Christening or baptism: is there a difference?

Quick answer: In most churches, christening and baptism are two words for one event. Baptism is the name of the rite — washing with water in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Christening is the older English word for the same service, used most often when the person baptized is a baby and the name is announced. A few churches use "christening" for a naming service with no water, which is a different thing.

Is a christening the same thing as a baptism?

Nearly always, yes. If a family says "we are having the baby christened", what will happen in the service is a baptism: water, a formula naming Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the child received into the church.

The confusion is real, though, and it is not the reader's fault. English kept two words for one act, and different churches settled on different ones. Some clergy will gently correct "christening" to "baptism" in conversation, not because the family said anything wrong, but because "baptism" is the word in the service book.

Where does the word "christening" come from?

"Christening" is built on "Christ" and carries the sense of making someone Christian — and, in ordinary English use, of naming. That naming association is why the word attached itself to infant services: for centuries in English-speaking countries, the baptism was the public occasion at which a child's given name was announced.

"Baptism" comes through Greek and refers to the washing itself. It is the word the New Testament uses, which is one reason churches that emphasise the biblical vocabulary prefer it.

Which churches say "christening" and which say "baptism"?

Usage is a matter of culture as much as doctrine, and it varies by country — "christening" is more common in Britain and Ireland than in the United States. As a rough guide:

The table describes what is most common, not a rule. Individual congregations differ, and several traditions allow more than one method.

What does the Bible say about baptism?

The New Testament uses one vocabulary for all of it. Matthew ends with the instruction that gives the words most services use:

Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. (Matthew 28:19-20)

Paul describes what the act signifies:

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:3-4)

Neither passage settles the age question, which is why the traditions read the same texts and arrive at different practice. One side reads those texts as describing what God does before anyone can answer; the other reads them as describing people who heard, believed and were baptized, in that order. You can read the surrounding chapters at Matthew 28, Romans 6 and Acts 16 and watch both readings come out of the same pages.

Can a baby be christened in a church that only baptizes adults?

No — and the church will say so kindly if you ask. Baptist, Pentecostal and most non-denominational congregations reserve baptism for someone who can profess faith personally.

What they usually offer instead is a baby dedication or presentation: a short service in which parents commit to raising the child in the faith and the congregation promises to support them, with no water involved. Some families call that a christening, which is where the "christening without baptism" case comes from. It is a real service with real meaning, but it is not the rite the word normally points to.

The pattern has an old echo — Hannah brings the child she prayed for back to the sanctuary in 1 Samuel, and Luke describes Jesus being presented in the temple as an infant. Both are dedications, not baptisms.

What do you call it when the family is not sure?

Invitations get written before anyone consults a service book, and nobody is grading them. If you are writing one, "baptism" is safe everywhere; "christening" is warm and familiar and will be understood almost everywhere. If you are a guest and want to know what will actually happen, one question to the family — "is there a baptism in the service?" — settles it.

For the practical questions guests ask most — what to wear, what to bring, what a gift usually is — see what to wear to a baptism. If you would rather read the passages the service itself uses, verses about baptism collects them.

Does a christening give the child a legal name?

No. In the English-speaking world, a child's legal name comes from the civil birth registration, not from anything said in church. The naming association attached to "christening" is historical: for a long stretch of English history, the church service was the public occasion at which a name was announced, and in some places the parish register was the closest thing to a civil record.

That is no longer how it works anywhere, and no church claims otherwise. The parish or congregation keeps its own baptismal register, which records the name, the date, the parents and the godparents. That record has real uses later — it is what gets asked for at confirmation, at a church wedding, or when someone is asked to be a godparent — but it is a church document, not a civil one.

Practical version: register the birth with the state, and treat the baptismal certificate as the church's record of the same child.

Does the word change anything about the child?

No church teaches that the word used in the invitation affects the rite. What is done, and by whom, and with what words, is what the churches attend to. "Christening" and "baptism" sit at the level of language and habit — a difference in vocabulary that a very old language handed to a very old practice.

If you are gathering verses for a card or for the service itself, the verses about baptism page collects the passages most often read on the day, and verses about children has the blessings families tend to choose.

Scripture quoted from the World English Bible (public domain). This article describes what different Christian traditions practice; it does not recommend one over another.