Baptism: water, and what it means

Baptism is the rite of entry into the Christian community. Its warrant is Jesus’ own baptism in the Jordan by John (Mark 1:9–11) and his command to the disciples to go and make disciples, “baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).

• Infant baptism (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian and others) — babies are baptised. Water is poured over the head at the font (Orthodox priests immerse the infant three times). The argument: the child is brought into the covenant community by God’s grace, before he or she can do anything to deserve it; grace comes first.
• Believers’ (adult) baptism (Baptist, Pentecostal, many independent churches) — only those old enough to profess faith for themselves are baptised, by total immersion in a baptistery or a river. The argument: the New Testament pattern is repent, believe, then be baptised. Infants are instead dedicated in a service of blessing and thanksgiving, with no water.
• Godparents and sponsors — in infant baptism, adults who make the promises on the child’s behalf and undertake to bring the child up in the faith. They give the rite its seriousness: someone is committing to a lifetime of responsibility.

The rituals and their meaning: water — washing away sin, and dying and rising with Christ (going under, coming up). The sign of the cross — marking the person as Christ’s. Anointing with oil (chrism) — being set apart by the Spirit. A white garment — new life, purity. A lit candle, often from the Paschal candle — the light of Christ. Renouncing evil and professing faith — the turn from one allegiance to another.

Why believers’ baptism?

The baptism debate — and those who use no water at all

This is one of the sharpest and oldest divisions in Christianity, and it makes an excellent part (c). Be fair to both.

• For infant baptism: whole households are baptised in Acts; the covenant sign was given to infants in Israel; baptism is what God does, not what the candidate achieves, so delaying it makes salvation depend on human decision. Catholic teaching adds that baptism removes original sin.
• For believers’ baptism: every clear New Testament case follows repentance and faith; a baby cannot repent or believe; a church of the baptised should be a church of believers, not of everyone who happened to be christened as an infant.
• No water baptism at all: Quakers and the Salvation Army practise no outward baptism. Their argument is that the inward baptism of the Spirit is what matters and the outward sign risks being mistaken for the reality. Both are unquestionably Christian bodies — a useful, surprising example to deploy.

Do not caricature. Neither side thinks the other is not Christian; they disagree about what baptism is — God’s gift received, or the believer’s response declared. Say that, and you are writing at the top level.

No water at all

Confirmation and First Communion

Churches that baptise infants need a moment when the person claims the faith for themselves. That is the function of coming of age.

• Confirmation (Catholic, Anglican, and others) — usually a bishop lays hands on the candidate and anoints them with chrism, praying for the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The candidate first affirms the promises that godparents made at their baptism — the affirmation of belief. A sponsor stands with them, often a godparent, as a sign of continuity with the baptism. Candidates prepare for months with classes.
• First Communion — in the Catholic Church, children (traditionally around seven) receive the Eucharist for the first time, having first made their first confession. It is a major family occasion; girls often wear white.
• Orthodox practice differs sharply: infants are baptised, chrismated and given Communion all at once, in the same service — so there is no later “coming of age” rite of this kind.
• Becoming a full member — the point of all of it. The confirmed person may now receive Communion (in Anglican practice), take a full part in the church’s decisions, and be counted as an adult member of the community.

Which rite of passage?

Tap a feature, then tap the rite of passage it belongs to.

Marriage: vows, rings and crowns

Christian marriage is understood as a lifelong, exclusive covenant between husband and wife. Jesus quotes Genesis — “the two will become one flesh” — and adds: “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Mark 10:6–9). His first recorded miracle takes place at a wedding, at Cana (John 2:1–11).

• The vows — the couple promise to have and to hold one another, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part” (the wording of the Book of Common Prayer, still widely used). Notice that the vows are unconditional: they explicitly cover poverty, illness and disaster. That is the whole point of them.
• Rings — exchanged as an outward sign of an inward, unending promise; a circle has no end.
• Crowns — in the Orthodox rite, the priest crowns the bride and groom. The crowns signify that they are king and queen of a new household, and also the crowns of martyrdom — a marriage will require self-sacrifice.
• With or without a Eucharist — a Catholic couple usually marry within a Nuptial Mass; many Protestant weddings have no Communion at all. Where the Eucharist is celebrated, the couple’s union is set inside Christ’s self-giving.
• A sacrament? For Catholic and Orthodox Christians, marriage is a sacrament: a channel of God’s grace, and (in Catholic teaching) indissoluble. Most Protestant churches honour marriage as a holy covenant and a gift of God, but do not count it among the sacraments (they usually count only baptism and the Lord’s Supper). That single disagreement drives everything that follows about divorce.

