Rituals are important. They give us an opportunity to review our values, they strengthen community ties, and they're an opportunity to publicly make commitments. The importance of the baptism wasn't that the baby's soul was transformed or anything like that.

This to me poses a major challenge to our understanding of baptism as a sacrament rather than a mere "ritual." I always tell parents that we believe in a profound sense that the child the community hands back to them after baptism is not the same child they brought to church. Baptizing the infant is not just a ceremony for the family and sponsors; but nor is it merely pedaling "salvation insurance" to allay anxieties about the after-life. Both views miss the mark, as baptism embodies the process of metanoia, of dying that we may rise again with Christ. Baptism involves embracing that as a life path, as a way of being in and with God, of walking in the way of the cross.

Further, if this is just an opportunity for the community to welcome a new life, it strikes me we have other ways of doing that. The Durham News article captured this best through the experience of the baby-naming ceremony at the Kwanzaa festival. Baptism is qualitatively different, although it includes that welcoming aspect into Christian community.

I'm increasingly of the mind that my liturgics professor was profoundly correct: adult baptism, when an adult profession of faith and commitment can be made, is more normative (that is, it makes more easy sense) theologically.

In our increasingly multicultural world with cross-cultural and inter-religious families, adult baptism may indeed become the norm again, as it was in the early church.

If we think Baptism is an affirmation of faith, infants are not great candidates. Over time we have come to think of it as affirming intent, intent of adults who do believe that they will raise kids in a devout context. I should rather see adults coming for baptism because their parents did not do it than see parents lying about their intent in church.
Jim Beyer

Ann,

At the grave risk of hijacking this thread (and begging your pardon in advance), one thing I like about the Taoist essay is that it recognizes community as the focus and crucible of the child's commitment and growth.

In my own experience working fairly often with young parents considering baptism for their children, they most often articulate their desire to pursue the sacrament around their hope for their son or daughter to grow up in a community of values, purpose, and commitment.

Put another way, as we so often profess in numerous ways, community is the crucible of our salvation, the locus of our deepening journey with God. Our baptismal covenant involves our promises to remain a part of that for our transformation.

This points to my other concern suggested in The Durham News Article. Being acquainted with and respectful of other faith traditions is not at all a bad thing -- but I wonder if we risk becoming spiritual dilettantes rather than standing still enough to be radically changed and challenged by a community of traditions, values, and spiritual practices.

From Joe Parrish
"When someone is baptized in the Name of an entity, the person responsible for the baptizan is indicating their submission to the authority, care, and concern of that entity, which, in the case of Christians, is the Holy Trinity."
Joe Parrish

This post belongs on Kwaanza Café, not Episcopal Café.

And here's Richard fighting infant baptism again. Puh-lease. It's a sacrament of initiation, and an infant belongs to God and the Christian community; we are its family of birth just like its parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

I would like to reiterate Joe Parrish's statement. People who intentionally say one thing knowing they really don't believe it are, by definition, liars.

Eric Sinkula

Josh, the language of "initiation" is borrowed from early 19th century anthropology and history of religion and comparative religion. It's one way of interpreting St Paul's language of baptism "into Christ" but maybe not the only way. Initiation inclines us to think of separation and becoming part of a group that's somehow set apart.

If we put Paul's language of neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, alongside his bold assertion that 'God made the sinless one into sin inthe baptism when he hung accursed on a tree outside the city walls, maybe "into Christ" means we are stripped of everything that sets us apart from others. Maybe that's part of what Gregory of Nyssa saw when he said the body of Christ was all humanity.

Donald Schell

Richard - not hijacking IMO - exploring the facets of what we are doing in baptism and beyond.

Josh,

No, I'm not intending to "fight infant baptism again," but I think infant baptism, when practiced as you outline (where I believe you and are in agreement, actually), makes demands on parents, sponsors, and families for commitments that many today are not prepared to make. And if that's the case, waiting for the child to grow up and make up his or her own mind is probably a more appropriate choice.

I couldn't agree more, Richard. I so admire parents who want a 'naming' ceremony for their infants because they can't, with integrity, participate in a baptism just to keep "the grandparents" happy"

A number of years ago, I was dating someone who was Jewish. We were contemplating getting married and I had agreed that I would raise our children in a Jewish household. Although I wouldn't have a problem converting, I knew that those doing the conversion would feel it a betrayal that I continued to believe that Jesus was the Incarnation of God, the prophesied Messiah, in a classic and orthodox Christian way. I had this strong sense that the strength of my own belief would manifest itself even in a thoroughly orthodox Jewish household and that at least one of my children would become a Christian as an adult.

