So, this afternoon I trotted off to school to do RE with Year 4 - some sixty 8-9 year olds - for the last proper lesson of the day before 'golden time' (pah, in my day you just behaved because it was expected not to get to do fun things on Friday afternoons).  Anyway, it was fun, I like doing this session - ten minutes input on Baptism and then about 20 minutes of Q's and A's ranging for the sublime to the ridiculous.

So there we were, some practical questions like 'where do you go to get dry' and 'is the water warm or cold', some odd questions like 'what happens if you're doing a sea Baptism and there are crabs in the sea or a big wave comes along' and 'you know the three kings, did they find the Holy Grail and what happened to it' (que?) and then a stonking great theological one 'suppose you were baptised when you were, say, three, and then when you were older you decided for yourself that you wanted to be baptised, could you be?'

Er...

Excellent question.

My answer - it depends which church you are on because they have different rules.  If you are in a church that usually baptises babies, they would probably allow you to do something called 'reaffirming your vows' where you can make the same promises for yourself.  Also, they probably have something called Confirmation, which is a special service where you make the promises for yourself and someone like the Bishop puts their hands on your head and prays for you.  In churches like mine which think that people should choose to be baptised for themselves then yes, you could be baptised.

Do I score points for ecumenical sensitivity?  And would my Anglican/Methodist colleagues have said something similar or would they have said 'absolutely not!'?  Hmm.

There's always a joker in the class isn't there; in this case a young high Anglican/RC who had been to an ashing service at some point.  Because I'd begun with literal meanings of the word 'baptizeo' and the flippant concept of baptising biscuits in tea, and because in answer to a sensible question I'd spoken about 'towel bearers' he decided to say 'well, could you dip your biscuit in the tea, wrap it up in a little towel and then put ash on it?'  The teacher was not amused in the slightest.  I declined to answer because it was just a silly question (though secretly I found the image quite funny and at least he'd listened and taken in enough to construct it).

I suspect some of the children thought I wasn't a real 'reverend' because of the lack of black shirt and white dog collar (giggle giggle from the girl who told me that's what they wore) but I hope that they found some of it interesting.  I enjoyed the questions - sensible and silly - and the questions they imply for those of us whose calling is to think theologically.