Hellobee Boards

I'm saving this thread because we're planning on baptizing DD soon and I'm pretty clueless. I was raised Catholic and it's virtually impossible for us to have DD baptized in a Catholic church because of their very strict rules. For instance, DH and I should have been married in a church. Also, we're not registered parishioners since we live abroad and we want her to be baptized in my hometown.

We're thinking about getting it done at home by a nondenominational priest. Although technically, her baptism wouldn't be counted in the Catholic faith because it's not done in church by a Catholic priest.

Do you plan on raising your LO to be Christian? Because the priest will likely ask you that.

@highwire: I'm not really sure how Methodists do it, so maybe they're more laid back about the whole thing? DH was baptized as Lutheran as a baby and I'm pretty sure any church we go to here will require for us to be a part of it (which we are not).

To be honest, I was pretty close to canceling the whole thing because we also want LO to have her options open. I've read that some religions don't even do infant baptisms/Christenings. But the option of having it done at home had presented itself and I'd feel a lot better about it since it's less likely to require vows tied with a specific church and denomination. But a baptism does mean that you're presenting your child to Christ.

I'm joining the local Methodist church (and I was raised Methodist - just transferring my membership) so I grabbed my "q and a about the Methodist church" book. So these are the official teachings, though your DH's pastor might have some slightly different interpretation.

Baptism is 1 of our 2 sacraments - the other is communion.
Q: Methodists baptize babies, is it necessary for salvation?
A: when an infant is baptized, the parents promise to raise the child in a Christian home and the congregation recognizes its responsibility in the Christian nature of the child. The vows are later reaffirmed by the child when he or she is confirmed as a church member. While baptism is an important sacrament it is not absolutely necessary for salvation.
(But if you're not baptized, you will have to be baptized before you are confirmed or join a Methodist congregation)

@Grace: some catholic parishes require that a couple who wasn't married in the church go to counseling and Get married in the Catholic Church - and my SIL/brother were told they'd also have to make a $1000 donation on top of all that. They got their son baptized Methodist instead.

My bil and SIL, though, weren't married in the church, bil isn't catholic and sil's parish baptized their kids no problem. So it really depends!

@Grace: Thank you for that, it does mean something to me. But my hometown is ridiculously strict. I've heard of endless stories of lifelong parishioners being turned down for one reason or other. But it's nice to know that not all places go by the same rigid standards.

@dagret: I hear ya on the that. It seems so random and I find it so odd because in the Catholic faith, infant baptisms are very important.

I just wanted to say that this thread got me to do some research and I found a post that compares Lutheran and Evangelical views on baptism that I found very interesting:

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/what-i-like-about-lutheran-baptism