I was living in London that summer across the street from St. Augustine of Canterbury, C of E. One Sunday morning an adult woman was baptized. I don't think I had ever seen an adult baptized before. It remains to this day the most powerful baptism I have ever witnessed. It broke my heart to think that my own children would not be baptized. So, I understand the desire to baptize infants and for many parents/grandparents to have their children/grandchildren baptized as infants. I also take my own responsibility as a godparent very seriously. Even though I am no longer related by marriage to the child's parents and so do not have any contact with her, I continue to pray for her on a regular basis.

However, I also don't believe baptism is a magic talisman. It neither makes the infant a Christian when she grows up and does not believe, nor does a failure to baptize prevent the Holy Spirit from working in that infant's life to bring her to Christ as she grows up and has the capacity to chose a life of faith on her own.

Fewer years ago than the first relationship, I dated someone who had not been baptized and did not know God at all. The prior spouse had been raised in the church but thoroughly rejected both church and faith as an adult. Their daughter came to know the Lord through friends and not only decided as a teenager that she wanted to be baptized, but her growing faith had a powerful evangelizing affect on her unchurched parent.

Although I was baptized as an infant and would have had my own children baptized as infants had I had any, I think perhaps we get ourselves too worked up about this. If parents aren't themselves able, willing or interested in living a life of faith in which their child's baptism is a part, then perhaps people should be encouraged not to baptize their infants. We might very well have lost something very important that now is an excellent time to recover when we moved from adult baptisms after a period of initiation and life change demonstration to automatic infant baptisms.

We have Acts as our ancient witness that sometimes baptism precedes the Holy Spirit and sometimes it follows. What then is there to regret when parents choose not to baptize their infants, especially if instead being baptized and disappearing, the infants are actually raised and formed in the faith?

A naming ceremony seems like an excellent initiation into such a lifelong journey. Perhaps we could even invite the parents to "try" the church for a while before deciding it works for them as a lived commitment rather than simply a nice idea. If it did, then the could with integrity decide whether to baptize the child as an infant or raise the child with faith - as part of a community (of course that requires the participation of others in the parish - who after all should make their part of the commitment to "support this person" with integrity) - and allow the child to make the choice at some point.

Strengthening community ties is a catachresis, the use of a word when there is no proper meaning. Is society like a rope? Or should one t/rope it as glue, as in social bond? Calling an event a ritual is just as much an interpretation or violent appropriation as calling it a sacrament. The event as figure or trope is a linguistic reality which must ultimately remain unreadable. A sacrament tries to make the sign readable. The different religious traditions needn't have anything in common in order to respect each other. Reducing them all to a ritual or other common notion may be a profound form of disrespect. I like the Thich Nhat Hanh quote. I also sympathize with the rejection of original sin, whatever that was, because of its use under colonialism to justify wiping out indigenous cultures.

Welcoming the other is also a way of saying bye to the other, to bow to their mortality. It is also to welcome the world that child will eventually construct and then to mourn that world which will eventually disappear. There will have been a bearing witness to that particular life in its singularity. There is a welcoming of that which necessarily escapes into the future.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Of course, you have the child baptized. Christian parents have a responsibility to initiate the child and raise him or her up in the Christian faith. If Jesus is really the Savior and Lord of the world, wouldn't you baptize the child?

We still believe in baptismal regeneration. We are not anabaptists, but at least their objections have some theological integrity. And at least they intend to form their children and invite an adult decision for Christ.

The real problem in both these cases is that the parents are not really Christian. They may have a Christian background, but they themselves have been inadequately catechized. They are unsure of their allegiance to Christ, and they have adopted the false teaching that the child should have his or her choice among various "ways."

That's giving up the game to modernity and privatized liberal theories of preference and to postmodern pluralism, modernity's evil twin. There are better ways, more true to the Christian faith, to live nonviolently with difference.

Bill, I would disagree. Instead of accusing these parents of being improperly catechized, perhaps they simply reject your traditional conception of institutional Christianity.

