To wonder why non religious people get their babies christened?

[Topsyshair]

Before anyone gets very offended, I do realise that it's entirely up to the parents what they do.

I just wonder the reasoning behind it. I know a few people who are not religious at all, never set foot in a church unless to attend a wedding, yet have their babies christened.

What puzzles me more is some of these people claim to have no money and be very poor but pay for a christening do.

While we're not believers in the literal truth of the bible, we are culturally Christian.

I want my children to have that background. I want them to know the same bible stories I grew up with. For that reason, I'll not only baptise them, but I'll take them to church occasionally (beyond Christmas and Easter).

It's a bit of an advantage for schools too, though we're not in the UK and the system is different.

We Didn't baptise ours. I think baptism if you don't believe the vows you are making is hypocritical and disrespectful.

However in general I don't like the whole concept of infant baptism. I think that everyone should make their own choices as you can't unbaptise yourself. As a pp said you are on a list of "believers" in a church forever more. That choice should be yours, not someone else's.

Infant baptism is not even biblical. In the bible people are baptised as adults after making the choice. Jesus himself was baptised as an adult.

We've told our kids that the choice is theirs but they need to be older to make it. I actively discourage making the choice under 16/18 as I want to do all I can to be sure they are making it for themselves and not to please anyone else. I also want them to fully understand what it means.

I also didn't get married in a church as I wasn't a practising Christian at the time and I think it's hypocritical. If you don't believe that's fine but I don't like when people make religious vows they don't believe.

Go to a church fair or group, get support, attend a Christmas mass etc. Fantastic. I'm all for that. Just don't stand up in front of god and make vows and profess to believe in him when you don't.

Alternatively, MYOB.

I speak as a practicing Catholic who had DCs baptised because it was important that they grew up in a faith community. Their dad and I doing that back then in no way binds them to that faith for life. They will make their own choices and I will support them in that.

I thought Roman Catholics believed in baptismal regeneration.

I think it’s natural people are keen to mark a birth with a ceremony, and in our current society the main way of doing that is via religion. Before the country was Christian there were other types of ceremonies. People choose to have ‘naming ceremonies’ but assume they feel alien to many, and people more familiar with Christianings, even if not religious.

I'm a staunch atheist and my husband is a Christian.

I would never have agreed to get my kids baptised (They clearly didn't have any original sin to wash away - they were perfect little pudgy babies. Plus I'm not Adam and eve's descendants and even if I was I don't think eve actually did anything wrong anyway ) if it weren't for that fact that my two choices were private or faith schools for a decent education.

So I decided to play the system. Got the piece of paper and the priest's signature and now both my two are at a mixed community/foundation faith all through school with no stresses about 11-plus etc when the time comes. I wear my hypocrite badge of honour with pride.

My husband gets grief from the in-laws for 'using' the church but he actually doesn't care.

We never even thought about schools when our son was christened! I'm agnostic but his dad is a Christian and it was important to him that our son was christened. He has lovely godparents and I'm happy for him to be brought up with knowledge of christian values.

Baffles me too! The promises made are completely false where there is no belief. I think most do it to keep the family happy.

For most of the people I know it was just an excuse to have a party/celebration.

1. For the education opened to them
2. For the party/social celebration

We Didn't baptise ours. I think baptism if you don't believe the vows you are making is hypocritical and disrespectful.

However in general I don't like the whole concept of infant baptism. I think that everyone should make their own choices as you can't unbaptise yourself. As a pp said you are on a list of "believers" in a church forever more. That choice should be yours, not someone else's.

Agreeed

I know people who did it and aren't religious at all! And schooling won't make a difference round here. I also know someone else who isn't religious in the slightest but wanted to be a god parent so lied and said she had been christened so she could be. I argued that he role of godparent was to support them in their religious journey amongst other things but she then said she didn't believe in god?! I went round in circles!! I don't see the point in that.

I think a parent thinking Christening a child means better access to schools is somewhat naive.

Our local Catholic school isn't going to accept just on being christened alone there's a lot more involved than that.

Your application to the school is usually supported by your parish priest - They look at the whole family participation in the parish etc even to get married there's a course to attend as a couple.

It’s not niave, christening is obviously the start of whatever you need to do to satisfy the admissions criteria. If you have to attend weekly then parents will. People aren’t daft enough not to check criteria before they start doing what it takes to get their children in.

I also know someone else who isn't religious in the slightest but wanted to be a god parent so lied and said she had been christened so she could be

I don't get this either, know several people that have done it to hardly see the child let alone give them religious guidance after. I think people see it as similar to being a bridesmaid or best man, for one day only.

Wonder why the church doesn't check like they do (at least check your connection to the church/parish I mean) when you get married...

Because they don’t care lb. of course they could check if they wanted

I regularly attend church and guess it must be cultural. We see so many families have their children christened who we have never seen before or since including godparents!

Baptism is a serious sacrament in the church but I guess CofE can't really refuse to baptise a child.

Generally, children do not need to be christened to get into a CofE school. It is down to church attendance. So you may be correct for Catholics, but not all faith schools.

With C of E, if you live in the parish and are free to marry, the vicar doesn't actually have the option of refusing you. You don't even have to be C of E, let alone observant. Because it's the established church. Anyone not agreeing with this would do well to campaign for disestablishment.

My child has got into a c of e school and there's been no questions about our religion. So surely that's across the board. I think catholic schools are slightly different?

It's not across the board because there's massive regional variation in the UK. From what I can see, the situation in London is very different to elsewhere. There was a poster the other day scoffing in disbelief that a church school could be undersubscribed. I thought to myself, bet she's down south!

As far as I can tell, because some faith schools are really oversubscribed, they can impose requirements about baptism, attendance etc for the 'faith' places. Of the sort that are not going to fly at a Catholic school on an estate in Liverpool, say. And for the non faith places you sometimes have to live like 8 metres away from the school gate. Which creates further issues of exclusion of course.

For show I think. Same reason why non religious people get married in a church. Looks nice for the pictures

It’s not accross the board as midge says. My local cofe primaries have an intake of 15 and require a letter from the vicar

I find it really odd that anything nice is considered “showy”

My SIL rushed through a Christening with her eldest. He was 7 months old. Yet her youngest still hasn't been christened and he's 13!

A few mutual friend speculated that it was because I had ds 6 weeks previously which put her nose out of joint as she was convinced I was having a girl!