The spiritual significance of water: baptism, wild swimming and nature spirituality

ABSTRACT

In the context of continuing decline in the numbers of people seeking baptism in the Church of England, this article will explore the sacrament of baptism from a novel angle. Baptism will be explored through a subjective and integrated focus on water. Human experience of water will be put into conversation with the theology and practice of baptism, through subjects as diverse as theology, ecology, nature writing, liturgical studies, and church history. The study has implications for how baptisms are conducted and the mission of the church.

KEYWORDS:

• Baptism
• mission
• ecology
• sacraments
• creation

Introduction

This article explores the sacrament of baptism through a deep focus on how water is experienced in daily life. The intention is to weave human stories of encounter with water into a rich conversation with the traditions of the church, in relation to the inherited understandings and practice of baptism. Anderson and Foley (2001) have written about the need for a close relationship between narrative and ritual. They assert that ‘the standard public rituals in churches are often ceremonies without stories – ritual that has become disconnected from peoples’ lives’ (2001, x).

The wider context for this article is that numbers coming forward for infant and adult baptism in the Church of England have continued to decline (from 142,000 in 2005 to 59,000 in 2021; see Eames 2021, 15). The church necessarily reflects on how to reverse that decline. One response is to recognise that the gap between the church’s language and practice, and peoples’ lived experience has become too wide. In order to weave human story and the church’s tradition together, I draw on wide-ranging subject areas, from liturgical and church architectural history, theology, nature writing, contemporary trends, like wild swimming, and my own personal experiences. The theological method is perhaps best described as a form of ‘bricolage’ – something constructed from a diverse range of things. This is necessary because experience is diverse; as an Anglican priest I’ve baptized many babies, I also swim outdoors, I read contemporary non-fiction nature writing, study theology, have children who love to play in water and so on. I want to find ways of enabling the church’s rituals and gifts to make abiding connections with the reality of lived experiences, as they do in my own life.

Preliminary meanderings

I have one especially significant early memory of water and that was of being in the swimming pool when I was very young, not yet walking. I can remember the feel of my mother’s warm skin as I held onto her. The warmth and safety of my mother’s arms reassured me, contrasting with the cool and fluid water that lapped around me: I felt safe and warm against the wet touch of water. I’ve always loved swimming; when I was a slightly older toddler, we visited Germany on a family holiday and I have this vivid memory of desire: we stood outside a water park and I was just desperate to go in, but I was told I was too young. The water park to me was paradise, it offered all I was longing for, but I couldn’t reach it.

These memories make me consider the language we use for our experiences of water and how water communicates to us through our senses. What does it feel like to be in water? In water we feel weightless, and this enables us to have a different relationship with our body – we are no longer carriers of our own weight, but we are free to move and therefore think differently. Learning to swim is a rite of passage for the majority of children in the UK and it gives access to a whole new world of exploration and entertainment. Water, amongst other things, is good fun. Nonetheless, water is also dangerous. Water is a place of loss and death; stories of summer drownings and the danger of the sea provide a counter-narrative of risk to the opportunity for fun that water-play also provides. We experience our bodies in a different way when we are in water, and we normally experience water naked or semi-naked. The experience of being naked in water connects us with our earliest bodily memories in the womb. Water is hugely significant in the process of birth: waters break, and new life comes forth.

Baptism rituals have long utilized the relationship between water and birth, risk and death. For this reason, baptism can be an invitation to explore ideas of rebirth and transformation. Furthermore, the invitation includes with it a ritual which is performative: the ritual of baptism involves participation and commitment. The blessing of the water in the baptism liturgy invites the participant to understand the ritual action as both a death and a birth, and in some ways to enact that death and birth through immersion in water.

We thank you, Father, for the water of baptism.

In it we are buried with Christ in his death.

By it we share in his resurrection.

Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit. […]

Now sanctify this water that, by the power of your Holy Spirit,

They may be cleansed from sin and born again.

