy: I yam who I yam regardless of who God says I yam.
It may turn out, of course, that God’s final name for a baptized person is “prodigal son” (pp. 91-92).