Infant baptism

Infant baptism is the Christian practice of baptizing children too young to profess faith for themselves. Traditions that practice it commonly understand baptism as incorporating them into the Christian community.

Christian baptism: Christian baptism is a rite of water that signifies or effects entry into the Christian faith and community. Infant baptism is one form of this foundational Christian rite.
Believer's baptism: Believer's baptism is baptism administered to people who personally profess faith in Jesus Christ. It is the principal alternative to baptizing infants.
Early Christianity: Early Christianity is the movement and developing set of communities that followed Jesus in the first centuries CE. Infant baptism's earliest evidence comes from the church's formative centuries.
Infant baptism in Catholicism: Infant baptism in Catholicism is the sacrament by which infants are baptized into the Catholic Church. It illustrates a sacramental understanding of the practice.
Anabaptism: Anabaptism is a sixteenth-century Christian movement that rejected infant baptism in favor of baptism after personal faith. Its emergence made opposition to infant baptism a defining movement within the Reformation.
Covenant theology: Covenant theology interprets the Bible through God's covenants with humanity and their continuity across biblical history. Reformed defenses connect children of believers to the covenant community.
Credobaptism: Credobaptism is the view that baptism should follow an individual's personal profession of faith. Its rejection of infant baptism rests on the need for conscious belief.
Didache: The Didache is an early Christian instructional text on worship, ethics, and church practice. Its baptism instructions describe water baptism but do not clearly specify infant baptism.
Infant baptism in Eastern Orthodoxy: Infant baptism in Eastern Orthodoxy is the baptism of infants, commonly followed by chrismation and first communion. Orthodox practice links baptism closely with the other rites of Christian initiation.
Radical Reformation: The Radical Reformation was a diverse sixteenth-century movement that sought reforms beyond those adopted by Protestant state churches. Disputes over infant baptism became a major fault line within this movement.

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