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.)

I’m ready enough to have the new baby baptized — and would like to have the other two thrown in for a 3-for-1 deal. I checked with our priest and he’s cool with that.  However, my husband has never warmed to the idea of infant baptism.  I haven’t pressed him much yet about this baby (planning to broach the subject next weekend when he’ll have the free time to discuss thoroughly) but I know how he felt with the last baby. To me it’s equivalent to a baby dedication (don’t tell my church — it’s probably not a good Episcopalian thing to say) and confirmation is sort of equivalent to the older child getting saved and baptized in a Baptist church.  The first (baby dedication/christening) is about the family committing to raising the child in their tradition; the second (confirmation/older baptism) is about the child embracing that tradition of their own will (though we could get into whether many children are actually doing it of their own will or just responding to parental/peer pressure).

My point? I’m not sure — just sharing a minor struggle of someone who has left one tradition for another. It’s not even like I converted from a whole other religion, but it can still be tough to decide how much to embrace the new tradition. My husband holds back a bit and is not as crazy about the new church, and I feel I can’t jump in and do something significant like this with our children without him agreeing to it as well.

Does anyone have a well-thought-out opinion about these things? Did you have your babies dedicated or christened? Is it really any big deal? Is it really a matter of salvation either way? If you’re pro-christening, how do I convince my still-somewhat Baptist husband that we should do this?

1. Anne Says:
   December 16th, 2009 at 12:40 am

   I am not the one to talk to him, I don’t even believe that baby dedications make any sense.