(Archbishop’s Council 2006, 87)

Roger Deakin’s book Waterlog, A swimmer’s journey through Britain helps with developing an experiential understanding of water for today. In the book Deakin describes swimming in a huge variety of wild places. He comments:

To swim is to experience how it was before you were born. Once in the water, you are immersed in an intensely private world as you were in the womb. These amniotic waters are both utterly safe and yet terrifying, for at birth anything could go wrong, and you are assailed by all kinds of unknown forces over which you have no control (2000, 3)

In so doing, he echoes some of the themes already raised, especially the dialectic between birth and death, opportunity and risk. It was perhaps this dialectic that I was encountering in my mother’s arms in the swimming pool: the formational experience was teaching me already about the risks and opportunities of independence. Baptism has the potential, if approached imaginatively and exploratively, to open up these areas for discussion and reflection.

Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious according to Jung (1969: para 40). He connects water to miracle, healing, mystery and the spirit:

Man’s descent to the water is needed in order to evoke the miracle of its coming to life. But the breath of the spirit rushing over the dark water is uncanny, like everything whose cause we do not know – since it is not ourselves. It hints at an unseen presence, a numen to which neither human expectations nor the machinations of the will have given life. (Jung 1969, para 35)

Water is both a place of opportunity and a place of potential fear, representing an ‘other’ which we do not know. The passage has overtones of the creation narrative from Genesis, in which the spirit hovers over the waters (Gen. 1:1-2). Water is revealed to be deeply resonant with meaning and to have a significant role within the human psyche; water is not just a commodity or instrument for human use but has intrinsic worth and value.

In her transdisciplinary study of water, Mc Anally (2017, 21) proposes an approach to the study of water which she calls an ‘integral water ethic’. She argues that water is of intrinsic value and that cultivating an attitude of love towards water enables an integrated approach, one which avoids anthropocentrism and resists the commodification and abuse of water. She comments: ‘relating to water in an integral mode entails acknowledging that water has not only exterior, objective dimensions but also interior and objective qualities’ (2017, 21).

The earliest surviving treatise (turn of the third century) on the subject of baptism begins as a defense of the substance of water. This, surely, has implications for the way water is presented and used within baptisms. Written by Tertullian, it begins with consideration of the ‘sacred significance of water’, establishing, against the doubters, that water is sufficiently significant in God’s act of creation, to warrant its use in the washing away of sins in baptism (trans by, Evans 1964, 5–6). Tertullian’s conversation partner is a member of the ‘Cainite sect’ who is seeking to demolish baptism on account of the insignificance of water. Similarly, to Naaman, who doubted Elisha because his suggested cure for leprosy seemed too simple (washing seven times in the river Jordan, cf. 2 Kgs. 5:10), Tertullian’s opponent appears to argue that the rite of baptism is too simple and plain to carry with it the work of salvation. We do not have the woman’s argument, only Tertullian’s account of it:

So in this case too, because with such simplicity, without display, without any unusual equipment, and (not least) without anything to pay, a man is sent down into the water, is washed to the accompaniment of very few words and comes up little or no cleaner than he was, his attainment to eternity is regarded as beyond belief. (trans by, Evans 1964, 5)

Tertullian’s theological response is an important early marker concerning the place and role of baptism within Christianity. Tertullian calls the followers of Jesus ‘little fishes’ and Jesus Christ our ‘great Fish’, connecting our watery pre-birth experience in the womb to the significance of water in God’s act of creation (1964, 6). His argument, more generally, is that the significance of water in God’s act of creation, specifically revealed through the Spirit hovering over the waters (Gen. 1.1.2) means reverence to water is appropriate and necessary;far from water being too domestic, it played and continues to play a hugely significant role in creation as the resting place of God. He writes:

You are bound, my friend, to have in reverence first the antiquity of waters, that they are an ancient thing, and the honour done them, that they are the resting place of the Spirit of God, more pleasing to him at that time than the other elements. (1964, 7)

This early theological treatise on baptism affirms matter as being the instrument through which and by which God blesses and redeems. Water is considered to be the resting place of the spirit and it is affirmed that God blesses through matter. This is a significant doctrinal marker in the history of theological thinking. Did this have an impact on normative practice for baptism in the early centuries of the church?

An early tributary

Within the early church, it appears that the ritual of baptism was more elaborate than normative practice in the Church of England today. Early baptism rituals would employ the language of water and its symbolism in the ritual to maximum effect. Postulants would enter the water naked, be fully immersed, and when they emerged would be clothed in white. Such an experience, which ran from Good Friday to Holy Saturday evening, would truly evoke and enact a journey, one through which the symbolism of new birth and new life could not be lost ( Waal 2009, 44–53).

