{"id":856,"date":"2009-03-31T07:35:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-31T07:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/de-baptized.html"},"modified":"2009-03-31T07:35:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-31T07:35:00","slug":"de-baptized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/03\/de-baptized.html","title":{"rendered":"“De-baptized”???"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not content with simply renouncing their faith — or just ignoring it and sleeping in on Sundays — a number of non-believers have decided to take things a step further<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/a> More than 100,000 Britons have recently downloaded “certificates of de-baptism” from the Internet to renounce their Christian faith.<\/p>\n

The initiative launched by a group called the National Secular Society (NSS) follows atheist campaigns here and elsewhere, including a London bus poster which triggered protests by proclaiming “There’s probably no God.”<\/p>\n

“We now produce a certificate on parchment and we have sold 1,500 units at three pounds (4.35 dollars, 3.20 euros) a pop,” said NSS president Terry Sanderson, 58.<\/p>\n

John Hunt, a 58-year-old from London and one of the first to try to be “de-baptised,” held that he was too young to make any decision when he was christened at five months old.<\/p>\n

The male nurse said he approached the Church of England to ask it to remove his name. “They said they had sought legal advice and that I should place an announcement in the London Gazette,” said Hunt, referring to one of the official journals of record of the British government.<\/p>\n

So that’s what he did — his notice of renouncement was published in the Gazette in May 2008 and other Britons have followed suit.<\/p>\n

Michael Evans, 66, branded baptising children as “a form of child abuse” — and said that when he complained to the church where he was christened he was told to contact the European Court of Human Rights.<\/p>\n

The Church of England said its official position was not to amend its records. “Renouncing baptism is a matter between the individual and God,” a Church spokesman told AFP.<\/p>\n

“We are not a ‘membership’ church, and do not keep a running total of the number of baptised people in the Church of England, and such totals do not feature in the statistics that we regularly publish,” he added.<\/p>\n

De-baptism organisers say the initiative is a response to what they see as increasing stridency from churches — the latest last week when Pope Benedict XVI stirred global controversy on a trip to AIDS-ravaged Africa by saying condom use could further spread of the disease.<\/p>\n

“The Catholic Church is so politically active at the moment that I think that is where the hostility is coming from,” said Sanderson. “In Catholic countries there is a very strong feeling of wanting to punish the church by leaving it.”<\/p>\n

In Britain, where government figures say nearly 72 percent of the population list themselves as Christian, Sanderson feels this “hostility” is fueling the de-baptism movement.<\/p>\n

Theologian Paul Murray at Durham University disagrees. “That is not my experience,” he said, but concedes that change is in the air.<\/p>\n

“We are in an interesting climate where Catholicism and other belief systems have moved into the public, pluralist arena, alongside secularists,” he said. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read more at the link<\/a>. You can see one of the certificates in question above. If you click on the image, you can enlarge it and read it.<\/p>\n

A wave of the deacon’s stole to The Curt Jester<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not content with simply renouncing their faith — or just ignoring it and sleeping in on Sundays — a number of non-believers have decided to take things a step further: More than 100,000 Britons have recently downloaded “certificates of de-baptism” from the Internet to renounce their Christian faith. 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