The ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) has only been around for 23 years; it came about from the merger of three other Lutheran churches (ALC, LCA, and AELC).
The ELCA is, generally*, more liberal on most issues than many of the other American Lutheran synods, such as the Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, or the CLC (which is a pretty small group).
I say “generally”, because you can find a lot of differences from congregation to congregation (caused, in part, by the ELCA being a fairly recent merging of three churches, which themselves were the product of various mergers). One big struggle that the ELCA has been working through is gay issues (including gay clergy) – the more liberal congregations are in favor of openly accepting gay worshippers and clergy, while the more conservative congregations are strongly opposed to the idea.
Edit: disclosure – my wife is principal at an ELCA-affiliated elementary school; my mother-in-law and sister-in-law used to work at ELCA headquarters.
You can donate to the church if you want. It is not mandatory or required. In the ELCA baptism is often done as part of the service so there is no extra expense involved - it is not like a wedding.
You don’t have to join. It would be nice, but you don’t have to. Most baptisms are like yours in that way - the parents often claim they want to join, but don’t show up until it is time for Sunday School.
THEY ARE WELCOME ANYWAY.
Usually you choose another couple or person to act as godparent(s). This is a close enough friend to trust with the spiritual nurture of your child - to fulfill the promises made in the baptismal ceremony.
We have pre-baptism classes to explain the basics of the faith in which we baptize.
You’re welcome.
And
3a) I do NOT wish to discourage you from baptizing your child. However, you are making (in the Lutheran tradition) some very solemn promises to do things, and making a promise before God that you will do them. In the ELCA these promises include
[ul][li]To raise the child in the Christian faith[/li][li]place in his hands the Holy Scriptures[/li][li]bring him to the services of God’s house[/li][li]and provide for his instruction in the faith.[/ul][/li]This is not a one-time, magic ritual. It is a significant rite, and the beginning of your child’s life in the faith.
As I said, I do not wish to discourage you. I do wish to encourage you to think about what you are doing. It is serious business - much more like getting married than setting up a birthday party or such. If you believe at all seriously in the immortality of the soul, or the importance of living a faithful life, it is not “once and done”.
My husband’s church is Lutheran (Missouri Synod) and we had the Little One baptized there when she was a month old. Interestingly, the people who made all these promises publicly were her godparents/sponsors and not us (we went in fully prepared to make the promises ourselves, which is what we had seen in other churches we/his family had attended).
(I was brought up to think of baptism as something the kid chooses herself when she’s old enough, so I don’t take infant baptism as seriously as my husband, and the solemnity of these promises hit me, at least, harder when her godparents made them than they would have if we had made them, which surprised me – perhaps also because we intended to do all those things anyway regardless of the details of the baptismal rite, but the fact that our friends were willing to do that as well is a gift?)
Is this common in other infant-baptism churches/other Lutheran synods? Is this a possibility (as Arnold also suggested), to get a church-going family member or friend to be a sponsor? I’d think anyone sufficiently religious (and going to a church that does infant baptism) would deeply wish to provide this for a child, even if the parents were not particularly serious about it. (Is this true?)
You asked for any other insight. God is Love, when you seek out a person to perform it just look for a loving person to preform it, all other things should fall into line around that.
And it is the way that scriptures state, basically seek God (who is Love) above all. so it is acceptable in finding someone to do a infant baptism, actually sort of required, but perhaps often ignored.
The RC church recognizes all Christian baptisms. If a previously-baptized adult converts, he or she doesn’t get re-baptized, but anointed–like Confirmation.
Another post-Catholic here suggesting that, if the couple in question doesn’t want an RC baptism for their baby, they should find another denomination that baptizes infants. One that they can believe in, at least a little.
What I meant was that it sounded as though the couple was just looking to pop into a convenient non-RC church for the baptism. And then return to their non-religious lives.
Perhaps they should consider actually finding a denomination & congregation they want to join. Then have the little one baptized–sincerely.
Thank you for the well thought out answer. You did not offend me (no one really offended me in the thread that took an honest effort to answer my original OP.) I’ll discuss the offensive folks in a bit.
FTR, this question was for a friend of mine, so if I implied that this was a question I needed answered for myself, my apologies. I re-read the thread and didn’t see anywhere I made any mistake in identifying my friends as the parents going through this. But if it *were *me, I wouldn’t be offended by your answer at all. Thanks for your concern, though.
As for a couple of others that seemed to want to question why I’d ask this in GQ, I’m fascinated at posters like **Musicat **and Polycarp, who find a need to enter a thread like this to turn it into a debate.
Originally Posted by **Musicat **
Originally Posted by Guinastasia
Exactly. Thank you.
and
Originally Posted by AClockworkMelon
Thank you, also.
I can’t for the life of me figure out how Musicat, Polycarp, and anyone else who wanted to slam me for asking <the horror> a religious question in GQ was asking for it (“it” being a sarcastic answer to an obviously stupid and illogical question that in their minds should not have a home in GQ.)
Look. Regardess of what you all believe personally about God, the afterlife, or any of those ideas that fall into this general “faith” bucket, the question I asked DID have honest replies to it, answers that have been valuable to my friends from an information standpoint, and to me in that I knew very little about baptizing at all.
