Oops, Brian McLaren has a lovely typographical error on page 226 of A Generous Orthodoxy. In talking about Baptism and its variants he observes in brackets...
This.. does not take into account various modes of baptism, such as full immersion, infusion or pouring, or sprinkling.
Infusion? That's what you do with tea leaves/bags! I'm pretty sure he means affusion, and that this isn't a Transatlantic shift in meaning. Try as might, I cannot think how to make infusion as a method of Baptism work - immersion looks the same outwardly but the meaning would be quite different.
Made me smile anyway.
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I remember being told years ago that the verb 'baptizo' was used to describe the state of a dyed garment or a a sunken ship - something that is not only dipped and submerged, but also thoroughly suffused and soaked through, like a sponge - and therefore could equally well have been applied to a tea bag - if of course first century Mediterranean culture had possessed them.
Far more erudite Greek scholars - of whom, unfortunately, you know at least one - will be very well placed to contradict me.
But B McLaren may inadvertently be quite right. That's presumably why, according to Senoj Werdna, the technical term in 16th century Hungarian Anabaptist circles was to 'dunk' someone (I think that's still the technical term, isn't it?). All we need do now is debate at what stage liturgically milk and sugar may be added and whether it's only anglo-catholics who crook their little fingers during rites of initiation.
More tea anyone?