'Debaptism' certificate gaining popularity among nonreligious

The Freedom from Religion Foundation is offering the Debaptismal certificate, which is signed by a minister turned atheist, Dan Barker. The certificates may be purchased or downloaded for free at the foundation's Web site. Some purchasers send the signed copy to the church and request removal from the church's rolls. NOT BLADE PHOTO Enlarge

A "DeBaptismal Certificate," printed on parchment, embossed with a gold seal and hand-signed by a minister-turned-atheist, is the latest rage among people who want to wash their hands of religion.

"They're just flying out the door," said Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation. "They're very, very popular. We've had groups that get together and pass them out en masse and then sign them together."

The document has a blank line for a name, declaring that the signer, "having been subjected to a Christian baptism before reaching an age of consent … hereby officially renounce(s) that primitive rite and the Church that imposed it."

The documents are two for $5 by mail; free downloadable copies are available at ffrf.org/news/releases/debaptismal-certificate/.

Dan Barker, the foundation's president and a minister who turned to atheism, said many hang a framed copy on the wall and mail the other to the church, asking to be removed from the rolls.

Ms. Gaylor said many who reject their childhood religion resent that they are counted as church members because of infant baptism. "That really gets them," she said.

The Rev. James Bacik, pastor of Toledo's Corpus Christi University Parish, said the Catholic Church considers infant baptism as "a way of socializing them into the way of faith of their parents.

"Parents share their citizenship with their offspring, they share their values in other ways, so it seems to make sense they share their religious faith with their offspring."

Father Bacik noted that the fastest-growing faith demographic in the United States in the last few decades is "nonaffiliated" or "no religion," which would align with the "DeBaptism" trend.

The Rev. Russ Merrin, pastor of Monclova Road Baptist Church, said such certificates reflect "a problem of the heart" of the signees. "They want no God. They want no authority over them, which is their first problem. Their second problem is that infant baptism never saved anyone in the first place. Their denying their baptism doesn't deny their standing before God."

People who don't want God in their lives "are free to do so, but they'll have to live with the consequences," Mr. Merrin said.