(See Cover) The deacon raised his hand, and Publius Decius stepped through the baptistry door. Standing waist-deep in the pool was Marcus Vasca the wood-seller. He was smiling as Publius waded into the pool beside him. "Credis . . . ?" he asked.
"Credo," responded Publius. "I believe that my salvation comes from Jesus the Christ, Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate. With Him I die that with Him I may have Eternal Life." Then he felt strong arms supporting him as he let himself fall backward into the pool, and heard Marcus' voice in his ear—"I baptize you in the Name of the Lord Jesus"—as the cold water closed over him.
Gasping for breath, Thomas Dewey Davis, Jr., 25, of 6757 Dartmouth Avenue, Richmond, came up into the light and air again. He stood waist-deep in the electrically heated water of the tiled, floodlit baptismal pool. Above him was a stained-glass window showing Christ and John the Baptist. Next to him in the pool stood a friendly-looking, greying man—the Rev. Theodore Floyd Adams of Richmond's First Baptist Church. There was organ music, and then both the pastor and the new Christian went to change into dry clothes.
Between these two baptisms—in Rome, A.D. 100, and in the U.S. last week—stretch nearly 20 centuries of Christian history. Through holy wars and heresies, corruptions and reforms, the triumphs of saints and the victories of skeptics, the little company of faithful has spread across the world. Christians have given themselves strange names and have worshiped the Father, Son and Holy Ghost with commissions and omissions that would have shocked Rome's primitive Christians. The big brick church on Richmond's statue-stippled Monument Avenue, where Thomas Davis was baptized last week, would not look to Publius like a church at all. But the ceremony was the same, and the first-century Christian, generally unaware of baptism by sprinkling or pouring, would likely feel at home at the immersion ceremony of the Baptists.
For Baptists try hard to carry on the faith and practice of primitive Christianity. To them, adult baptism is not merely a quaint traditional rite; it sharply points to their conviction that the Christian faith can be accepted only by one who can think and speak for himself.* Similarly, insistence on baptism by immersion, as it is presented in the Bible, fulfills the twin symbolism of washing from sin and of death and rebirth, as well as pointing to the Baptists' conviction that Scripture is the complete and sufficient basis of the Christian faith. Orthodox Christian tradition regards the church as the institution established on earth by Christ to receive continuous revelation, but to Baptists the church is merely a fellowship of individual believers, no one of whom has any spiritual authority over another. Each individual is essentially free to interpret Scripture for himself.
Thus the Baptists mark probably the sharpest dividing line in Christendom.