Baptismal Integrity Resource Pages

Giving Thanks - from ASB to CW

Stephen Corbett, Vicar of Springfield, Birmingham, calls for the new service of Thanksgiving for the Gift of a Child to be received and used as the common alternative to infant baptism where appropriate.

It was back in January 1997 that I went along to a conference organised by the Group for the Renewal of Worship (GROW) looking forward to the advent of Common Worship. In one of the resolutions which we passed in plenary towards the end of the conference, we called on the Liturgical Commission to produce a new and more relevant non-baptismal perinatal service.

Among the delegates, differing approaches to baptismal discipline were represented; but there was virtual unanimity that the ASB “Thanksgiving for the Birth of a Child”, though a welcome idea in principle in 1980, was liturgically and pastorally inadequate, and was in increasingly urgent need of replacement. The comments of parents in the 1980s, both to me and to others, left little doubt that the service seemed unsatisfying. The lack of a “naming”, a central “act” and of a role for the “godparents” of folk religion was keenly felt by those who had little church connection. The service felt especially thin for those practising Christian parents who did not wish to have their children baptised in infancy. “Something and nothing” was how one friend and father put it, back in 1984.

So I am pleased to see that the Commission has produced a rite that is more suited to the various pastoral situations faced by today’s clergy (these are summarised and recognised in the notes on page 337). Prior to 2000, I felt I had little choice but to use a homespun service when asked by parents to conduct a non-baptismal birth-rite.

So, once in an incumbency, I wrote my own service of child dedication, after looking at the efforts of others past and present. My liturgy included some, albeit limited, response from the parents, a prayer of blessing for the child, and some recognition of and response from “sponsors” - supporting friends or relatives. I soon became aware that many others had produced similar unofficial liturgies. (In fact, we have in the past featured several of them in editions of Update, and even run an internal competition - Editor.)

However, I am now content to use the new Common Worship service which makes adequate and official provision. The elements (mentioned above) that were missing in the ASB are present in the new service, and moreover, its overall pattern and general tone is broadly similar to my own amateur effort anway!

I suggest it is perfectly defensible for us clergy to write and use our own items of liturgy to meet pastoral need where the Church of England’s official liturgies clearly make inadequate or no provision. Most Anglicans recognise this, and the non-baptismal birth-rites prior to Common Worship were a clear case in point. However, once such a deficiency has been rectified, as I suggest it now has, we have a responsibility to lay aside our individual efforts and adopt a common approach. We ought not to assume a cavalier attitude to our oath to ‘use only those forms which are authorised or allowed by canon’.

Of course, I realise that a new liturgy will not please everyone on every point of detail. There are two obvious examples of this in CW which stand out to me:

• I would like to have seen optional promises for practising Christian parents to the effect that - above and beyond simply receiving children as a gift from God and asking his blessing on them - they intend to bring them up in accordance with their own Christian commitment, and that they will provide an example of this commitment in terms of their own worship, prayer and witness. But this, and similar items of personal preference, need not mean that we continue with local liturgies. After all, we could reasonably argue that Canon B5 (“Of the discretion of the minister in conduct of public prayer”) allows for the CW service to be supplemented by such limited additions.

• In addition to the three pastoral situations envisaged in the notes on page 337, there is a fourth. Not often but occasionally, I have been asked to conduct a non-baptismal rite for older children who as babies were not brought for either a Baptism or Thanksgiving. Though neither the parents nor the child are asking for Baptism at this point, they sense a need to rectify an omission (whatever the reason for it was). Again, the service could be supplemented in a minor way to minister to such a situation. For example, on page 340 the minister could simply ask an older child “What name have your parents given you?” - thus acknowledging and involving him/her in some way. The minister might then lay a hand (if s/he is a little large to be taken in arms!) on the child while praying the prayer at the top of page 341. But again, Canon B5 would seem to allow for this minor variation.

All this - together with your own perceived omissions - said, Common Worship has responded to the requests of GROW (and, no doubt, others) in a helpful and positive spirit. So now we have something more usable, let’s use it as part of our proclamation and celebration of the Good News of Jesus Christ.