IIN to ask close friends to be god parents if you aren't religious?

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  • Grunewald
    4 years ago | pl

    To those who say 'sure why not' : does baptism mean anything to you in itself? It is a religious tradition primarily, and it is precious to those who are of that religion. To treat it as anything else would be to exploit/appropriate their religion for your own ends.

    As someone who came to faith later in life despite being baptized as an infant to parents with no faith, part of me wishes they had just given me a secular naming ceremony. It hurts me to know that the promises they made for me, to the God I love, were false. I feel like they exploited something precious in baptizing me, rather than valuing it.

    But then, who knows? Maybe God saw and heard their promises, and granted me faith because he loved me. When I did finally come to faith, my father was devastated. He resorted to verbal and emotional abuse to try and make me lose my faith. He'd have been less devastated if I'd come home from school and announced I was doing drugs.

    Now when I look at the photograph of my father standing with me by the baptismal font, it just hurts.

    My questions to you are: firstly, would you be saying the promises to bring up your child in the Christian faith with the intention of keeping those promises? If not, would you be prepared to make peace with your maker after having lied to him? And also, if your child did turn to the Christian faith later in life despite your lack of encouragement, would you try to turn them away from it?

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    • charli.m
      4 years ago | pl

      They didn't say they were going to baptise. They specifically said they were not. They just want a non religious relationship with a couple similar to the role of godparents, but without the religious elements. They're not trying to appropriate anything or making any promises to bring their child up in faith.

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    • SamanthaTheGoat
      4 years ago | pl

      As you know, God created us in his image, so he knows your parents shortcomings. Why be judgemental? Where in The Bible does it say to judge others. I'm honestly curious. 😊

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    • SwickDinging
      4 years ago | pl

      Thanks for your response. It's good to get the opinion of someone who is actually religious to balance this out, it helps. However I'm a bit confused by some of the questions you've asked here - I have specifically said in my post that my child won't be baptised, we're not religious and that the people in question will not be teaching them about religion so I'm not sure why you've asked me about that here?

      In answer to your other questions though - no, they will not be promising to bring my child up in the Christian faith, because they won't be doing that so it would be silly to promise it.

      If my child turned to the Christian faith later in life then I wouldn't try to turn them away from it. I certainly won't be joining them in it but if they needed a lift to church or some volunteers for some sort of charity event then I would be happy to do things like that. I am friends with our local children's pastor because his wife works with my husband so I already do take part in a few out of church activities. He's aware I'm not religious and he's ok with it. (As an edit to this comment I would like to add that I would certainly debate them on the issue. I will never coddle my children or expect them not to hold their own when asked difficult questions about their beliefs.)

      Where I live is small and the church is a big part of the community so I have accepted the fact that this may influence all of my children somewhat and they may become religious. I see no major issue with that, it's ok for people to believe different things. I would prefer them not to be religious but they will grow into their own people and I wouldn't like to stop that from happening, they don't need to be carbon copies of my husband and I. Perhaps when they are teenagers it would become more of an issue as teenagers tend be very strong willed and less accepting of other people's beliefs, but I will tackle that challenge as an opportunity to "parent" them in tolerance. Wish me luck with that lol.

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    • SamanthaTheGoat
      4 years ago | pl

      You aren't a Christian then. The first covenant of the Christian faith is forgiveness.

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