The Rite
That Isn’t There

What is a baby dedication?

Some churches baptize only people who can say that they believe. These churches do not baptize babies. When a baby is born, they have a dedication service. The pastor often says, “We do this in place of baptizing babies.”

This page asks a small question. Does the New Testament tell Christians to do this? And if not, where did it come from?

No command and no example

Look in the New Testament for a ceremony like this: Christian parents bring a child to the church and give that child to God. You will not find it. Nobody is told to do it. Nobody does it. There is no word for it.

Paul corrects many things in the churches. He writes about the Lord’s Supper, about speaking in tongues, and about the order of a meeting. He never speaks about this.

This fact alone does not decide the question. The New Testament has no wedding service either. It has no Sunday school and no church building. Christians have all of these, and that is fine.

So the real question is this. People read some Bible passages at dedication services. Do those passages really describe a dedication?

Luke 2 is about the law of Moses

Most dedication services read from Luke chapter 2. Mary and Joseph bring the baby Jesus to the temple.

When the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”

Luke 2:22–24 · World English Bible

In simple words: The law of Moses gave a mother a number of days after a birth. When those days ended, they took Jesus to Jerusalem to bring him to the Lord. The law says that every first son belongs to the Lord. They also gave the gift that the law asks for: two small birds.

Read it slowly. There are three different things here. Two of them are not about the child.

1. The time. It comes from Leviticus 12. After the birth of a son, a mother waited forty days. Then she was “clean” again under the law. So the time is about Mary.
2. The gift. Two birds was the gift for a mother who could not pay for a lamb (Leviticus 12:8). It tells us that the family was poor. It says nothing about the baby.
3. Bringing the child. This comes from Exodus 13. Every first son in Israel belonged to God. The parents did not choose this. It was the law for every family.

So in Luke 2, a family keeps the law of Moses. A mother and father are not deciding to dedicate their son.

Hannah gave her son away for ever

The other favourite passage is 1 Samuel chapter 1. Read the whole story, not only the part people read aloud.

Hannah had no children for many years. She made a promise to God before she had a child. “Give me a son. I will give him back to you for his whole life.” She also promised that nobody would ever cut his hair. This was the sign of a special life given to God.

Hannah kept her promise. When the boy was still small, she took him to God’s house at Shiloh. She gave an animal as a gift to God. And she left the boy there. She went home without him. After that, she brought him a little coat once a year.

A dedication service today is very different. There is no promise like Hannah’s. There is no animal. And the family goes home together in the car. The two things share little more than an English word.

What the early church did with babies

For the first 500 years, no Christian ceremony anywhere did this: dedicate a baby in place of baptizing it. It is not in the service books. It is not in the church rules. It is not in the sermons or the letters. Nobody argues about it. That is usually the best sign that a thing did not exist.

What did the early church do with babies? It baptized them. We have clear evidence from about the year 180. Christians argued about when to baptize a child. They did not argue about whether to baptize.

Where the service came from

This part surprised the author. It does not fit the simple story of either side.

The practice is not a modern idea. A church leader named Balthasar Hubmaier wrote a letter on 16 January 1525. He had stopped baptizing babies. He wrote what he did in place of it:

Instead of baptism, I have the congregation assemble, introduce the child, and in German explain Matthew 19:13-15.

Balthasar Hubmaier, letter of 16 January 1525

In simple words: I do not baptize the baby. I bring the church together. I show them the child. I explain in German the Bible passage where Jesus blesses the children.

He also gave the child its name, and the whole church prayed for it on their knees. That is a baby dedication. It is 500 years old.

But the written service is new. For 300 years the practice was only a custom. Nobody printed it in a book. Then things changed.

What each service says it does

Put the two services side by side.

Many churches baptize babies: Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and Methodist. They do not agree about what God does in the baptism of a baby. But they all agree on one thing. God is the one who acts. Something is done to the child.

A dedication service says that nothing is done to the child. The parents are the ones who act. This is not a softer form of the same thing. It is a different kind of thing.

Now forget the teaching, and just look at what happens.

The same in both: the front of the church, a minister, the baby held up, the baby’s name, questions to the parents, promises, an answer from the church people, a prayer, the family and photographs, a paper to take home, and a name written in a church book.

Different: the water, the words “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”, the claim that God is acting, church membership, and the rule that baptism cannot be repeated.

So many things are the same, and five are different. And those five are exactly the things that baptism claims.

The best arguments against this page

1. “No command” proves too much. The New Testament has no command for a wedding service or a church building. Christians are free to do many things.
2. Jesus did bless little children. “He took them in his arms, and blessed them, laying his hands on them.” (Mark 10:16) A church that does this is copying Jesus.
3. It is not modern. It began in January 1525. A trained teacher of the Bible defended it.
4. The early evidence for baptizing babies is thinner than people say. Clear evidence starts about the year 180, not with the apostles. And in the 300s many famous Christians were not baptized as babies.
5. Dedication speaks to the right people. The Bible puts the duty of raising children on the parents. This service makes parents say so in front of others.
6. Keeping the form and dropping the claim can be right. Suppose you believe that baptizing a baby says something untrue. Then it is right to keep the family day and take away the claim.

The last argument is the strongest. The full page does not defeat it.

Where this page ends

Baby dedication is a real Christian custom, and people can defend it. Blessing a child is good. Asking parents to say their duties in public is good.

But one sentence is not true. People often say: “This is the practice of the Bible, and baptizing babies took its place.” The order is the other way round. The dedication service appeared at the moment when some people stopped baptizing babies. It has the shape of the baptism service. And it took 400 years to become a written service.

So it is a 500-year-old Christian custom. It would lose nothing if people said plainly what it is.

Read it yourself

1. Read these in one sitting: Exodus 13:1-16, Leviticus 12, Numbers 18:15-16, 1 Samuel 1, Luke 2:21-40 and Mark 10:13-16. It takes about thirty minutes.
2. Ask your church for the words of its dedication service. Compare them with Part 6.
3. The full page gives the names of the writers who argue against this page. Read them too.