Triple, full immersion baptism was most likely the norm, even if it was not required, to make a baptism legitimate in the early centuries of the church’s practice. The Didache, (first or second century) assumes cold running water but gives permission for alternatives and endorses pouring water on the head three times in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (trans by., Ehrman 2003, 429). The earliest archaeological evidence for a baptistery was found in an adapted house church in Dura Europos (modern day Syria) c.240 but was destroyed by the Persians in 256. Ferguson argues that the font was large enough for full immersion baptism (2009, 440). It took around the first four centuries until baptisteries were a regular part of church architecture. The assumption being that prior to this, baptisms took place in rivers, lakes, and the sea as seems to be the pattern as recorded in scripture, (see Acts 6:36-38 and 16:13-15).

As late as the sixteenth century in England, the triple immersion of infants in baptism was prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer (1549). Infants are to be ‘dipped thrice’ unless they are sickly. Buchanan argues that reformers had inherited from the Middle Ages, the practice of infant baptism, which was heavily reliant on the Augustinian doctrine of original sin (Buchanan 2015, 90). Yet, by 1552, the requirement to only dip once replaced the 1549 prescription of triple dipping (Buchanan 2015). According to Buchanan, major revision was only to come from the 1950s, and this included the re-emergence of submersion in baptism. He writes:

Submersion has reappeared, particularly as there has been a growth in building baptismal tanks into the fabric in new church buildings. Lesser ceremonies (such as the giving of a candle, anointing, or clothing in a white robe) have also been introduced in many places. (2015, 92)

A renewed interest in the power of the experiential, certainly chimes with earlier interpretations of the sacrament. The significant ‘Flood Prayer’ composed by Martin Luther, which is still used in the Book of Common Prayer, alludes to Noah and the flood; Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan and comments on the sanctification of all waters: ‘and by the baptism of thy well-beloved Son Jesus Christ, in the river Jordan, did sanctify Water to the mystical washing away of sin’ (Book of Common Prayer 2004, 264). Water, immersion and God’s prior action through Biblical history are formational markers in a proper theological understanding of baptism.

Early pictorial evidence reveals how baptism was framed by Jesus’ naked, outdoor baptism. Jesus’ baptism, depicted in a sixth-century mosaic in the Arian baptistery, Ravenna (see image, below) personifies the River Jordan who sits on Jesus’ left with John the Baptist on the right. In the picture, Jesus is naked, and his baptism is occurring in the natural world. Even though Arianism was denounced as heresy for its denial of the full divinity of Christ, the early image affirms the way in which the Biblical story was represented and understood at the time. This is far removed from the Anglican practice of indoor baptism of an infant in a font, fully dressed.

Furthermore, such an image gives meaning to the natural landscape through personification. The river has an identity and a personality, such conceptualisation is a counterbalance to the commodification of water as a raw material in the English economy. Like St Francis’ Canticle to Brother Sun in which the elements of God’s creation are personified, bodies of water are shown in such imagery to be holy and sacred in and of themselves, not the mere backdrop to human activity and concerns. St Francis’ verse from the Canticle to the Creatures, about sister water, might be a useful quote to accompany baptism services: ‘All Praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water, So useful, lowly, precious and pure’ (trans by, Armstrong and Brady 1982, 38-39).

The gradual movement from outdoors to indoors, from river to font in the practice of baptism in the history of the church has led, in my view, to the diminishment of the sacrament as a potent rite of passage into new life:water is hardly experienced at all. Moreover, it is experienced in the sanitized way through which water has come to be encountered in western, post-industrial democracies, through indoor taps, not from springs, wells, lakes, or rivers (Mayhew-Smith's Britain's Holiest Places reveals the importance of holy wells and springs to an earlier, British spirituality, 2011).

At a time of ecological crisis, making connections between human lived experience and the significance of non-human matter is essential. Water is not simply a commodity, but a gift of God in creation. Indeed, Berry talks of the universe as a ‘communion of subjects, not a collection of objects’, adding that, ‘the devastation of the planet can be seen as a direct consequence of the loss of this capacity for human presence to and reciprocity with the non-human world’ (2006, 17–18). Sacraments reinforce the redeemed nature of the whole of creation and thus invite us to reconsider our own corrupted relationship to the created order.

