Rob and Kim Goldman wanted to welcome their first-born daughter, Sienna, into the world in a special way.
“My family kept asking me over and over again when I was going to have the baby baptized,” Kim Goldman said.
But a traditional church baptism didn’t feel right for the Goldman family, who live in Staten Island, N.Y. Kim was raised Catholic, and Rob is Jewish. While they follow traditions of both religions, neither regularly attend church or synagogue.
So the Goldmans decided to welcome Sienna with a different kind of ceremony: a baby blessing.
An official non-religion religion. How nice.
[blockquote] Baptism without a church
During the outdoor ceremony, the officiant baptized her, something many families don’t realize is possible if they don’t belong to a church, says Rev. Debora Hall Bradley, a nondenominational, interfaith minister in Cincinnati, Ohio. She says parents often ask her if their baby can be baptized even if they’re not church members.[/blockquote]
Whatever babtism this is it is not Christian Baptism.
#2: Not necessarily. If it was done with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit then it’s a valid Christian baptism. It’s sad and problematic that people want to avoid the Church- but these baptisms *could* be valid. Note that the article never mentions what wording is used,
I can still recall from thirty years ago my Catholic college roommate’s aunts describing how they dealt with interfaith families in their extended families, in order to ensure that the resulting infants were [i]really Catholic, when all said and done…[/i]
It involved quite a bit of planning, offers of baby sitting, and borrowing holy water from the parish font. With godparents figuring so heavily in the Catholic baptismal scheme of things, at least in Bridesburg PA, these aunts figured that doing what the parents had trouble committing to was the right thing in God’s eyes.
I got the idea that they had seen tougher times in the Depression with its higher infant mortality rates, and weren’t going to let some poor kid go to hell because of parental indecision or insouciance. I didn’t argue with them.
#2: done with water in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit makes it a valid baptism? I’m not so sure. Isn’t there some consideration for the “intention?’ Doesn’t the BCP say something about it being done “rightly” which I don’t think refers to procedure.
I wonder what the purpose of all this is? Whose needs are being met? This is a great example of the belief that the process of baptism saves!
I do not have a problem with blessing babies. As someone who struggles with the idea of infant baptism, I was delighted when Truro offered a ceremony to ‘receive’ my nine-month-old daughter into the church. I could place her before the body of Christ and ask that she be welcomed into the fellowship of the faithful.
As with all things, it matters how this idea is enacted.
Michael B [#3] writes: “If it was done with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit then it’s a valid Christian baptism.” And drjoan [#5] writes: “done with water in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit makes it a valid baptism? I’m not so sure. Isn’t there some consideration for the ‘intention?’ Doesn’t the BCP say something about it being done “rightly†which I don’t think refers to procedure.”
It’s always useful to remember something: The effects of baptism are purely hypothetical. We don’t have actual evidence that baptism is efficacious, let alone that it requires some particular verbal formula. True, we have the opinions of various believers, but we can’t point to any facts that might change the minds of even open-minded nonbelievers and doubters, let alone the closed-minded ones.
As to the trinitarian baptismal formula, it’s likewise useful to remember that, according to the Book of Acts, the apostles baptized in the name of Jesus alone; that is, when they were recorded as baptizing in anyone’s name at all.