Unitarian Universalist naming ceremonies

So what’s the difference between baptisms, christenings, and child dedications? (Historical info about these ceremonies: here, here, here, and here.)

Baptism ceremonies use some formula that gives a name to the child in the name of, variously, God the Father (alone); Lord Jesus (alone): or God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit )together); at least one Unitarian baptism ceremony used the trinitarian formula. A baptism ceremony may be generally understood to be in the Protestant tradition where there are just two ordinances observed by a Protestant Christian church, that of the Lord’s Supper (i.e., communion) and baptism.

Dedication ceremonies prior to the late twentieth century use some formula that dedicate the child to God the Father, or to the example of Jesus. From the late twentieth century on, dedication ceremonies may dedicate the child to a moral life, a higher purpose, etc.

Christening ceremonies give a child its “Christian” name. In some cases, a christening ceremony is understood as the same as a baptism. In other cases, for example in the Western Unitarian Conference, a christening is significantly different from a baptism; a christening may simply name the child, or may dedicate the child’s life to “to virtue, to truth, to love, to duty, to the service of God and humanity,” etc.

Ministers and academic theologians will want to make clear distinctions between baptism, christening, and dedication of children. Baptism, it may be argued, is a Christian rite for which various justifications can be provided from the Christian scriptures; an explication of baptism will most likely get into the theology of original sin. Christening is also a Christian rite, it may be argued, distinguished from baptism in that it is a simple naming ritual, giving a child its Christian name; and distinguished from baptism in that there is no specific example of christening found in the Christian scriptures. Dedication, it may be argued, originally came from a rejection of the necessity of infant baptism (on whatever theological ground), so that the ceremony is simply a dedication of the child’s life to God, higher purpose, or what-have-you. — These academic distinctions could be (and have been) argued at great length.

In common practice, in religion as it was actually lived out, none of these terms appears to have had a precise definition. Nineteenth century Universalists appeared to have maintained some distinction between the terms “baptism” and “dedication”; roughly speaking, a dedication was used by those who did not feel that children needed to be baptized, either because they found no justification for baptism in the Christian scriptures, or because their theology of salvation held that baptism was not required, or for some other reason. Nineteenth century Unitarians tended to use the terms “christening” and “baptism” somewhat interchangeably, although sometimes there appears to have been some slight distinction between the two, with “baptism” perhaps indicating a slightly more conservative theology. In the twentieth century, “christening” and “dedication” seem to appear more frequently among both the Unitarians and Universalists; however, “baptism” also appears as a synonym for “christening” or “dedication,” sometimes coupled with one of the other terms, e.g., “christening or baptism.” Into the mid-twentieth century, there appears to have been increasing preference for the terms “christening” and “dedication”; by the end of the twentieth century, the dominant term was “dedication,” while “christening” and “baptism” had fallen out of widespread use.

Today, in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, I feel that these three terms have definite connotations within Unitarian Universalism. “Dedication” has become the default term for mainstream Unitarian Universalism; the term is typically interpreted as meaning that we dedicate children to some higher purpose; and the term connotes adherence to mainstream Unitarian Universalist values. “Christening” is being used less and less frequently, but when it is used it seems to appear with a naming ceremony related to late twentieth century liberal Protestantism; thus the term “christening” connotes a respect for recent tradition, and a desire to carry that liberal Christian tradition on. “Baptism” is perhaps used more frequently than “christening” these days among Unitarian Universalists; partly due to the influence of liturgical renewal movements among liberal Christians who are reclaiming the rite of baptism, and partly due to the near obliteration of the term “christening.”

However, in our increasingly multicultural society in which fewer and fewer people have been raised in any kind of religious community, these fine distinctions between “baptism,” “christening,” and “dedication” are lost on many people. I would venture to guess that only half of younger Unitarian Universalists — those who are at an age where they have having babies — have a strong sense of what a child dedication is, or why they might want one for their child; they may be more aware of what a baptism is, but they probably associate baptism with some stereotype of creepy conservative Christians. Furthermore, in many regions popular culture and popular religion provide alternatives like gender-reveal parties, or do-it-yourself ceremonies, all of which, for many families, fill the need for some kind of ceremony to recognize and welcome babies.

Here in Silicon Valley, I’m seeing fewer and fewer families who know what a child dedication ceremony is, or see any need for their family to have such a ceremony. Perhaps more families would want a child dedication ceremony if they knew what it was, but with the information overload facing all families with children, getting through to them on this trivial point is going to be difficult.