Another tributary

Making connections between lived experience and the rituals of the church is essential for an integrated theological and ecclesiological outlook. It has also been argued that it is important for a renewed ecological perspective. Deakin’s book on wild swimming, interestingly, makes a link between swimming outdoors and baptism, in a chapter in his book about the river Lark. He comments that the Lark was known as the Jordan because so many people came to be baptized in it by total immersion (2000, 64). Famously, these are the waters into which the nineteenth-century Particular Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon was baptized in. Spurgeon’s experience of his full immersion, outdoor baptism is significant: he focuses on his sensory experiences. He writes: ‘the wind blew with a cutting blast’; he notes the ‘people on the ferry-boat, and in boats on either shore’ who become the witnesses of his conversion. He continues: ‘My timidity washed away [..] it must have been devoured by the fishes […] I have never felt anything of the kind since’ (Spurgeon 2017, para 4).

Sweeney argues that rituals require a spectator or observer (2010, 18). Spurgeon appears to relish the way that his baptism is observed. An outdoor context creates a dramatic scene that can be observed by passers-by, more public than if it were happening in a church building. Notice, too, how Spurgeon’s baptism experience is framed by activity on and near the water: wind blowing and chilling his skin; people gathered near and far in boats and on the shore; a visceral feeling of sins being washed away and recognition of the presence of other life forms, like fish. How much of that experience was dependent on the location and context for his baptism? What extra meaning and reality did the encounter with a real body of water, in an actual landscape, add to his spiritual conversion? The testimony of his own words suggests it added important sensory experience, heightening the symbolism and power of the ritual.

John the Baptist was an eccentric wilderness figure who first appears, saying: ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness’ (Jn. 1.23). As a Nazirite, John the Baptist didn’t cut his hair or drink alcohol, and it was noted that he wore unusual clothing and ate wild food (Mt. 3.4). Nonetheless, the people flock to him; gathering by the side of the river Jordan – waiting to be immersed in the water that was flowing and to see their sins washed away (Mt. 3:5). The connection with Spurgeon’s outdoor baptism and John the Baptist’s outdoor baptism is evident, moreover, it was there, with John, by John, that Jesus appeared, consenting willingly to participate in this river ritual. It was in this moment, outdoors, naked in the river, as he was coming up from the water, that a voice from heaven spoke and declared ‘This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well-pleased’ (Mt. 3.17). As he comes up from the water, the Spirit, ‘descending like a dove’ alights on him, echoing the hovering of the Spirit over the waters at creation.

In the orthodox tradition, the Great Blessing of the Waters ceremony takes place on the Feast of the Theophany, January 6th, a festival which celebrates the revealing of the Holy Trinity at Christ’s baptism. Mayhew-Smith comments that the liturgy is commonly held outside using natural water by a river, holy well, lake or even the sea (2021, 101). This means that the church’s liturgy is part of the natural geography of people’s lives. Moreover, he says:

From the earliest church onwards, great emphasis has been placed on the significance of Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan. Jesus, the Son of God, is without sin, yet undergoes a ritual of repentance. This seeming paradox is resolved with the interpretation that this moment embodies Jesus’ full descent into the created world, the Creator God entering into and operating across all levels of creation, blessing and sanctifying the very elements of the universe. (2021, 101)

Jesus’ baptismal experience located in creation (the river Jordan) is interpreted here as being essential to the saving action of Jesus Christ, not just for human beings, but for the whole of creation. This adds an additional perspective on baptism: Jesus is baptised as a sign that the whole of creation is restored through his birth and therefore in the baptism of each individual there is a reminder of the promise of the restoration of the whole cosmos made in Jesus Christ, ‘for the creation was subjected to futility […] in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God’ (Rom. 8.20-21). This shifts the emphasis in baptism away from personal, individual salvation, to the redemption of the whole created order. This is significant and especially relevant in our current context of ecological crisis. The presence of the Spirit descending upon Jesus as he is coming up from the water represents the idea of the re-creation of the world, through him.

