Baptism has been placed firmly on the agenda of ecumenical theology by the Lima Report, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. It makes no attempt to resolve the question of baptismal origins, but judiciously summarizes the state of the debate: ‘While the possibility that infant baptism was practised in the apostolic age cannot be excluded, baptism upon personal profession of faith is the most clearly attested pattern in the New Testament documents’. The paucity of recent discussion of the beginnings of infant baptism may suggest that they are deemed insoluble, short of the discovery of new evidence. Theology, at any rate, may neither be able nor need to wait until historians of primitive Christianity reach a consensus. The possibility that infant baptism was practised relatively early, perhaps even in the New Testament Churches themselves, was no deterrent to Karl Barth's regarding it as theologically indefensible. Nevertheless, he could not ignore what he called ‘the brute fact of a baptismal practice which has become the rule in churches in all countries and in almost all confessions’, and he ventured his own explanation of the triumph of infant baptism and of the New Testament passages to which its advocates customarily appeal. His sharp critique of the tradition provoked a greater stir on the continent of Europe than in the English-speaking world. A fresh look at the historical question is certainly overdue, although its starting-point is bound to be the celebrated exchange between Joachim Jeremias and Kurt Aland of two decades ago. Ecumenical discussion, and in some Churches, ecumenical reality, call on both paedobaptists and credobaptists to examine the others' Practice with a new seriousness. In such a context the beginnings of the dominant tradition cannot healthily be left unscrutinised or treated as inscrutable.

The claim in recent years of a radical disjunction between the theologies of Calvin and the Calvinists has frequently come to focus on the seminal influence of Calvin's successor at Geneva, Theodore Beza. Scholars who have suggested Beza as the main culprit behind an increasing trend in sixteenth century Reformed theology to a rationalistic, scholastic, predestinarian rigidity include Ernst Bizer, Walter Kickel, Basil Hall, Brian G. Armstrong, Johannes Dantine, Edward A. Dowey Jun., John W. Beardslee III, and R. T. Kendall. Indeed, in order to appreciate Beza's significance we are compelled to see him in comparison with his great predecessor.

To reconcile the early chapters of the book of Genesis with the findings of science has been the self-appointed task of Christian apologists for generations. Indeed in our own day the much publicized manoeuvres of a militant creationist movement reveal just how vibrant the debate remains in some quarters about how to relate the book of Nature to the book of Scripture. Over the years numerous harmonizing strategies have been advanced and, once hatched, they have, like organisms, evolved and adapted to the intellectual climate in which they have found themselves. Among these, the gap theory (postulating a lengthy period of time between Genesis 1 verse 1 and 1 verse 2 into which the whole gamut of geological history can be squeezed), the day-age theory (interpreting the creative days as geological epochs), and the ‘days of revelation’ theory (seeing the Genesis week as successive days of divine disclosure) might be specified as concordist schemes whose fortunes have changed with the passing of time. For ideas, it is clear, no less than individuals, can enjoy social legitimation or suffer from the lack of it.

One of the most pressing tasks for the Christian theologian at the present time is the construction of a theology of the religions which can adequately account for the continuing diversity of religious belief and practice, and which offers a distinctively Christian approach to religious pluralism. In the last few decades this topic has increasingly commanded the attention of prominent writers (e.g. P. Tillich, W. Pannenberg, J. Moltmann). Not only has it become the subject of numerous monographs and articles, but it seems to have established itself as an indispensable theme within any comprehensive (systematic) presentation of the Christian Faith.

How does one properly account for the rise of theological ferment in the Third World, when so much of the theological activity in that region is so closely related to what happens (or fails to happen) in the First World? To what extent can the decisions of the Second Vatican Council, or the programs of the World Council of Churches, or the initiatives of the Mission Boards in North America, be given credit for the emergence of Third World theologies? Or how do we explain the paradox that in spite of two decades in the growth and development of local theologies in the Third World, much of the way in which Third World churches conduct their business and their worship still fails to reflect such developments? Who sets the priorities for theology in the Third World? What is the procedure for its validation and official acceptance? When does the local church know that it is safe to shift from the received tradition to the new tradition? All these are questions of farreaching significance, for they bear on the very heart of authentic Christianity as it is proclaimed and practised in the Third World. Third World Christians must determine for themselves when and how they will theologize in their own language, in which they were born (Acts 2.8). Third World theologians have stepped out in front and have taken some initiatives for themselves, and among themselves.

It is the year 1117 and the place is the little Church in the Orcadian Island of Egilsay. It is Easter and the Service is in progress. The people have heard the Epistle and Gospel, and now they are bringing their gifts to the old priest. The bread and wine is the sign of the giving of themselves; in an Orcadian writer's words: ‘With these they offer God everything that is theirs — their bunions, their jars of oil, bright hearthstones, the long nights they lie awake listening to the sea on the rocks when the fishermen are out’. Says the priest, ‘Will it be, perhaps, that one or two of these same earthy people will be quickened, that the green shoot and the golden stalk will soar out of their brutishness, fit ones for the threshing floors of purgatory? Doubtless. All of them, I pray. For this we were born. … Once more I have done it. What seems to be impossible has happened. The Body and the Blood of Our Lord lie on the altar before me. It is accomplished. The church is drowned in a terrible and beautiful silence. … God is come among us. Our little gifts of bread and wine he returns to us loaded with blessing and beauty and peace and love and glory illimitable. Ecce Agnus Dei. Himself he gives to us. … And so now when I bless the people of Egilsay at the end of the Mass, I bless him in particular whose face is as bright and as doomed as a stone with spring sunlight on it that the builders will soon gather into a new wall.