> I grew up in a United Church of Christ denomination, and only once do I remember anyone older than an infant getting baptised. Baptism was, as far as I knew, very similar to Brunnen-G's explanation of the Roman Catholic ceremony- it was done by the parents, to "introduce" the child to the church, as it were, and the congregation in turn promises to be a second family to the child and to teach him and nurture him. Baptism as I understood it was never portrayed as something one chose for himself.

Interesting. I grew up in a United Church of Canada denomination, and only once do I remember anyone older than an infant getting baptised. (It was me.) Ditto, ditto, ditto.

> Confirmation was the ceremony where we declared our intentions to accept Christ. In my church, though I don't know how it was done in other denominations, once you were in seventh grade you were in the Confirmation class. (Assuming, of course, that you had worked your way through the sunday School program.) The class was supposed to be a sort-of-in-depth study into the basic tenents of the faith, with the ultimate goal being that the students would decide that the faith is right for them. At the end of the class there was a confirmation ceremony where we declared our faith to the congragation and officially became voting members of the church. Tradidtionally, the first communion was also held then, but our church was pretty lax in keeping non-confirmed children from taking communion.

More dittos. The timing wasn't the same for us, though -- it was more of a choice, usually around the grade seven to nine age. Also, I don't know about the voting thing, and I know that it was usually not the first communion.

> And now I remember a question I thought of while I was beginning this post- Does anyone know what is the difference between baptism and christening? I remember the terms being used interchangably, but perhaps what I knew as baptism was what other denominations call christening.

Now that you mention it, the two terms seemed interchangable in my church, too. Can't help you, sorry.

> And one last thing- Is it baptizm or baptism? Baptized or baptised? And do you realize how silly "bapt" looks when you've used it like fifteen times in one post?

I believe it is "baptism" and "baptized". I'm too lazy to find out for sure, though.

"Bapt" is the noise I used to make to turn on the light when I had a cool noise sensitive power outlet thingy. The t was almost silent, though.

> ~Mina "haven't posted anything this long in a long time" moon

Don Monkey