Jesus’ baptism can be seen, therefore, as signifying the re-creation of the cosmos. Jesus’ willingness to be baptised ‘to fulfil all righteousness’ (Mt. 3:15), suggests wider theological significance. What is the righteousness that is being fulfilled through his baptism? One possible interpretation is that his descent into the waters of baptism, is a performance of his redeeming action for the whole of creation. Locating baptisms today in natural settings makes connections between personal baptism and Jesus’ role in restoring the cosmos. Moreover, outdoors, spectators might appear. Ideally, an observer is not a detached one, but one who ‘is compelled to respond thereby perpetuating the action initiated and also validating that action’ (Sweeney 2010,18). We recall, again, that ‘the people of all Judea and all Jerusalem’ were going out to John to be baptised (Mt. 3:5). The outdoor stage is one that invites participation – whereas the indoor church liturgy can feel exclusive, set up for those who’ve previously consented. Outdoors, the stage doors are thrown open and the full implication of baptism in its role of pointing towards the telos of the whole of creation is signified.

An upsetting accident

Deakin records that, sadly, ‘the Isleham Baptists stopped immersing people in the river because by 1972 it had become too polluted’ (2000, 65). He goes on to describe an industrial pollution accident, at which the sugar factory of Bury St Edmunds leaked toxic effluent into the river Lark, poisoning the water downstream and killing everything in it (66–67). This one instance of water becoming too polluted to function as a site for total immersion baptism, challenges a view of redemption which focuses solely on the human being. Humans live in relationship to the whole created order; our redemption is deeply connected to the renewal and restoration of all living things. Locating baptism in flowing water in the countryside makes the point clearly. Christians find that seeking to clean, care for, and love creation isn’t an add-on to the faith but at the heart of what they believe. Mc Anally makes the argument that developing a sacramental consciousness through baptism can lead to reverential care for water (2017, 52).

Such corruption of water is highly relevant and is not an isolated example of an unfortunate industrial accident, but rather, a larger ecological tragedy. In 2020 the Guardian reported that ‘all English rivers failed to meet quality tests for pollution’ (The Guardian, 2020, para 1). The British government recognizes the increase in water pollution ‘incidents’ (The Guardian, 2020, para 6). Polluted water is a political, ethical and spiritual issue. Water is a symbol of purity, a spiritual sign of both cleansing and healing worldwide, as well as being a necessity for both cleansing and life itself- its use and misuse is a moral outrage, a sin against the sanctity of life. Agricultural waste, the dumping of raw sewage and the failure of regulators to hold businesses to account require a robust political response. There is, too, a theological task of making connections between the human, daily experience of water and its spiritual dimension. Sacraments and liturgy play a powerful and symbolic role in our religious imaginations, affirming what we believe about the world we inhabit. Yet, to do so, they must be visible, understood, and integrated into people’s lives.

Sweeney (2010, 19) argues that ‘ritual studies make clear that in order to converse with a ritual classic we must listen with our embodied selves, our social, political, emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical selves’. Sweeney takes the idea of a ritual classic from David Tracy, who argues that a classic has ‘an excess and permanence of meaning’ (2010, 7). Sweeney (2010, 7) writes that the

gesture of imposition of ashes continues to be able to communicate to changing generations something of the reality of what it means to live as finite beings who are paradoxically gifted to be able to imagine a reality beyond our finitude.

Baptism is undoubtedly, to the Christian community, a ritual classic. Nonetheless, the Church of England has continued to see decline in the numbers coming forward for baptism. If the ritual is no longer able to communicate, how might the classic be re-imagined?

Sandra Millar (2018) has led some research for the Church of England on baptism, written up in the book Life Events. Mission and Ministry at Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals. The research makes some recommendations in relation to changing practice, the ‘top ten things to put into action’, including: ‘use of the language of christening (rather than baptism), talk with parents about their faith, review approach to baptism preparation, big up the godparents, and send invitations’ (Millar 2018, 81–82). Only one of the top ten recommendations mentions the symbols used during the service and it does encourage giving the symbols ‘drama’.

