BillK
Baptism - A Leap of Faith
Posted on: 09/15/2011 08:12
The United Church of Canada was featured in a beautiful story in today’s Globe and Mail, entitled “A Leap of Faith” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/parenting-facts-and-arguments/i-was-unsure-about-baptizing-our-son/article2166116/ Here is the text:
A LEAP OF FAITH
KATE SOLES
The first sacrament. The rite of admission into the Christian church. The symbol of religious purification.
Before the birth of my son, Eliot, I thought of baptism solely as a formality, an arcane ceremony that produced a wet, cranky, yet somehow enlightened, baby.
Indeed, my partner and I never formally decided to have Eliot baptized; we neither argued about the subject nor made a list of pros and cons. We both simply assumed we would follow mores and tradition, adding the ritual to our do-list for new parents: fill out paperwork for Vital Statistics, schedule immunizations, open RESP, plan baptism.
I did not grow up with a church fellowship, although my devoutly Catholic maternal grandparents insisted I be christened, attend Sunday school and receive first communion. As a child, I understood religion as a collection of acts performed to please others, not entirely oppressive but certainly devoid of personal satisfaction.
Conversely, my partner, Jean, always felt spiritually fulfilled at Whitehorse United, the church of her youth. Since moving to Victoria six years ago, Oak Bay United has provided her with a second home, a venue for grounding and a source of serenity. And, despite my own reticent hovering on the fringes of this congregation, its members have shown me boundless warmth and support.
This is the church that married Jean and me. This is the church that provided daily babysitting and catering the week we brought Eliot home. This is the church that threw us an unspeakably generous baby shower. It seemed natural, even obvious, that our son officially join this church through baptism.
My casual attitude changed, however, when Jean and I received an e-mail from our minister, Gaye, containing the order of service and a summary of our parental obligations. A wave of nauseating apprehension undulated through me as I scanned the responsibilities of raising a baptized child: to affirm and nurture my own faith; to provide my child with knowledge of truth and duty; to help him understand God’s covenant through care and discipline so that he may experience its resonance both at home and in the world.
If forced to classify my religious beliefs, I would label myself agnostic. Though I often sense a divine presence in my life, I cannot reconcile the tension between belief and knowledge. I remain skeptical that human reason will ever prove the existence of a single deity.
In my own state of uncertainty, how could I promise to share my faith with Eliot? How would I foster his spirituality and help him celebrate God’s presence when I needed convincing of it myself? I worried that I lacked the conviction to make such vows, that doing so would appear artificial and dishonest.
I broached these misgivings with Gaye when we met in person. In response, she asked me what made me decide to have Eliot baptized. My eyes shifted anxiously around the room. “It seems like the thing to do” felt like a grossly inadequate response, yet I could come up with nothing more profound.
Sensing my disquiet, Gaye said, “If the words make you uncomfortable, you don’t have to say anything; you can simply stand up with Jean in solidarity.”
“No!” I said. The exclamation shot from my throat like dragon’s breath. I absolutely would not choose silence; I wanted my voice to resound with confidence.
And then I realized: I don’t want Eliot to choose silence either. I want him to experience a secular education and to learn the philosophy of the United Church so that he may worship with sensitivity and discernment. I want to foster his curiosity about God so that he asks questions about creation, nature and discipleship.
While my own beliefs may not conform with Jean’s, I hope that unabashedly showing Eliot our individual theologies allows him to carve his own spiritual path. Ultimately, I want to give my son the tools to make independent decisions, to afford him the desire and the courage to choose compromise over violence, compassion over intolerance.
As I verbalized this torrent of thoughts, a smile crept over Gaye’s face. “I think,” she said slowly, “you’re ready to make your vows.”
Standing at the altar last March holding my five-month-old child, facing a sea of his grandparents, aunties, cousins and friends, I felt genuinely embraced.
As the ceremony began, I sensed a spiritual breath flowing through the sanctuary. With serenity, Jean and I made our sacred vows in front of the congregation, who promised in return to provide Eliot with a place to be nurtured and understood.
Eliot stared awestruck at the holy water flowing from pitcher to basin. He appeared perplexed but not unhappy as Gaye touched her wet hand to his forehead and blessed him.
With wonder in his eyes, he fixated on the tenor soloist as he sang You Raise Me Up. He smiled at the children who presented him with gifts: a story Bible, a hand-painted stone bearing the word “beloved,” a taper candle.
As I scanned the audience, searching unsuccessfully for a pair of dry cheeks, I understood: This is love. This is community. This is baptism.
Kate Soles lives in Victoria.
Comments
BillK
Posted on: 09/15/2011 08:15
bump
onewman
Posted on: 09/15/2011 12:04
Attention! Humanists...kkksshhhtttt... come out of the church with your hands up! ksshhhttt... How many hostages do you have in their with you...kkksshhttt...
gecko46
Posted on: 09/15/2011 12:28
Beautiful story.
somegalfromcan
Posted on: 09/15/2011 13:05
That's awesome! Oak Bay is a church that has been through a lot in recent years, so to see it coming out on the other side with stories like this is so lovely.
Beloved
Posted on: 09/15/2011 15:37
Beautiful, well-written story - full of emotion. The baby is the one baptised, but it appears that the parent was touched within.
We rejoice and celebrate at our church when there are baptisms - they are few and far between as it appears to me that many of the generation having and raising babies have not been raised in the church themselves and therefore considering baptism for their children is not sought.
