A Christian sacrament, ordinance or ceremony marked by ritual use of water and admitting the recipient to the Christian community. Christians practice three forms of baptism: immersion, where the believer is totally submerged in water; sprinkling, where the believer is sprayed with water; and affusion, where the believer has water poured on his head at a font. There may be variations within a tradition: Roman Catholics are generally baptized by affusion, though some modern fonts allow a candidate for baptism to stand partially immersed. Different Christian bodies have very different ideas about what baptism accomplishes in the person who receives it. Some see it as a symbolic way of publicly proclaiming faith in Christ; others see it as necessary for salvation. They vary on whether it is required for membership.
Many Christian traditions, particularly Baptists, consider baptism a ceremony or ordinance instead of a sacrament. Some Christian traditions insist that candidates for baptism be accountable adults who have personally professed faith in Christ. The Catholic Church and others that accept or practice infant baptism may object to the term believer’s baptism because it implies that baptized infants are not believers. These churches prefer the term adult baptism. Baptism is considered one of the three sacraments of initiation, along with confirmation and the Eucharist, by Catholic and Orthodox churches. The term baptism also is used by some non-Christians to describe ritual purification using water.
