Not in all sects. Those who believe in infant baptism, for example, obviously do not require desire on the part of the participant who might be only minutes old and thus clueless about everything.
When I was a kid my county had a scandal where some, shall we say, highly enthused and motivated Christians were trying to trick local Jewish kids into being baptised, then claiming they weren’t Jewish anymore and now had to attend their church. Needless to say, that did not go over well with the Jewish parents. Or a lot of other people. So yeah, that sort of thing does happen but in general it’s probably not common. And if you don’t believe in baptism then even if someone tries that stunt you just ignore it and get on with your life. (Well, there might be some angry shouting prior to the “get on with it”, but you know what I mean.)
There have also been some controversies involving the LDS church, which allows baptism-by-proxy: That is, one LDS dunks another LDS, but it counts as being a baptism of some other person.
And if we’re sharing anecdotes of unconventional baptisms, I was baptized by my parents in the bathroom sink. I was a few months old at the time; Mom and Dad were trying to schedule a more conventional baptism, but it was really hard to get all of the kinfolks’ schedules to work. Then one night, though, Mom left the window in my room open, and the temperature dropped precipitously overnight. By the time Mom woke up to check on me, I was already turning blue from cold. So as soon as they got me warmed up again (or maybe while they were doing so), they baptized me themselves. When we finally got all the family together a few weeks after that, we had a nice little party with the priest and everything, but it didn’t mean anything sacramentally, because I was already baptized.
If you’re too old for infant baptism, yes. From the official catechism of the Catholic Church
Interestingly enough, although both pouring and immersion are allowed by church rules, immersion is indicated as the preferred method. Was immersion ever the more practiced form of baptism?
John 3:22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized.
23 Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized.
24 (This was before John was put in prison.)
25 An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing.
26 They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”
John 4:1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
The commentaries I read suppose that Jesus initially baptized followers personally. Later he preached and his disciples performed baptisms.
The controversy is in the now unauthorized proxy baptism for deceased victims of the Holocaust.
The LDS theology holds that a living person may function as a stand-in for the deceased and that the deceased will either accept or reject the ceremony carried out on his or her behalf. There is no proxy baptism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on behalf of a living person.
And see also the Mortara case, a 19th century cause célèbre in which the Catholic maid of the Jewish Mortara family living in the Papal States performed an “emergency baptism” on their very sick infant son Edgardo–then several years after the baby recovered, the baptism was discovered and the authorities in the Papal States said the child was now a Catholic and could not (by the laws of the Papal States) be raised by a Jewish family. Edgardo was taken from the Mortaras when he was six years old and raised by the Church, eventually becoming a Catholic priest.
My parents grandparents, aunts and uncles are buried on the grounds of a Catholic seminary, along with many priests and nuns.
When I was doing genealogy in Salt Lake Ciry, I found a book stating that everyone in the cemetery had been baptized by proxy into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
It made me smile of think of all the Catholic religious who would have been surprised by this. It doesn’t bother me; I guess somebody thought she was doing a good deed.
“An adult” isn’t necessary in some sects. I was raised Southern Baptist, and was baptized when I was IIRC 9 years old. What was important was the idea that I was old enough to request it and to understand the nature of baptism and what it symbolized.
The Catholic Church has a similar “age of reason” rule for First Communion (I think the age is usually considered to be about 7 years by default, though it can be shifted in individual cases), and another somewhat older age for confirmation, where you’re expected to have a greater degree of understanding.
Exactly. I was 5. They quizzed me, and I understood. And, yes, I really understood–I wasn’t just parroting answers.
I’m glad, too, since it completely predated my aquaphobia.
It’s much better than the Pentecostal Church I went to that basically peer pressured me into getting baptized. Though I did appreciate the special water-proof zip up robe. No need to have brought a change of clothes.
Oh, yeah. Infant baptism. But that has to require the parents’ permission, right? I mean, the relevant Scriptures have stuff about how it is the belief of the parent that saves the child before the age of accountability.
As the Mortara case referred to up thread shows, parental consent is not a requirement for infant baptism in Catholic belief. In fact sometimes it’s the reverse–I know Catholic grandparents upset that their lapsed Catholic adult children are not having their own children baptized, and the grandparents have taken the opportunity when alone with the infant grandchildren to perform a baptism, knowing well that the parents would not consent.
With a priest involved, or at home? Because if a priest was involved his bishop should have slapped him from here to Orion, and if no priest was involved those kids won’t be raised Catholic any more than if they hadn’t been baptized and no Church records of the baptism exist. Way to piss off the kid’s parents and push the whole lot further away. Or do the kids not even know they’ve been baptized?
Yup. As a matter of canon law an infant will only be baptised if the infant’s parents request it and, even then, only if the priest or bishop forms at least “a well-founded hope” that the child will be brought up in the church.
Infant baptisms performed in breach of this rule are regarded as valid, but illicit.
This gets intra-secty, but is in the same ballpark: family member (Jew) married non-Jew, who didn’t convert but was comfortable entering and creating a Jewish upbringing, which she has most admirably done over the decades.
The mohel [pronounced "moyel], the foreskin-cutter guy on the baby’s eighth day–not necessarily a Rabbi, but obviously trained physically and (presumably) pious, trusted with this important “baptism” into the Covenant.
So he does his thing, says the pre- and post prayers and psalms.
Family happy Jews, ditto kid. To the Orthodox, it don’t mean squat. To boot, the mohel (Orthodox) skipped the sentence, the Main Sentence, the actual phrase of “blah-blah welcome aboard”), and Family and Kid, to this day, don’t know it.
Less common for LDS than it used to be. In areas without a baptismal font people will be baptized any body of water that is convenient. In my mother’s congregation in Cleveland Ohio, circa 1944, they were baptized in the local Y swimming pool and then after the baptism the whole congregation would have a pool party. As I understand it some other pool patrons complained about swimming in other people sins…
That strikes me as a very good way to end up with absolutely no contact between the grandparents and the parents, not to mention the parents cutting off all contact between the grands and the kid.
