Home Worship Planning Planning Resources Dedication of Infants: A Ritual History

Dedication of Infants: A Ritual History

It is not unusual to be told by both former EUBs and former Methodists that the EUBs "dedicated infants" and that they had a service for it in their Book of Ritual. The impression often given or implied by such a statement is that the practice was a venerable one and that the liturgy was an inheritance at least as old as the Reformation. A brief review of the history of the service may bring some perspective to the discussion.

There was no such service in the Evangelical Church, and a prescribed order for infant dedication first appeared in the last United Brethren Discipline (1945). It was composed by order of the General Conference to supplement another piece of legislation that mandated the keeping of a Children's Membership Record. The Discipline stated:

Children of United Brethren parents, who have been consecrated or dedicated to the Lord, shall upon request of parents (or one parent or guardian) be enrolled on the Children's Membership Record. [1945 Discipline, p.28]

There is no prior mention of a Children's Membership record, so this appears to have been a means of keeping track of potential members (what Methodists at the same time called the Preparatory Membership Roll and was a list of all baptized infants). The legislation about the Children's Membership record said nothing about a service of dedication, nor did it require that baptized children be placed on the roll, a strange omission unless it assumed that baptism was the equivalent of dedication. The General Conference, however, also passed another recommendation "that the Board of Bishops be instructed to prepare a ritual for a service of consecration or dedication of children in harmony with the provision of the foregoing item (1) under "Children's Roll" [Minutes, p.570]. Still no provision was made to include baptized children on such a roll. The discussion on the floor of the Conference (Minutes, pp. 214-16) all centered around the question of the Children's Roll. No interest at all seemed to be taken in the proposed service. When a question was raised about transferring the children on that roll with their parents to another congregation, the children were referred to as "baptized." And when the new service appeared, it was headed "DEDICATION OF INFANTS (Without Baptism)," again implying that infant baptism had been understood as a service of dedication. The option being offered was wet or dry dedication.

The 1945 United Brethren ritual was brief and reflects the "art of public worship" mentality that characterized American Protestantism at mid-century. There is an opening general statement of biblical warrants ("impressive precedent" is the term the ritual used) such as Hannah and Mary, Isaiah 40:11 and Mark 10:14. Emphasis was placed on the faith of the presenters and the environment of the local church as the setting where "this tender 'bud of promise' may blossom into a 'fragrant flower'" [Discipline, p. 251]. A permissive rubric allowed for the minister to lay hands on the child and announce the dedication with a trinitarian formula. A rose bud might also be given to "be cherished as a prophecy of unfolding life." It is interesting to observe that this service was both longer and more involving of the congregation than was the immediately preceding order for the baptism of infants. There Mark 10:13-16 was read and the sponsors affirmed their faith and agreed to raise the children "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." It was almost entirely individualistic in nature. From an ecclesiological perspective, the new dedication service was a better baptism service than the baptism service!

The first EUB General Conference (1946) ordered that the UB service for "dedication of Infants without Baptism" be included in the new Discipline (Minutes, p. 300). The Children's Record, which had been the occasion for the appearance of the rite in the UB Church, found no mention in the new book, although a new section on "children and the Church" declared that "Children of believing parents are entitled to Christian Baptism," and referred to those who "dedicate their children to God through Christian Baptism" (p.103). The new service for the baptism of infants represented a quantum leap theologically and liturgically from what had been in the rituals of either of the former churches. It clearly placed baptism within the context of the church, employed the Apostles' Creed and the historic baptismal confession of faith, and involved both sponsors and congregation in a vital way in the liturgy. Five different times in the service, reference was made to the child being dedicated through baptism.

When the second EUB General Conference (1950) met, the Committee on Ritual reported:

There was a feeling in the committee that a service for the Dedication of Infants without Baptism, in an official ritual, was somewhat contradictory to the doctrine which the church was expressing in the Order for Baptism of Infants, and also to the categorical statement (Discipline Art. 269) that children of believing parents are entitled to Christian Baptism. [Program, Reports, Memorials and Rituals, p. 369]

They had a new dedication service submitted to them by the bishops, which they included as an addendum to their report and which was approved by the General Conference for inclusion in the 1951 Discipline.

The forms that emerged for both infant baptism and dedication in the 1951 Discipline followed the same outline, but varied considerably from their 1947 predecessors. The baptismal service was not as elaborate, and the dedication service lost its floral images as well as the parenthetic description "without baptism." While the titles appeared to distance the two services from each other as being very different acts, the contents of the services emphasized their similarity. Each service began with a trinitarian invocation and an address to the congregation. The baptismal address was a simple explanation of the place of infant baptism in the church. The dedication address was adapted from the earlier service. Then there was a Scripture reading — Mark 10:13-16 in both services. The address to the parents was the same formula in both. After the act of baptism or dedication, the concluding prayers were the same except for the interchange of the words "baptize" and "dedicate."

The only other significant alteration in these rituals during the history of the EUB Church was the inclusion of more questions asked by parents, sponsors, and congregation. The same questions were included in both services. In effect, infant baptism and infant dedication became the same thing in the EUB Church. The same requirements were made of those presenting the children and the same questions were asked of sponsors and congregation. Incorporation of the child into the life of the congregation was affirmed in each instance as was the expectation that the rite would find a later fulfillment and affirmation in some sort of personal growth and commitment. It may be that, regardless of what any individual's intention for the services may have been (and intent is a potent theological category), the ritual content of both infant baptism and infant dedication in the EUB tradition suggests a distinction without a difference.

Dr McCabe, at the time of this artice, wasprofessor of Homiletics and Worship at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. This article originally appeared in the Winter 1995 issue of Telescope-Messenger, a publication of the Center for the Evangelical United Brethren Heritage. It is used with permission of the author.

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