Grummet argues that liturgists tend to focus on language, words and explanation, rather than silence and ritual action (2016, 4). The Church of England research on baptism aligns with this analysis, as it focuses on language, words, and explanation. Changing language, re-packaging the church’s approach, and focusing on explanation will inevitably help churches engage with some local families; it is unlikely to have a deeper impact. My argument is that different questions need to be asked about the decline in the number of people coming forward for baptisms. The point is, rituals will only remain ‘classics’, if the symbols being used continue to have meaning. Water is fundamental to baptism, and it is water that is the primary carrier of spiritual meaning – it also has the benefit of being a common necessity of daily life. Focusing in an integrated way on how water is experienced and treated in our own contexts might enable deeper political, spiritual, and moral connections to be made. What are the opportunities for making connections with the baptism ritual and people’s lived experiences?

Jumping in

Deakin connects baptism with wild swimmingin his book on wild swimming, discussed above. Re-engagement with natural environments and prioritizing outdoor experiences is a developing part of British culture. The BBC reported that during the pandemic the Outdoor Swimming Society saw membership increased by 36% in 2020 and North Pembrokeshire-based Bluetits Chill Swimmers gained 8,000 new Facebook followers in one year (BBC 2021, para 8). The rise in interest in being out in nature was intensified by the pandemic experience and was a catalyst for a renewed interest in local environments which is persisting.

A quick search on the internet reveals a number of articles about spirituality, water, and swimming. Taylor (2022, para 5) explores the spirituality of water, quoting Fitzmaurice, a writer, who comments that swimming, ‘was the closest I’ve come to feeling my own soul’. Water, swimming, spirituality, and recovery from traumatic events combine in these contemporary writings. Sarancino (no author, 2017, para 5) a professor of religion, who turned to swimming after knee surgery, found that swimming raised all sorts of spiritual questions. Echoing Jung’s work, quoted above, she asks: ‘Spiritually, is God like this aquatic “other” with which we are called to engage? An entity that pushes and pulls on us, and that we have to learn how to navigate?’

Sweeney, in her ecofeminist study of Ash Wednesday, comments that ‘body is the basic element of power relations; therefore, women and men do not necessarily receive the same knowledge from a ritual gesture’ (2010, 18). Whilst Deakin’s romp through the English waterways and seas is largely playful, explorative, masterful, and individual, women’s explorations appear more complex, related to pain and healing, physical scars, and communal connection. This suggests that being attentive to power relations within the dynamic of ritual and spirituality is important.

In her book Wintering, Katherine May charts her own journey from mental breakdown to recovery through the seasons of the year. The healing rhythms of the natural cycle of the year offer to the author a way through her troubles. During winter, she joins a crowd who have a New Year swim in the sea at Whitstable. She writes about Dorte who struggles with bipolar disorder and for whom swimming has changed her life. She says: ‘While I’m in the water, I’m just laughing and laughing. All my automatic thoughts switch off, and I’m just in the water’ (May 2020, 209). Being in the water enables her to live in the moment, to simply be, not concerned with the past or the future. This is not just a therapeutic practice that keeps the symptoms at bay: ‘I feel like I’ve been cured’, she says and goes on to describe what that means for her in her daily life (2020, 209). Water, swimming, and community coalesce to reveal how healing and spiritual meaning are located for these women not in the buildings of religious institutions where historically women’s bodies have been highly policed, but in generous outdoor spaces that God has gifted for all.

In Wanderland. A Search for Magic in the Landscape, Jini Reddy (2020) is seeking water, but in contrast to the experiences just mentioned, hers is a personal and individual journey. Reddy tells an amusing tale of her own first aborted attempt to locate the spring, but, when she does find it, she is euphoric and takes a quick naked dip. She weaves in the history of the place (grounds of an eighth-century church), with tales of St Helen and her healing powers, with appeals to nymphs, dryads, and the ancient wisdom of the poet Rumi. She writes:

I’m not a strong swimmer or a wild swimmer, but those times when I’ve waded into a river or stood under a waterfall on trips away, I’ve felt euphoric. A swim-just as long as my feet can touch the bottom-always leaves me feeling lighter in spirit, like I’m reborn’ (2020, 47).

Reddy is narrating an encounter with water in a natural landscape that enables her to experience a sense of rebirth and lightness; it is an experience which helps define who she is, gives her meaning and lifts her above or beyond everyday emotions, which include euphoria and a feeling of being ‘lighter in spirit’. There are obvious connections with the symbolism and meaning of baptism.