There are many, many of us who see this as a valid approach to religion and spirituality. Rejecting things that make no sense or seem to be based in misunderstanding of the real world and in direct opposition to our own experiences may cause some to shudder and shout “syncretism” and “heretical” but it is an authentic response to living a life of Christianity in the world that is rather than the world that was or the world that the institutional Church created, sometimes out of whole cloth.

When I was a Roman Catholic infant baptism was indeed insurance against a child dying and heading to Limbo, a disturbing thought to many parents indeed. The superstitious nature of some traditional, orthodox beliefs no longer work with many in the modern world, like it or not.

The fact that it is different from and perhaps in opposition to the beliefs of some inside the Church used to be an allowable difference in the Episcopal Church.

I hope it still is. If not then perhaps I understand better why Christianity is losing its relevance worldwide to so many people and dying a slow death.

I just want to make sure that I am understanding this. Are we really arguing about whether it is a good idea for Christian parents to have their child baptized? And praising them for their integrity, rather than questioning their grasp of the faith, when they don't?

My problem with seeing adult baptism as "normative" is that the older I get the less comfortable I am thinking I actually understand motivation, including my own. If the sacrament can't happen until I am ready to make a "mature affirmation of faith," then what happens if I later come to doubt the sincerity of that affirmation? What if I wonder whether I really got baptized to please my sick parents or my fiance, or because I desperately wanted to be part of a community, or because I wanted a party, or whatever? At some point, won't I come to question the "efficacy" (for want of a better word) of the sacrament if I come to doubt the maturity of the affirmation that was a precondition for it? At least infant baptism affirms that it's God that's acting, and it's God's power we'll have to trust in the face of any doubts raised as a result of later self-examination.

Bill and Jim, ditto to what you said.

Greg Jones

Well Jim, I guess we could just tut tut at Christian parents who have doubts about infant baptism and add that to the long, long, growing ever longer list of things that “good” Christians should think and do as opposed to those who lack integrity, or did you not mean that?

I hope that’s not what your incredulity is about. The question was raised “To baptize or not to baptize” and I believe that everyone here, whether they answer yes or no is answering from a place of honesty, integrity, and personal experience.

I'm not tut-tutting. I am calling people out. I think if two Christian parents don't have their child baptized they are engaging in trendy nonsense.

There is no future for a Church that does not take its own doctrine and discipline seriously.

Where would we be if the apostles had accepted Roman syncretism as easily as some of our alleged co-religionists seem to be?

The Episcopal Church remains committed to the Nicene Creed: one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

Jim,

I agree with you, provided that the parents are committed or are prepared to recommit to the life in Christian community their baptism called them to.

It gets much more fuzzy for me if the parents are nominal (that is, non-practicing) Christians. I've written already about those cold calls I get that pull the "I'm an Episcopalian, so baptize my baby" card -- often with pressure from grandparents or relatives in the background. I don't reject them out of hand, of course, but I lay down some expectations: preparation and participation. It seems to me if we don't take the vows seriously, we shouldn't expect others to. For me it becomes not an issue of controlling God's grace (baptism is one of our greatest sacramental mysteries!) but of accountability in community -- that is, a pastoral matter in which we all participate. That's what I hear, too, in Bill's language about discipline in relationship with a community-held and lived faith (which strikes me as a reasonable definition of doctrine.)

If you read the articles - there is a wide range of thoughts about baptism and whether or not to do it if one's personal faith does not seem congruent with the church. But there is a depth of faith and desire to raise children in community and open to God. Guess I was looking for more about how to discuss baptism with parents who are seeking but not buying the old answers.

Ann,

What do you sense are the "old answers" that some seekers have a hard time with? I mean that seriously -- it might help to innumerate these stumbling blocks.

FWIW, the relationship with community matters so much more to me than just intellectual assent to this or that aspect of doctrine. Part of our catechism for parents and/or candidates is encouraging them to articulate their own authentic -- personal, I suppose --understanding of the vows and the creedal formularies outlined in the covenant. And then we talk about the church community's understanding(s), too. The conversation is intended as relational -- without the implicit violence of tests or the sometimes shallow designs of rote memorization. But the substance of the vows is not as much about personal intellectual assent as agreeing to live into the dynamic life and practices of community -- shaped by belief, to be sure, but never a community of automatons or parrots!

First of all, I gotta get this off my chest. Bill Carroll, your comments drip with poisonous disdain: "That's giving up the game to modernity and privatized liberal theories of preference and to postmodern pluralism, modernity's evil twin."