Perhaps one way to get through to busy, non-religious, multicultural Unitarian Universalist families is to start calling this ceremony by a more understandable name. Calling it a “child dedication” is actually somewhat meaningless unless you already know something about the history of baptism and why we’d want to reject the notion of baptism. Maybe it would help to start calling it a “naming ceremony” — a straightforward, non-technical name that accurately describes what is going to happen at the ceremony, and informs the parent of the age at which you probably want to have that ceremony for your child.

(While we’re at it, can we please start calling “gender-reveal” parties by a different name? What’s actually being revealed at a “gender-reveal” party is the biological sex of the child; children don’t develop a strong sense of their own gender identity until about age three. I know, I know, we can’t call them “sex reveal” parties, that sounds nasty. But there must be some other name we can use that doesn’t confuse gender identity with biological sex.)

Update: edited and revised 9:57 p.m. Pacific time, Feb. 28.

Unitarian and Universalist views on baptism, late 18th C.

Here are two documents that give a picture of late eighteenth century Unitarian and Universalist views of baptism.

1783: Unitarian baptism ceremony
late 18th C.: Description of Universalist dedication ceremony

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Continue reading “Unitarian and Universalist views on baptism, late 18th C.”

Universalist views on baptism and dedication, 19th C.

As a follow up to this post, here are Universalist documents from the nineteenth century describing naming ceremonies (baptism and dedication).

1839: Universalist baptism and child dedication
1850: Universalist dedication/baptism
1872: Description of a Universalist naming ceremony
1895: Universalist naming ceremony

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Continue reading “Universalist views on baptism and dedication, 19th C.”

Unitarian views on christening and baptism, 19th C.

As a follow up to this post, here are Unitarian documents from the nineteenth century describing naming ceremonies (baptism and christening).

1827: Description of Unitarian naming ceremonies
1844: Unitarian naming ceremony
1884: Unitarian naming ceremony
1891: Description of a Unitarian naming ceremony

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Continue reading “Unitarian views on christening and baptism, 19th C.”

UU views on christening and dedication, 20th C.

Amy Morgenstern, the senior minister, and I have been talking about child dedications recently. As we talked, I realized that one of the results of the social process known as “secularization” (which in the U.S. is more of an adjustment away from communal religious organizations to individualized religious practices) is that fewer and fewer people know that there are established communal practices to welcome babies. Even if they do know about such practices as Unitarian Universalist child dedications, they may find it difficult to understand why they would want to have a communal ceremony, within a religious community, rather than something more individualistic.

This realization has led me to rethink the entire concept of child dedications. After I was born in 1960, I was christened (not dedicated) in a Unitarian church — but what was a Unitarian christening, and was there then a distinctive way of thinking about this naming ceremony? What about Universalist understandings of naming ceremonies? How have Unitarian and Universalist naming ceremonies combined and evolved into Unitarian Universalist naming ceremonies?

I don’t yet have answers to these questions, but I’ve been collecting relevant historical documents. Without further ado, here are documents from the 20th century that relate to Universalist, Unitarian, and Unitarian Universalist naming ceremonies.

1903: Unitarian naming ceremony
1922: Universalist naming ceremony
1966: Description of Unitarian naming ceremonies
1999: Description of Unitarian Universalist naming ceremonies

(Updated 28 Feb 2020: corrections and revisions, added another document)

Continue reading “UU views on christening and dedication, 20th C.”

After secularization….

At the Religious Studies Project, Dick Houtman has written a blog post titled “After Secularization: Unbelief in Europe.” Houtman has done some small-scale studies of unbelief in Europe, and relates his findings to larger intellectual trends, including the rise of “spiritual but not religious.” Houtman concludes that while this new contemporary spirituality is not old-school Christianity (which is where we get the “not religious” piece of the label), it is nevertheless a religion:

“Despite the still popular notion that contemporary spirituality is too privatized and individualized to have much social significance, this has become increasingly difficult to maintain [that’s it’s not a religion]. Surely, spirituality’s very character stands in the way of loyalty to church-like organizations and religious doctrines, but it does boast loyalty to what Campbell (2002 [1972]) has called ‘the cultic milieu’, a milieu to which the western mainstream has increasingly opened up. In the process, it has become clear that the public role of spirituality differs significantly from the ideological and political role that Christian religion used to play, and in many countries still plays. Guided by the spiritual motto, ‘One does not need to be sick to become better’, the public role of spirituality is more therapeutic than ideological and is played out in realms that range from work (Aupers & Houtman 2006, Zaidman 2009) to health care (Raaphorst & Houtman 2016, Zaidman 2017) and education (Brown 2019).”