On the pioneering edges of Anglican practice there is recognition of the potential point of connection between communal wild swimming and spirituality. Jo Lorimer (2018), wild swimmer and ordinand says that she goes swimming in a mixed group of Christian and non-Christians, and that the group is happy for each to share their own truths, for her that means sharing scripture with her swimming friends. The Rev’d Kate Bottley (2019, 343–344), similarly, has written about ‘wild swimming as an individual and corporate spiritual practice’ in which she describes her own experience joining a wild swimming club. She writes about how the trio of swimmers formed in an ad hoc way (a chance conversation and via social media); how each person’s tragedies and struggles form the broader context of their shared water experiences (Sally was orphaned at age five; Helen has experiences of tragic bereavement and works in end-of-life care); as well as the intimacy that has been developed between them, bodily as well as emotional (stretch marks and scars). She concludes her reflection by describing how on the feast of the Baptism of Christ she immersed herself in the waters three times.

As I came up from the water the third time, they both looked at me and burst out laughing, I don’t think any of us was quite sure why, but like the cold water swimming itself, some things can be spoilt by too much explanation, it’s best just to let the river take you. (Bottley, 2019, 344)

Bottley affirms how too much explanation can detract from the immediate power of the experience. The communal wild swimming creates a deep bond and one that Bottley was able to connect, intuitively, to her own Christian faith and to baptism.

Bron Taylor (2010, 3) has written extensively on the difference between nature spirituality and religion; he comments on the way in which religion and spirituality are often used colloquially, with religion suggesting organised and institutional religious belief and practice, whilst spirituality is seen to be about personal values and experience. He argues that the world’s predominant religions are generally concerned with transcending this world or obtaining divine rescue from it (2010, 3). My argument is that a proper sacramental understanding of water generates an integrated approach, which precisely avoids spiritualisation or ‘an escape from the world’ attitude. It is my contention that a more rooted, integrated ecological understanding of baptism has the potential to lead to reformed action in the baptised. How the church performs baptism has a profound impact on how baptism, as a sign, points to the restoration of all that has been made.

Conclusion

Natural formations of rock, the sea, animals, and long walks, are all the sites of discovery. The landscapes carry meaning. Encounters with ‘the divine’ mediated through nature are essential elements of the Old Testament stories from which monotheism grew. Whether it is Moses by the burning bush, or the rainbow as the sign of God’s covenant with all living things, Jacob’s dream at Bethel, or learning about Yahweh through the 40 years wondering in the wilderness, God is revealed in the creation which God has made. I’m intrigued and energised by the ways in which the contemporary trend to seek forms of healing and new birth in nature might challenge and provoke established religions (in my case Christianity) to rediscover a truly sacramental relationship to matter.

As such, in this article, I’ve argued that how water is experienced in people’s lives today, in context, must be understood and explored in order to make meaningful connections between baptism rituals and lived experience. Through a brief look at the changes in baptismal practice through the earliest stages of Christianity, I’ve argued that the symbolism of water has become diminished, as baptismal practice has moved indoors, from lake to font, from natural setting to church interior. Triple immersion baptisms still occur in some church traditions, but it is far from being the norm in my own Anglican tradition, and outdoor ones are even rarer. The current ecological crisis demands a Christian response that takes seriously the non-human world; sacraments provide a way of relating to the non-human world that affords it the highest possible status as the mediator of divine promise.

When taking baptisms in the parish, I bring in umbrellas, wellington boots, water bottles, rain jackets, and similar, in order to show that water is a common element in our experience. It is also one that is essential for life: without water we die. Jesus offers us a spiritual interpretation of water: ‘the water I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life’ (Jn. 4.14). My desire is to show how that hope is still active and meaningful to those I minister among today.

More work could be done on the resourcing of ministers and congregations to make deeper links between the ritual of baptism and people’s daily experiences of water. The opportunities of forest church and muddy church, which there has not been time to explore here, do point to innovative ways in which church worship is re-locating into outdoor environments. Such re-location reveals a desire to encounter God in the whole of creation. It suggests that a turn to creation might re-energise Christian language and symbolism, enabling it to speak to current and new generations.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.