why infant baptism?

Born into a Catholic home, my only proof of my baptism is in the pictures (my baptismal card too)  I was shown as a little child. The pictures were in my parents' famous wooden albums and I absolutely loved looking through them whenever the opportunity (namely an ‘August’ visitor) presented itself.

On occasion though, either by questioning or story-telling moments that were part of my childhood, the stories behind the pictures were told. That is most probably how I discovered I was the beautiful baby (touché) quietly receiving her stamp of being a Christian by baptism of water. The picture is probably cliché – my sisters all had similar ones too – of a non-pregnant looking mom holding out my head to receive the water being poured from the bowl and a fuller-haired dad smiling at the camera during the infant baptism mass celebration.

At the time, we’d have gone back home either to a mini-celebration or just receiving felicitations of friends in church after the baptism mass. It officially signaled that my mom was ‘fit’ enough to get back into church activities after birthing. My parents did this for all 5 of their children by the way.

While growing up, I realized that infant baptism was not the norm across Christendom. Maybe because I was pre-conditioned as a Catholic, I didn’t give it much thought often and when I did, I couldn’t fathom for the life of me, what was so wrong with baptizing your baby versus letting them grow up and choosing their religious path. Honestly, I disliked small talk pretty early in life and my impatience extended to all the bickering across Christendom where accusations and counter accusations were always thrown in order to justify why people decided to do things differently. I avoid Religious arguments for only one reason, I think it is personal and I am making my journey for myself. I don’t expect to discover my truth for someone else and I certainly don’t expect anyone to do me that favour – we all have to make that discovery ourselves.

But I digress. Recently, I realized that asides from being commonsensical, infant baptism is an offshoot of the wisdom of the Church. The question shouldn’t be ‘why do you baptize an infant without their consent?’ but ‘why not?’ Do you go about naming your child only after they have come of age and agreed to go by the name ‘Bob Joe’ or ‘Anne Smith?’ (probably before then you’d call them ‘baby1’)? Do you wait for their consent before you take them for the ‘mandatory’ immunizations as prescribed by your doctor especially because they cry when receiving the many injections and meds? Do you wait till they are fully grown and ask them to pick what nationality they want to identify with?– and truly the list goes on!

So when is the right time to baptize your child? To me the answer lies in this question – when is the right time to claim your child for God? What is their identity between the time they are born until they decide who they want to pledge allegiance to?

In all honesty, there are so many decisions parents have to take on behalf of their children – some have little impact and others have a lifetime effect. Most of these decisions are taken by human beings who don’t know it all but who definitely should know better than anybody else – including the child at this stage. It is a foregone conclusion that most parents have the best interest of their children at heart which include spiritual, physical, emotional, social aspects of their well being. For African Christians, we like to emphasize the spiritual even if it means garnishing it over any or all of the others mentioned earlier. So I have no doubt in my mind that baptizing an infant was anything but the best thing to do. I bet you that more often than not, the celebration of the first year birthday of the child would trump any baptism celebration and if you have attended any one of these type of celebration, you know it is less for the child who barely can stand on their feet!

Having said that, I would add it is not enough to go through the motion of infant baptism. And it does not absolve the parents from doing the needful work of ‘train(ing) a child in the way that they ought to go’, rather, it should set the foundation for the child to discover himself/herself completely as fore mostly a spiritual being – belonging to the family of the Most High God - and secondly as belonging to this earthly community of believers (and unbelievers). Exactly as explained on Sunday by Fr. Afam Ikeh – we are embodied spirits and not spiritualized bodies.

I have taken care not to quote the Catholic doctrine here as part of my reasons in the bid to have meaningful conversation with people not versed in the Catholic doctrine.