On “Living Water”: A Baptismal Practical Theology for a Time of Water Crisis

Abstract

Just as baptism holds within it the possibility and even promise of life, new birth, suffering, and death, so too does its ordinary element of water: in it is the full, embodied, and vulnerable reach of life and death. In the waters of baptism is the promise of new life, but not a life absent suffering, risk, or moral complexity. This essay presents a baptismally-grounded practical theological reflection upon the precarious status of baptism’s central element, water, in a time of extreme weather, economic exploitation, and depleting stores of fresh water.