The baptisms at the recent Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship "Revival!" Conference have begged some questions:

What are the best conditions by which to baptise someone?

Can someone be properly baptised outside of one's own church?, and more importantly

How necessary is baptism?, and

What does it effect?

      I admit I hold a low doctrine of the nature of the church, and that combined with my doctrinal Universalism, leads me to some particular answers to these questions.
      First, I believe that the baptisms were proper because they were done properly, and because they fulfilled the basic requirement of baptism: a visible testimony to Christian faith. But does baptism admit someone into the Church Universal? Many say yes, I say no. The first birth (the literal one) did that. The promise of God to bring all to happiness and holiness is for all, and is our birthright as human beings.
      Like John Murray, I divide salvation and redemption. Perhaps the names are too laden with extra meaning to be useful. Let me say security and wholeness, instead. With the salvation/security of God, Universalists have proclaimed that the power of God will lead all beings into reconciliation. Time is really on our side. God shall be All-in-All.
      But what of the feeling of God's presence? How can we be sure? This is ultimately an act of faith, and one that is fostered in a religious community. Jesus answered Nicodemus, in the Gospel of John, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit."
      Here Jesus speaks of the first and second birth, which is the birth of the Spirit. It can renew the old. God's spirit moves within history to confirm the news which an optimistic nature infers. That is, that the very power of Being identifies with us collectively and individually. Baptism of the Spirit is the manifestation of hope, shown in the fruit of a changed life. This is no ritual even though John's baptism anticipated it materially, in the River Jordan. The Lord's Supper manifests the future reality the same way.
      Neither act is essential for the Christian, but both are gifts for us to enjoy, and an opportunity to be strenghtened in our weak and despairing times. "This, do, in memory of me" -- or "unforgetting of me" can be applied equally to baptism and the Lord's Supper. They are pedagogy and proclamation. As such, neither can be private.
      One who assents to either makes a profession of faith. The Puritans required an explicit profession of faith prior to church membership, perhaps to confirm the action of what they thought was a partial grace, and to root out heresy. We are not concerned with either a partial grace or heresy, but we do care that our faith holds together with integrity. The personal profession of faith -- now often dubbed a credo -- properly matches the corporate profession of baptism and the Lord's Supper. In its particularity, the action of the Spirit in a given life evokes the particular experiences in others, strenghtening and confirming them.
      Because understanding preceeds profession, I believe only persons at the age of comprehension should be candidates for baptism.
      Yet Parker and his ken were right: the expression of the faith is greater than its ritual form, and care must be kept to maintain the ethical expression, or else the ritual becomes hollow. We also risk making the rite greater than the experience. Bidden or unbidden, God is there.
      Now, what of extra-congregational baptism? These are valid. We see examples in the New Testament (like the Ethiopian's baptism in Acts) and admit the same. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are not properties of any congregation, but the congregation has an obligation to maintain the ethical demands of both: a one-sided obligation.
      Because congregational membership and admission to the Universal Church are distinct one might be baptised under the care of another congregation if need be. Properly speaking, it need not be Unitarian Universalist, but it seem a loss of an opportunity to not share this powerful and public profession with one's own chosen community of faith.
      In a best-case senario, one's own minister should baptise the candidate. Lacking a called minister, a visiting minister should act. It is equally appropriate for a member of the congregation to be delegated for this purpose. Should there be a settled minister who has scruples about the baptism (won't do it at all, or has a problem with the kind of baptism -- I for one won't baptise infants) then the minister may appeal to another minister to do it, or ask the congregation to appoint a person as above.
Only after this should talk about taking it out of the usual home church environment.
      These ideas are not my own, but derive from old Universalism, unwisely forgotten. From the Universalist 1790 Form of Church Government:

Sect. 5. Of Ordinances
Whereas a great diversity of opinions has prevailed in all ages of the Church upon the subjects of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; as also upon the subject of Confirmation, the Washing of Feet, Love Feasts, and the anointing the Sick with oil, &c. and as this diversity of opinions has often been the means of dividing Christians, who were united by the same spirit in more essential articles, we agree to admit all such persons who hold the articles of our faith, and maintain good works, into membership, whatever their opinion may be as to the nature, form, obligation of any or all of the above named ordinances. If it shall so happen that an application shall be made to a Minister to perform any of the said of ordinances, who does not believe in the present obligations of Christians to submit to them; or if he shall be applied to to perform them at a time, or in a way that is contrary to his conscience, in such a case a Neighbouring minister, who shall hold like principles respecting the ordinance or ordinances required by any member, shall be invited to perform them; or, if it be thought more expedient, each Church may appoint or Ordain one of their own members to administer the ordinances in such a way as to each Church may seem proper.'