It’s a short post, and worth reading for anyone trying to understand so-called secularization; I particularly like Houtman’s use of the word “unbelief” to name what is erroneously called “non-religiousness.”

I don’t do Lent, but…

I don’t do Lent — I guess I’m too deeply rooted in the New England Puritan tradition to feel comfortable with such a practice — but I really like what some liberal Christians have come up with for this year’s Lenten season.

These liberal Christians have issued “A Call to Prayer, Fasting, and Repentance Leading to Action” for this Lenten season. It’s a strongly-worded statement that includes phrases like these:

“We reject the resurgence of white nationalism and racism in our nation on many fronts, including the highest levels of political leadership….
“We reject misogyny, the mistreatment, violent abuse, sexual harassment, and assault of women that has been further revealed in our culture and politics, including our churches, and the oppression of any other child of God….
“We strongly deplore the growing attacks on immigrants and refugees, who are being made into cultural and political targets….
“We reject the practice and pattern of lying that is invading our political and civil life….”

You can read more at their Web site, ReclaimingJesus.org, and if you’re a liberal Christian, or in sympathy with their aims and practices, you can sign the pledge and join this season of national prayer and fasting.

As for me, though I won’t be signing their pledge, I’m in sympathy with their aims. I can feel the viciousness in the air these days, and I do feel we’re all complicit in promoting that viciousness — yes, even us religious liberals, who are (in my opinion) too ready to badmouth people we disagree with, too willing to pick fights even with potential allies, too proud of our own self-proclaimed virtuosity. I’ll cop to all those vices. Maybe I’ll do a day of fasting myself, like the old New England Puritans, a day to reign in pride and engage in a little spiritual humility.

Story

“There is a fine old story,” writes Carl Jung, “about a student who came to a rabbi and said, ‘In the olden days there were those who saw the face of God. Why don’t they any more?’ The rabbi replied, ‘Because nowadays no one can stoop so low.’…” [Memories, Dreams, Reflections, “Retrospect”]

I suspect most Unitarian Universalists today would not even be able to stoop so low as to ask the question….

What is religion

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been intensively writing a curriculum on world religions for middle elementary grades. Most of my time has been spent in developing activities for children to get inside the stories that are the basis of the curriculum — so my home office, and my office at work, became workshops where I was making prototypes of paper bag puppets, mobiles, board games, masks, and so on. And the rest of my time was devoted to writing up those activities. Yet all the while I was producing material aimed at second and third graders, and their volunteer teachers, I was thinking about what religion is. Because when you’re trying to make something clear to second and third graders, you first have to make it clear to yourself.

Here, then, are some of my thoughts on religion:

First of all, it is widely accepted among current religious studies scholars that religion is not a thing; that is, there is not a “thing” out there that you can point to and say, “That’s religion.” Some religious studies scholars will say that religion is at most a social construct. Other scholars argue that there really is no such thing as religion; that what we call “religion” is actually the West trying to impose the characteristics of Western Christianity — belief in a transcendent being, hierarchy and clergy, weekly meetings, exclusive adherence to one religious group, etc. — on other societies. Still other scholars point out that religion is a valid category within Western jurisprudence, because the West holds dear something we call “religious freedom”; but that defining what constitutes a religion which can receive the legal protection under laws pertaining to religious freedom is often problematic (e.g., Scientology is defined as a religion in the United States, but not in some Western European countries; Mormonism was allowed to become a religion in the United States in the legal sense only after it renounced the tenet of plural marriage; etc.). Finally, still other scholars argue that “religion” is really merely a tool of colonialism; this may be seen, for example, when the British Empire took over the Indian subcontinent, and, for ease in colonial control, defined something called “Hinduism” that didn’t exist before; though then some newly-created “Hindus” figured out that the Western concept of religious freedom could give them some autonomy in which to resist colonial oppression, making everything far more complicated than it might appear at first.

In short, religion is at best a social construct; at another extreme, it might not even exist at all.

More importantly, when talking about “religion,” we must be very careful to avoid imposing Western definitions and criteria. This means that talking about “faith communities” is problematic: “faith” implies that Western-style belief in a transcendent being is the central feature of a religious group; but many Therevada Buddhists simply don’t have a transcendent being; certain strands of Judaism emphasize correct action (orthopraxy) over correct belief (orthodoxy); etc. Indeed, talking about “communities” is problematic, because it assumes Western-style voluntary associations called “congregations”; but many strands of Daoism in China have nothing that remotely resembles a congregation; the Buddhist sangha, usually conceptualized in the West as a congregation, in other parts of the world is a small grouping more like what we in the West would think of as monks.

