To bless or baptize the baby:
By THEA RUTHERFORD, Guardian National Correspondent -
Nassau, Bahamas:

At eight months old her baby has not yet been christened, an unusual departure from the traditional six-week mark that she is used to.

The new mom and her husband, who is not of the Christian faith, have struggled with the issue. "We talked about it for months," says (the mother who prefers to remain anonymous).

Both parents agree that they want their baby to have a Christian background. They want him to experience Sunday School and they want him to know the Bible. They don't want him to be ostracized by others as someone who has not been christened.

But they are torn.

And they are not alone. Many parents put off either baptizing or dedicating their infants because they have trouble deciding which path to follow. Parents may be from different faith traditions as well as from different religions.

Others may no longer see the significance of baby baptism or dedication. But for those who desire to hold on to tradition and continue to question their faith journey, and the role they should play in the establishment of their children's journey, baptism or dedication remain options.

The baby baptism and the baby dedication are two distinctive acts that have been referred to interchangeably to the confusion of some. The term christening, which the Oxford English dictionary defines as the "ceremony of baptizing or naming," has been used as a catchall term for quite some time.

"Some churches say they have only believer's baptism. That you have to be adult and rational before you can consent to baptism," says Drexel Gomez, Archbishop of the West Indies and Bishop of the Diocese of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos. The Anglican Church is among faith traditions that practice infant baptism.

"Our position is we think that from the earliest days infants were baptized as members of the believing family. In baptism it is God who is acting to make a person a member of His family and within that membership is room for growth and development," says Gomez.

For those who consider the child's inability to comprehend the act of baptism, baby dedications offer an avenue for parents to commit themselves to creating an environment for their children to believe in God for themselves, as well as enlisting the help of their faith community to raise their children.

Matthew Sweeting, a pastor at New Providence Community Church (NPCC), says that the baby dedication practice is a tradition that's thousands of years old.

"Quite simply it's where parents then are making a covenant before God, and the simplest way to say it is they are really committing themselves before God to bring up their child in the faith that they were brought up in," says Sweeting. "It's based on the premise that you can't parent your kids by yourself. Ultimately [parents]... recognize the best chance for a child to find their faith, a healthy faith, is to have it modeled before them by those who love them."

A number of sources point to scriptures referring to baby dedications that include the Old Testament story of Hannah, Samuel's mother.

"And [Hannah] made a vow, saying, 'O Lord Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.'" 1 Samuel 1:11 (NIV).

With baby dedications come a widened sense of community, Sweeting says, pointing to times past when looking out for the children of one's community was something that all people did. "There was a greater sense of community and today individuality has kind of taken over in many ways where no one really wants the responsibility. They don't think of it as a privilege, they think of it more as a responsibility, like a burden..."

In both the tradition of dedication and of baptism, the child is eventually called upon to play a role of his/her own. Those who dedicate their babies hope that they will grow up to follow the example of faith that they as parents have modeled over the years, and choose baptism for themselves.

"Just because you baptize your child doesn't mean they're going to turn out okay," says Sweeting, who explains that the church believes you can tell children to do something but if they are not ready to do it for themselves, they won't do it. "We believe faith is no different from that. Everything in life comes down to choice, so we're saying we can't choose for our children."

Archbishop Gomez breaks down baby baptism for parents who come to him, confused about whether they are making a choice the child cannot comprehend by explaining that it is God who performs the act of making the child a part of his family through baptism.

"We never stop growing as members of God's family," says Gomez, who adds that at confirmation children who have been baptized then recommit themselves to faithful service and affirm what was done at baptism when they were babies.

"There is always room for affirmation. We have the renewal of baptismal vows every Easter when every member of the church is invited to renew his or her baptismal vows. It's not a static thing. It's something that's growing, that's evolving. We don't stop growing until we meet him face to face. To be baptized is to be brought into a new relationship with God. Outside of that you are not part of God's family."

Both traditions also require parents to prepare for the act through counseling, in many cases for weeks at a time. Their role is to guide children in their faith.

While it took months, the new parents have come to a decision. They've chosen to baptize their son in the Catholic Church. The couple chose this path after knowing, not only that they wanted to expose their son to different traditions, but that they wanted him to have a "traditional" Christian experience.

Says the mom, who also said that the idea of having godparents as an extension of the family also appealed to them. "We didn't want to take [the decision] lightly."