Dcn. Jae
Posted on: 09/15/2011 23:21
At our church we baptize those who have publicly professed their faith in Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Saviour. We do not baptize babies.
Panentheism
Posted on: 09/18/2011 10:08
MC we all know this -It is a great story.
weeze
Posted on: 09/18/2011 11:39
Yes, yes, yes! That's why we don't turn people down when they come for baptism. There's something there they can't often articulate--but it's there, it's the spirit breathing new life into them, and we want to fan it and encourage it, not snuff it out. Thank God for places like Oak Bay, and ministers like Gaye, who encourage and nurture seeds of faith.
trishcuit
Posted on: 09/21/2011 19:55
The trickling of water onto little babies I see as more of a Christening. We don't do the trickle in our church but we do have a 'baby dedication' ceremony. Prayers, words, etc as the parents give their baby to God's keeping and pray for the resources to raise a Godly child.
Baptisms we see as an act done by a person old enough to know exactly what they're doing and why. It is a conscious decision. A brief course in relevant scripture comes first.
Dcn. Jae
Posted on: 09/21/2011 20:24
The trickling of water onto little babies I see as more of a Christening. We don't do the trickle in our church but we do have a 'baby dedication' ceremony. Prayers, words, etc as the parents give their baby to God's keeping and pray for the resources to raise a Godly child.
Baptisms we see as an act done by a person old enough to know exactly what they're doing and why. It is a conscious decision. A brief course in relevant scripture comes first.
That's the way Christ leads our church to do things as well, and I like that way. Apparently Christ leads other churches and denominations to see things differently. It's all good.
BetteTheRed
Posted on: 09/21/2011 20:27
We, of course, have confirmations that are similar to your baptism.
I love that feeling of community that often comes with a baptism. Our baptism services really do recognize the "village" aspect of childraising and the great need many parents have for support during those often hectic and chaotic years. We had a particularly wonderful baptism this summer when a guest minister baptized her granddaughter.
RevLGKing
Posted on: 09/25/2011 17:28
ABOUT BAPTISM AS MENTIONED IN MARK 1:8&9; ACTS 8:36; ACTS 10: 44-48, AND ACTS 16:16-35
I offer the above references and the following comments simply as an observation, not as an argument for one form of baptism over another:
BAPTISM THROUGH THE CENTURIES
It is probably only fair to say that the rite of Baptism--from the Greek baptizein which simply means to dip, bathe, wash--is nowhere described in detail, in the Bible. Though immersion, or dipping, in water was commonly used (Mark 1:8,9 and Acts 8:38) in Bible times, it was usually, but not exclusively, done outdoors and probably in warm weather.
The reference to the baptism of Jesus by his six-month-older cousin, John, is an interesting one. Tradition tells us that Jesus' baptism took place in the Jordan, near Jericho. At the request of an adult, who had never been baptised, I once had the privilege of doing a baptism in the traditional spot.
Bible scholars tell us that the ancient Greeks, the Babylonians (modern Iraq &Iran area) and Jews (Numbers 19:7) all used water in religious ceremonies. Just prior to the Christian era, the people of Israel allowed Gentiles to qualify for membership in Israel by baptism.
John the Baptist took this ancient ceremony and simply adapted it as a purification ritual introducing the one he considered to be the Messiah (in Greek Christ). Interestingly, in Acts 10 it is associated it with the "speaking in strange tongues" and in the receiving the gift of the "Holy Spirit"--a strange phenomenon not commonly understood.
To those who insist that immersion if the only way to be baptised, I ask: Regarding Acts 16, was immersion possible in the prison at Phillipi? Or in the house of Cornelius? And when it says that the jailer and "all his family were baptised at once" does this not imply the baptism of children?
CONFIRMATION OF BAPTISM IS IMPORTANT
Of course I agree: simply baptising children is NOT the end of the matter.
Baptism, like birth is only the beginning of a life-long process of physical, mental and spiritual growth. With the help of the community, including families, or sponsors--the community we call "the church", it is, in my opinion, very important that our young people--when, as we say, they "come of age" and are willing accept responsibility for who they are--receive spirit-based education geared to their level of understanding.
Without any kind of adult coercion, the goal of this education is to prepare those who seek to be confirmed in their baptism to answer, in a service of public worship, the following or similar kind of question: Are you now ready to take personal responsibility for what it means, and implies, to be a baptised and confirmed Christian?
Olivet_Sarah
Posted on: 10/03/2011 20:05
We had a 'baby naming' ceremony this summer at my in-laws' house for baby J, presided over by a UU chaplain. It saddens me a bit still, being so connected to my church community, that he wasn't baptized. But even in the context of the above article, hubby - who is an ethnically Jewish secular humanist - was just not comfortable with the implications of baptism, even understanding them in the UCC context of a welcoming into (Christian) community. It's why he doesn't take communion with us despite our 'open table' policy (gentile or Jew, servant or free, woman or man no more), and I respect that. While the boys will, to a degree, grow up in the loving arms of my faith community, being surrounded in our hometown by a host of loving and well-meaning family and friends was meaningful as well.
jrichard
Posted on: 10/05/2011 15:27
What a lovely story. I really like how the couple thought about what Baptism really means to them before Baptizing their child. I wish more people did that rather than did it by rote tradition or by "fire insurance" (just in case something "happens"). It's such a beautiful and important Rite and should be done thoughtfully.
I love the sound of the couple's church community.
God Bless and thanks for sharing.