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Water is poured on the head of an infant held over the baptismal font of a Roman Catholic church. Infant baptism [1] [2] (or paedobaptism) is the practice of baptizing infants or young children. Infant baptism is also called christening by some faith traditions. Most Christians belong to denominations that practice infant baptism.
Baptism has been part of Christianity from the start, as shown by the many mentions in the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline epistles. Christians consider Jesus to have instituted the sacrament of baptism. How explicit Jesus' intentions were and whether he envisioned a continuing, organized Church is a matter of dispute among scholars. [27]
In the close of his comprehensive 2009 study, Baptism in the Early Church, [161] Everett Ferguson devoted four pages (457–60) to summarizing his position on the mode of baptism, expressed also in his The Church of Christ of 1996, [162] that the normal early-Christian mode of baptism was by full immersion. [163]
Infant baptism was widely practised at least by the third century, [25] but it is disputed whether it was in the first centuries of Christianity. Some believe that the Church in the apostolic period practised infant baptism, arguing that the mention of the baptism of households in the Acts of the Apostles would have included children within the ...
In the Catholic Church by baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins. [233] Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte "a new creature", an adopted son of God, who has become a "partaker of the divine nature", member of Christ and co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) does not practise infant baptism, but individuals can be baptized after they reach 8 years old (the age of accountability). Confirmation in the LDS Church occurs shortly following baptism, which is not considered complete or fully efficacious until confirmation is received.
The Reformation period. Some early reformed rites of Baptism and Confirmation and other contemporary Documents, London: SPCK, p. 273. Kenan B. Osborne, OFM, (1987), The Christian Sacraments of Initiation. Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, New York-Mahwah: Paulist Press, ISBN 0-8091-2886-1
One of the earliest of the Church Fathers to enunciate clearly and unambiguously the doctrine of baptismal regeneration ("the idea that salvation happens at and by water baptism duly administered") was Cyprian (c. 200 – 258): "While he attributed all the saving energy to the grace of God, he considered the 'laver of saving water' the instrument of God that makes a person 'born again ...