Our Rebaptisms
The last-half of August we had the return visit of RLDS (JCRB) elders, Patrick & James McKay. Last year’s round was about the same time– close to our trip to the old Brannanite colony of New Hope, an area today known as New Jerusalem, near Ripon CA. Since then, we’ve been impressed by the elders’ labors– the distance they travel as well as their keeping contact. After a string of lessons in Protestant churches, we felt our institutions are probably dead (partly causing the closing of our western missionary diocese, plus recent loss or out-migration of friends). So, my wife and I were rebaptized out of the old and into the new dispensation.
Knowing the character of many Christian sects, we searched for what may be lacked: hearing so many good things about center-place in Missouri, believing there are certain precious truths to be had in the book of Mormon (nothing contrary to the KJV or RSV), and feeling jealous for the simplicity of the Gospel. Rspecially my wife who came from the mainline Episcopal Church, we felt as if an ordinance long deficient was completed or, for me, gained further assurance (say, conditional baptism) midst otherwise a wilderness situation. Yea, while into no particular organization, it seemed a baptism out of what, for me, was a kind of religious narrowness into a wider and more.generous missionary field.
My own rebaptism was in Alameda Creek, my home river, a site I always wished to have been immersed. There are several sections along the creek appropriate not only for swimming but full immersion w moving waters and currents. It’s the only swimming-river in the South Bay, and our kids call the part pictured above ‘the bubble bridge’. Anyway, it was a mode I really wanted.
A lot of our fellowship with the McKays was spent touring landmarks, tracing the history of the so-called Brannanites during the pioneer years 1846 to 1865. Of course, given this is my home, it’s likewise part of my heritage, as much as the Methodist plantings across the Bay. So, in some ways, I feel better connected to our mixed pioneer past. We do feel like we are some of the last of the Brannanites– a local oecumenical (non-catholic) mormon colony in the lower end of the Santa Clara valley, in the oldest parts of Washington Township.
The other half of my family is Utah-Mormon, and, living in the far West at a time when all the other Protestant churches are essentially dying, it’s hard to ignore socalled greater Utah. But, this concord w my natural brother is also me going more than half-way, and I feel if official Protestantism is ‘scripture alone’ without other revelations (not even holy tradition?), then I might as well try other paths of restoration. But restoration is always upon mind and in our prayers.
We continue to be a 1928 BCP family, enjoy written prayer, remember the health of the Methodist general rule, love the American Great Awakenings, and keep a fire lit for unity among all Protestant people, even by the 1887 Chicago Quadrilateral. However, we are NOT players in any of this, just LAY PEOPLE. Apostle Patrick McKay was kind to explain our baptism as into ‘no organization but the living Church’. Yet it is hard to walk without the company of others, especially in the California-wild where we dwell. We still seek a free fellowship around our house. Yet, our hope is next year when, or if, we see the elders again, we have an improved holiness and love of God, including our neighbor as well. Jehovah Bless
Bunny Trails 
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