Nor should we talk about “adherents,” a common term in the United States to designate persons who are associated with a religious group. The word “adherent” carries connotations of Western-style Christianity, where you get to choose which religious group you want to adhere to; but in many parts of the world, you are born into a “religion” and it’s not a choice, such that religious affiliation is closer to ethnic identity. We wouldn’t say that someone born in Ireland who emigrated to the United States is an “adherent” of Irish-Americanism; the same is true for many religious affiliations.

Even as a social construct, religion — considered carefully — challenges many of our preconceptions. We are accustomed to making broad, sweeping generalizations about a given religion: for example, all Christians believe in God. But that simply isn’t true: there are today a good many Christian atheists in the United States, people who embrace many of the teachings of Christianity, but who simply don’t believe in God. When I have pointed this out to some non-Christians, they become offended, because they “know” that all Christians believe in God, and therefore they didactically proclaim that a Christian who doesn’t believe in God isn’t a “real Christian.” But this kind of statement cannot be accepted: how can a non-Christian presume to dogmatically declare who is and who isn’t a Christian? — indeed, this kind of statement helps us understand how “religion” was used as a tool of colonial control: an outsider proclaims that what a colonized person is doing is religion, and therefore that colonized person has to do it a certain way, or else…. If we remember that religion is a social construct, and specific religions cannot be defined by broad sweeping generalizations, we can save ourselves from attempting to control other people in this way.

Along these lines, we can also remember to let religions speak for themselves, rather than trying to speak for religions. As I was looking at older world religions curriculums, I was struck by how often the curriculum writer was willing to take a religious story and turn it to their own ends. This most often happens when a curriculum writer takes a story, removes some specific religious content, and repurposes the story as a moral tale. A common example of this is the way curriculum writers (and children’s book authors) use Buddhist Jataka tales. Most Jataka tales take the form of a story-within-a-story: the framing story is an incident happens within the community of monks surrounding Gotama Buddha; next the Buddha tells the story-within-the-story, an incident from one of his previous incarnations; finally, we return to the framing story where Buddha and the monks talk over which of them was which character in the story-within-the-story. But curriculum writers (children’s book authors) tend to strip away the framing story, rewriting the story-within-the-story as a simple folk tale; but this imposes an outside (probably non-Buddhist, probably Western) interpretation on the Jataka tale.

When we let religions speak for themselves, we also have to remember the internal diversity within religions. One Christian cannot speak for all Christians; not even if he’s the Pope, for the Pope only speaks for Roman Catholics (and maybe not for all Roman Catholics, as we seem to be seeing in the resistance of conservative Catholics to the current pope’s reform efforts). When you look at the internal diversity of the “religion” of Christianity, it boggles the mind. How are silent meeting Quakers the same religion as Eritrean Orthodox Christians? How is the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints the same religion as the Church of the Lord (Aladura)? It is true that they all share a reverence for Jesus; but there are Muslims and Hindus and Baha’is who also share some kind of reverence for Jesus (perhaps a lesser reverence, but how can we measure that?). It is true that the wildly diverse groups refer to some of the same books as a shared religious scripture, but these books are translated and interpreted differently, and some groups add other books, or leave out parts of some books. Moving beyond Christians, what about the internal diversity of Hinduism: what do Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Shaktism have in common, aside from all being rooted in the culture of the Indian subcontinent, and aside from all being grouped together by British colonial rule? In today’s political climate in India, it might be said that Hindusim has become more like a politicized ethnic identity; but where does that leave the large Hindu community in Bali?

We must also consider how religions vary over time. Today we thinking of all evangelical Christians in the United States as wanting to outlaw abortion; yet there was a time, not so long ago, when many or even most evangelical Christians supported the right to abortion. The Sikhs at the time of Guru Nanak’s death did not have the “five Ks”; yet they were nevertheless Sikhs. Mormons didn’t practice plural marriage, then did practice plural marriage, then didn’t practice plural marriage (except for a few small splinter groups); yet who am I, a non-Mormon, to say who was and who wasn’t a Mormon?

To recap, here are some of the things I had to wrestle with as I was writing this curriculum:
— “Religion” is at most a social construct, and may not even exist;
— We have to be careful not to use the social construct of “religion” to impose our will on others;
— “Religions” are internally diverse, sometimes wildly so;
— “Religions” vary over time.

Trying to embed these concepts in a curriculum such that middle elementary children can get some sense of them was challenging. Trying to embed these concepts in a curriculum so that adult teachers would challenge their own (Western, colonial) preconceptions seems almost impossible….