Sacrament and divorce

Symbol and meaning

Tap an action or object on the left, then the meaning Christians give it on the right.

Funeral rites: last rites and committal

• Preparation for death — in the Catholic Church a priest may administer the Last Rites: the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick (with oil, following James 5:14 — “call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil”), together with confession and a final Communion, called viaticum (“food for the journey”). The Orthodox have an equivalent anointing. Most Protestant ministers will visit, read Scripture and pray with the dying, but do not regard this as a sacrament.
• The funeral service — readings of hope, especially John 11:25, where Jesus says “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in me will live, even though they die”; a eulogy; prayers commending the person to God. A Catholic funeral usually takes the form of a Requiem Mass.
• Interment or cremation — at the graveside, the committal: “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, with the sure and certain hope of the resurrection (Book of Common Prayer). Earth is scattered on the coffin. Cremation is accepted by most Western churches today, though the Orthodox churches generally do not permit it, holding burial to be the proper honouring of a body destined for resurrection.
• Significance — the rite does two jobs at once: it acknowledges the death honestly (no pretending) and it supports the bereaved, placing their grief inside the Christian hope. The community gathers; food is shared afterwards; the person is not simply gone.

What the committal does

Family life: roles, nurture and care

• Roles of men and women — the sharpest debate in the topic. Complementarian Christians appeal to Ephesians 5:21–33, where wives are told to submit to their husbands and husbands to love their wives “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” — a call to sacrificial, not domineering, headship. Egalitarian Christians appeal to Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” — and point out that the Ephesians passage opens with “submit to one another”. Both sides are reading the Bible; they weigh the passages differently.
• Nurture of the young — parents undertake at baptism to bring children up in the faith; godparents share the duty. Practically: family prayer, grace at meals, Sunday school, Bible stories, taking children to worship. Christians hold that children are a gift from God and that parents answer to God for them.
• Care of the elderly — the fifth commandment, “Honour your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12), is not addressed to small children but to adults with ageing parents. Paul is blunter still: anyone who does not provide for their own household “has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). Many Christians take this to mean caring for parents at home where possible; others point out that professional care can be the more loving option, and that the duty is to ensure care, not necessarily to give it personally.
• Marriage, divorce and remarriage — Jesus says that whoever divorces and remarries commits adultery (Mark 10:11–12); Matthew records an exception for sexual immorality (Matthew 19:9). So:
  • Catholic — no divorce. A marriage may be declared null (an annulment: it was never a valid marriage), but a validly married Catholic cannot remarry in church while their spouse lives.
  • Orthodox — permit a second (and, exceptionally, a third) marriage by economia, a pastoral relaxation, using a subdued penitential rite rather than the full crowning.
  • Anglican and most Protestant churches — accept that marriages can break down, and generally permit remarriage in church, though individual clergy may decline as a matter of conscience.

A penitential rite

Tradition and change in the family

• Why some Christians maintain traditional roles — they read the New Testament household teaching as God’s ordering of the family, not a first-century accident; they value the clarity and stability it gives; they argue that a mother at home with young children is a good, not a limitation, and that a culture which treats it as a waste has got things wrong.
• Why some Christians support change — they read Galatians 3:28 as the deeper principle and the household codes as culturally bound; they point to the women who led churches in Paul’s own letters; they note that many families need two incomes, and that shared parenting and shared work are not a departure from Christian love but an application of it. Denominations have shifted accordingly — the Church of England has ordained women as priests since 1994, and consecrated its first woman bishop in 2015 after the law was changed in 2014.
• The emotional and spiritual challenges of change — the syllabus explicitly asks for these, and they are real. A Christian may feel judged by their own congregation for working, or for not working; families split across the divide; older members can feel that the church they grew up in has abandoned what it taught them, while younger ones feel it is defending indefensible things. Some leave. Some churches split.

Write about this with care. These are people’s actual families and actual convictions. An examiner rewards the candidate who can state each position at its strongest — and who never treats either side as merely stupid or merely modern.

Answering the 8-mark evaluation

Part (c) is worth 8 of the 20 marks and is assessed on evaluation. Take this:

Never just narrate a wedding. That is AO1 and belongs in parts (a) and (b). Part (c) wants views weighed against each other and a judgement reasoned, not merely asserted.

The big ideas to know

That is the whole of C5. Press Finish to see your score.