Well, people suffer and die every day at the hands of those who share your disdain for modernity and disdain for those who are not so graced by their circumstances to come to the same theological and sociological conclusions and certainties that you do. I'll take liberal and postmodern and discerning over disdain and destruction every time. That doesn't mean I subscribe to and box myself in with any of those ideologies that cause you to foam at the mouth, but if I had to pick between those and yours, I'll pick those for SURE. Anyway...

The inward grace of Baptism is there long before any of us say yes. It's awesome that there is a direct and predictable way to manifest that grace that our conscious awareness might be transformed thereby. But that's all we know, that's all we can know. We can presume that God does holy stuff to little Tiffany Nichole on a Sunday morning because we decided to let Him on June 13th 2010...or can we?

Baptism has an effect on the one so baptized, surely. But more importantly, it has a far greater effect on those of us who witness the baptism, particularly those baptisms done at the Easter Vigil. In proclaiming that Christ has illumined the neophyte, we are really saying that we have been so illuminated, and are edified as much or more than the neophyte at that moment ever is.

In my experience, it is the one baptized who blesses and sanctifies those so privileged to witness the event, and only secondarily the other way around. If that wasn't the case, why would we be fighting about when and what age, why would some of you be up in arms about Christian parents who neglect to have their children baptized? The grace has been given before the foundation of the world, and it takes a candidate and a liturgy to manifest this grace, for our good and the good of all God's holy Church. We bask in the Holy Light, we wonder at the salvation that has been wrought and is now seen in this wonderful sacrament. Sure, the candidate "puts on Christ", but even a fully conscious candidate won't really get the full effect of what that means until s/he sees someone else get baptized. Don't be a lazy priest or lazy parishioners, make sure every baptismal liturgy is an event worthy of so great a Grace, now revealed in the Baptismal Mystery. And enjoy and "do up" every baptism that comes your way.

Clint,

People suffer and die? Don't you think that's a little melodramatic. It's definitely a false alternative, and you are lumping me with people I ought not to be lumped with.

The Church suffers and dies when it cannot find the nerve to preach Christ, not as one option among others, but as the Savior and Lord of the world.

I have not overstated the case, Bill. Homophobic beatings and the executions of gay people--or whoever-- happen because people have the permission to take the attitude you display to the kind of extreme that is equal to the degree of their hatred of the Other and their loathing of the modern and secular.

Your attitude might not be dangerous in your comfortable office, but in some places in the world, it really does kill people on demand. Why cling to it? I know you have better things to cling to, in which to take refuge, than "anti-modernist" discomforts.

Again, lumping.

Richard - my quest is that we listen to those who come with questions and try to hear where they connect with faith and build from there if they wish to continue the conversation. For me it is part of speaking a language "understandeth of the people" - first we need to learn their language and see how it is expressing our beliefs and how we can translate into theirs. Community is the thing - each does not have to have the same understanding or faith development - when we say "we believe" in the creeds - it is a communal belief across time - it is not an absolute where everyone is in the same place on a spectrum. An example tho of an old answer is the "fire insurance" attitude towards baptism. The one article author seems to think we believe that - a place of confusion that can be clarified through conversation.

Ann,

Thanks for the clarification. I heartily agree with each point!

Bravo, Ann for articulating in your latest comment what many vaguely thought but could not formulate. If we won't communicate with those who question baptism or misunderstood our theology it's incumbent upon ourselves to figure that out.

It's no longer a "because I said so" world. (Not to deny many still simply want to be told what to believe.) These parents were asking a valid question, "Why should we have our child baptized?" In marriage counseling many clergy ask the man and the woman, "Why are you getting married?" It's a question where the first reaction is "isn't that obvious?" But it is the most basic question, and most couples wouldn't have thought to discuss it themselves.

John and Ann,

1. YES!
2. And listening to those outside who are actually willing to talk with us WILL change our own understanding of our faith, that is it will reshape our theology, as it should. Continuing faithful response to new questions is how tradition lives. The two wonderful New Testament texts that encourage us to think that way are St. Paul's bold, 'We have the mind of Christ,' and in Acts (changing sacramental practice by the way), the 'Council of Jerusalem' saying, 'It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us...'

New circumstances. People seeing and feeling and hearing things we're not yet in touch with. Change, but continuity in the one Spirit.