So, please. Go away for now. Spread your opinions to the world, perhaps in an IMHO thread, or maybe a BBQPit thread. Even a GD thread. I don’t care. The fact is there are a lot of people that believe in some or all parts of their own personal religion or “dogma”. My question wasn’t to verify baptism as a “must do”, but trying to get some information in a “how to” if someone wanted to do this for their child. The people that believe in this part of the religious experience were being asked for their knowledge. Since you all don’t believe, why even open the thread?
I simply don’t understand why you just don’t skip to the next thread.
Just wanted to comment that even people who don’t believe any longer (or even people who never believed to begin with) may have relevant experiences and information which they would be willing to share with the OP also. Just because I don’t choose to worship any longer, or hold sacraments sacred for myself, doesn’t mean that I should judge (or threadshit) someone who is asking an honest and information-based question.
If you can answer a question (or provide somewhat relevant information), then I think it’s a nice thing to do so, regardless of personal opinion on the matter at hand.
My wife an I are both atheists and had both of our children baptised.
Simply because we find the words and building more aesthetically pleasing than a civil naming ceremony.
Also, the chapel we used is in my wife’s tiny home village, perched overlooking the North Yorkshire moors. Very Wuthering Heights. By having them baptised there they can use it for their own weddings if they so chose. (as we did, and we were atheists then as well)
But as others say, it depends on the denomination. This was Church of England so no-one actually expects you to believe in god.
I know it’s a hijack, but anyway the question has already been answered extensively. The RCC does not require either spouse to be baptised to consider a marriage valid or to perform a wedding - local customs and individual priests may vary; as has been mentioned, it is a sacrament where the officiants are the spouses and the priest is merely a witness who can read and write; depending on the location, it also covers the legal requisites. If you do say you’re a Christian, then you do need to provide a baptismal record (except if the church where the ceremony takes place is the one where you got baptised, in which case the priest will simply note in the wedding register the reference to the baptismal register) - if the location accepts church weddings as legally binding, and you want it to be so, you need to provide the appropriate legal paperwork (in Spain, copies of both “family books” and an affidavit from the Civil Registry stating that there is no record of either person being currently married). For example, the RCC has been performing weddings in Japan for over 20 years, where neither party is either RCC or Christian; the priests view it and the accompanying pre-marriage counseling (and pre-marriage talk about things ranging from “how many TVs in the house” to “birth control”) as a community service; I have several friends who are atheists and got married in front of an RCC priest (one or both spouses are atheists).
None of the denominations in my family (Southern Baptist and Assembly of God) perform the baptism of infants (as it is something the individual must choose to do). However, my cousin preferred a baptism to a dedication, and so went to a Methodist church.
I, unfortunately, was unable to attend, so I can’t tell you any more than that.
Not to detract from your awesome venting of steam, but Polycarp was I’m pretty sure arguing against Musicat’s original thread-shit. His opinion that the parents not go through with such a ceremony didn’t seem out of line to me.
I don’t have much else to add, other than as a once fervid Catholic and now soft atheist, I feel a personal connection to this issue. When I have kids of my own someday, I am not sure if I want them baptized or not. It’s a complicated issue.
Just to clarify – I had no intention to threadshit; in fact, my first paragraph was directed at Musicat’s apparent threadshitting. The rest of my post was an attempt to say what Shodan said better and more irenically than I did: that baptism is meaningful and tied to the raising of a child as a Christian by most denominational churches, and that, whatever your personal beliefs, that needs to be taken into account. Unless you hold to a belief about original sin that says, in effect, “this kid is going to Hell if he dies unbaptized, so get him done ASAP”, then there is in fact no rush to having it done. It was in no way intended as an insult to the OP or anyone else – just a cautionary note about the significance of baptism within the belief system of those who do infant baptism, and the idea that the parents ought to bring that under consideration in making decisions about baptisms.
Just to reiterate, the essential elements of a “Catholic ceremony” baptism are that water be used, that it be done in the names of the Trinity, and that there be a legitimate intention by the one performing the baptism that it be an actual baptism (so actors depicting a baptism scene probably wouldn’t count, for instance). All of these elements will be present in almost all Christian baptisms, so one could argue that the father is going to end up getting a “Catholic ceremony” whether he wants one, or even realizes it, or not.
And Bricker already mentioned this, but one does not get a baptism “re-done” by a priest. There may well be a big event later where all of the family attends, and where the priest might go through the motions, but that’s not a baptism, just a party that happens to involve splashing a baby. I was such a case, actually: I was baptized in the bathroom sink in the wee hours of the morning, with nobody but my parents present, but all of the photos and such were from a month or two later.
Oh, and someone back on the first page mentioned the sprinkling of the congregation with holy water: This is neither a baptism nor an exorcism, and in itself has no sacramental value at all. It’s intended as a reminder to the congregation of their baptisms, it being assumed that most or all of the people present probably were baptized at some time or another.
Go to the church of your choice and ask the pastor. That’s what they do for a living. Ask him or her questions. If it’s not a good fit for your beliefs, ask another.