Does anyone know if there is a difference between babtizing and Christening?

Question

My husband grew up Catholic and would like our daughter to be baptized/christened in the catholic church. I am obviously not very religious. This may be a silly question but I don't want to send out invitations with the wrong thing on it. Is one for the Catholic faith and one Lutheran???

Answer 1

No, both involve holding your child underwater until they come around to your way of thinking.

Answer 2

Christening is a ceremony of baptism and giving the child a name. For your purposes, they are at the same. There is no difference between the baptism in the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church. There are some differences with other Protestants.

I think you may be confusing Christening with Dedication. These two thing are different.

Answer 3

Catholics and Lutherans call it baptism. They believe you cannot get to heaven unless you are baptized. Christening is considered a dedication of the baby although both in christening and in the catholic and Lutheran baptism you are also dedicating yourself as parents to raise the child in prospective faiths. I would suggest calling the pastor or priest. If you feel silly about asking them directly ask them the difference and you should be able to figure out which they believe in and what the service will be for.

Answer 4

Christening is actually a separate ceremony that is usually done at the same time as the baptism. Baptism is the sacrament. Christening is not a sacrament. When my oldest child was born, he was in serious medical trouble, so a nurse baptized him in the hospital. He could not be rebaptized of course, but we still had the Christening ceremony with the family present. This was in the Catholic Church. The invitations should say "baptism". That is the central event.
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Answer 5

Take it from a Lutheran Pastor, the two titles are one in the same. Lutherans, tend to use the word baptism to describe the ceremony, and the Christening is the actual action of the water upon the heart and forehead. Hope this helps.

Answer 6

You are safe if you say baptize because that is what Scripture says. I am told that some within the Catholic Church (mostly on the East Coast) call it Christening but, the majority of Catholics and the correct term is baptism

Answer 7

If he's catholic the infant will have prayers over them and holy water put on its head. Baptists among others completely submerge a person under water. Your child will be christened (long white beautiful christening dress) in a Catholic Ceremony.

Answer 8

There is no such thing as christening in the Catholic faith. I just checked it in the Catechism. You may be right. Christening may be a Lutheran practice.
Peace and every blessing!

Answer 9

For the liturgical churches that practice infant baptizing they are one and the same. You Christianize (where we get the word Christening) by baptizing them.

For anabaptists (like Baptists, Brethren and others who practice "believers baptism"), baptism follows profession of faith -one becomes a Christian at the moment of belief, placing one's trust in Christ for salvation.

The liturgicals typically sprinkle or pour water to baptize while many of the anabaptists practice full immersion.
Funny thing, the word baptizo (transliterated from the Greek) means to dip. Catholics used to practice immersion as well (you can see ancient churches with baptistries that resemble those of modern Baptist churches) but switched after the Council of Verbenna. Seems clean water for baptism was harder to come by and many small children were dying before being baptized. This caused parents to fear for their children's eternal destiny.
Thus started the practice of baptizing as early as possible.

Answer 10

It should be a baptism. Christening is more of a dedication and baptism is a full dedication and acknowledgement that God has sealed the child into the covenant community of faith. That said, most people of all the Christians denominations have a limited understaning of infant baptism. Most falsely believe that it's an adult decision, but that is simply not scriptural.

Answer 11

If you are Catholic then you send out Christening invitations, I promise!!!

Baptism refers to the public declaration an adult makes that they are now Christian.

Christening is the public declaration of the parents that they are dedicating the child to God and will raise the baby to love God. It is also the time that the godparents are named.