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Tuesday 14 February 2012

Baptism

Baptism is the immersion in or sprinkling with water as a religious rite of initiation. It was practiced long before the beginning of Christianity.


St Augustine laid the foundations for infant baptism. He taught that people are born with an affinity for sin and as descendants of Adam and Eve share in the guilt of original sin. Therefore infant baptism was important.

The Swiss Anabaptist Movement was founded on January 21, 1525 when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and about a dozen others baptized each other in the home of Manz's mother in Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union.

The early Anabaptists were often drowned by their persecutors as the authorities reckoned if they wanted to be fully immersed- let them! King Ferdinand declared drowning (called the third baptism) "the best antidote to Anabaptism".

The picture below is a print from Anglican theologian Daniel Featley's book, The Dippers Dipt, or, The Anabaptists Duck'd and Plung'd Over Head and Ears, at a Disputation in Southwark, published in 1645.


The Honiton christening gown is an item of baptismal clothing used by the British royal family at every christening. The original gown was created for the christening of Victoria, Princess Royal, on February 10, 1841 and was used by the royal family until 2004, when it was retired for conservation. In total, the original gown was used by 62 royal children over a period of 163 years.

The phrase "in limbo" comes from the belief that unbaptized infants were deemed unable to go to heaven or hell (as they have not committed a sin).

A Swedish pastor was electrocuted as he stood in a pool of water for a baptism ceremony when one of his assistants handed him a live microphone.

The priest at young Boris Yeltsin’s christening was so drunk that he dropped baby Boris into the font then forgot he was there.

When the one-month-old Prince Charles was baptized by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Buckingham Palace, the water used was from the River Jordan.

In 2014, Pope Francis said he would baptize aliens if they asked. He did not want to close doors to green Martians with "long noses and big ears". 

Here is a list of songs about baptisms

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