Baby Dedications
From time to time, I feel like we ( my husband and I) should have done the typical thing at our church and have a baby dedication. We didn’t do this for either of our children. I am sort of a traditionalist in this regard, and it isn’t something that I quite understand the purpose of in our Baptist tradition.
I understand the purpose of baby baptisms and blessings in other faiths. They serve a designed purpose and role in many congregations. I haven’t yet concluded the purpose in my own.
If you have children, what did you choose to do, if anything? Did you go with your tradition or do something new?
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August 17th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
I have never really been a fan of baby dedications, either, but I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe for the same reasons as you–seems like a copy cat tradition with less significance. For our two children, we added a blessing and a prayer to their first birthday parties, which were attended by most of our extended family. It was a way for us to recognize the role we hope that faith and family will have in their lives. I found it more meaningful than dressing them up and hoping they wouldn’t cry in front of a bunch of strangers (at the large church we attend, which doesn’t include dedications as part of the regular service anyway).
August 18th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Both our kids were dedicated, though when #2 was born we were going to an Anglican church where he could have been christened. I was all for christening–my husband not so much. Now that we are members of an Episcopal church I’m wishing they were both christened like the other kids at our church. I don’t know if we should have it done before they’re old enough to be confirmed. And now of course we’re awaiting baby #3 and we’ll have to figure it out again. I think I need to talk to our priest about it. Anyway, yeah, it’s confusing. I kind of figured dedications are like certain churches wanting to replace the christening ritual with something else. So many churches claim to not need rituals but they still have them. (Like at every Baptist church I’ve been to everyone sits down when they say “Amen.”
August 19th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I have 2 kids and did not involve either one in the baby dedication ritual. I’ve even avoided attending the “dedications” of other kids, though I have attended one Catholic baby baptism (or whatever that is called). What I like about your question was I actually had to think, “Why is it that I am opposed to this?” For the most part I think it’s my opposition to anything ritualistic and anything that smacks of religious authority. I chafe under the implied demand that good parents dedicate their children to god. To the extent it’s a promise to try my best to parent as my god would want me to, I have friends and family to hold me accountable. To the extent it’s a dedication of the child back to my god, my kids are not “mine” to dedicate to anyone or anything.
I sound extreme, I know, I would tell someone like myself “sheesh, lighten up, dude!” It’s really just that whole implied (or expressed) church authority thing that I can’t abide, and I probably avoid some things unnecessarily (I throw the baby out with the christening water, if you will).
August 19th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Ok DVD, you summed up my point of view on the subject better than I could have done.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Funny, I’m the odd one out in that I love rituals. It’s part of why I’ve fallen in love with the Episcopal church. I dig the lovely formal and almost Catholic rituals (yet without having to actually be Catholic and have a pope) to the extent that I have my babies dedicated but wish they were christened.
December 16th, 2009 at 12:38 am
[...] So you may have heard (well, I know Anne and Judith have heard) that I recently had a baby. Actually he’s almost 3 months old now, so not so very recently. Anyway, now it’s time to decide if we want to have him christened at our Episcopal church. My husband and I are now Episcopalian, but he was raised Baptist and I was raised a weird combo of Assembly of God, Church of Christ, Baptist, etc. So this christening/infant baptism thing is not really part of our own heritage. In our previous churches babies are usually “dedicated” which is basically a commitment by the parents to raise their children in the faith, but there’s no baptism by water involved. Then when a child is older he’s encouraged to “accept Jesus” and follow it up with baptism by immersion. (Click here to read a previous discussion about baby dedications.) [...]