Interfaith families

If you are an interfaith couple, what are you doing about a christening/baby naming/bris?

TIA

Re: Interfaith families

I was raised Lutheran but have been agnostic for the last decade. DH was raised Catholic but converted to Lutheran. We baptized DD. We'll do the same for this LO. If it was up to me I wouldn't bother, but DH cares.

Re: Interfaith families

well even though some don't consider catholic/lutheran to be "interfaith" (to me, christian is christian!), but my MIL definitely feels differently lol!! I'm lutheran, our LO will be christened lutheran, DH is not as religious/spiritual as me, so this is not even up for conversation in my opinion. MIL should be happy I agreed to get married in a catholic church so as not to "block" DH's final sacrament MIL does not know about my decision yet, I am bracing myself for the worst

Message edited 5/17/2012 5:37:32 PM.

Re: Interfaith families

I just realized my answer was no help... you meant Christian/Jewish, sorry!

Re: Interfaith families

Re: Interfaith families

Posted by HelenZ

well even though some don't consider catholic/lutheran to be "interfaith" (to me, christian is christian!), but my MIL definitely feels differently lol!! I'm lutheran, our LO will be christened lutheran, DH is not as religious/spiritual as me, so this is not even up for conversation in my opinion. MIL should be happy I agreed to get married in a catholic church so as not to "block" DH's final sacrament MIL does not know about my decision yet, I am bracing myself for the worst

Re: Interfaith families

Posted by ArmyOfBabies

Posted by HelenZ

well even though some don't consider catholic/lutheran to be "interfaith" (to me, christian is christian!), but my MIL definitely feels differently lol!! I'm lutheran, our LO will be christened lutheran, DH is not as religious/spiritual as me, so this is not even up for conversation in my opinion. MIL should be happy I agreed to get married in a catholic church so as not to "block" DH's final sacrament MIL does not know about my decision yet, I am bracing myself for the worst

Well you don't want to be a sacrament blocker!

Don't tell her, just send her the invite.

Message edited 5/17/2012 5:43:56 PM.

Re: Interfaith families

Posted by HelenZ

Posted by ArmyOfBabies

Posted by HelenZ

well even though some don't consider catholic/lutheran to be "interfaith" (to me, christian is christian!), but my MIL definitely feels differently lol!! I'm lutheran, our LO will be christened lutheran, DH is not as religious/spiritual as me, so this is not even up for conversation in my opinion. MIL should be happy I agreed to get married in a catholic church so as not to "block" DH's final sacrament MIL does not know about my decision yet, I am bracing myself for the worst

Well you don't want to be a sacrament blocker!

Don't tell her, just send her the invite.

OMG can you imagine??? It's funny she actually convinced FIL to "convert" from lutheran to catholic, so this should go over REALLY WELL!

Re: Interfaith families

Posted by HelenZ

Posted by ArmyOfBabies

Posted by HelenZ

well even though some don't consider catholic/lutheran to be "interfaith" (to me, christian is christian!), but my MIL definitely feels differently lol!! I'm lutheran, our LO will be christened lutheran, DH is not as religious/spiritual as me, so this is not even up for conversation in my opinion. MIL should be happy I agreed to get married in a catholic church so as not to "block" DH's final sacrament MIL does not know about my decision yet, I am bracing myself for the worst

Well you don't want to be a sacrament blocker!

Don't tell her, just send her the invite.

eta: it's funny I used to call myself the "sacrament c*ck blocker" (to my friends not MIL OF COURSE lol) that was when I was thinking of getting married in a lutheran church, DH of course couldn't care less...he used to tell MIL we'd get married at the hall just to get her all riled up!

to the OP, sorry for hijacking!!

Re: Interfaith families

We're raising the baby Jewish so we'll have a bris or a baby naming - no christening. My husband is old fashioned so since I'm Jewish he figures it'd be best to raise our children Jewish.

Re: Interfaith families

Crashing to share what we did.

I am Jewish, DH is Catholic.

We had a Bris for the boys at 7 weeks (they were born 2 months premature and in the NICU for 3 weeks and then we had to wait for them to be cleared by their ped).

We had a Christening for them at 4 months old

We are raising them wih both religions until they are old enough to make the choice for themselves if they want to pick one religion.

If we had a girl we would have done a Welcoming Ceremony introducing them to both faiths at the same time. I know Msgr Lisante does these.

It was important to me that my sons have a Bris, so it was only "fair" to DHs side to have a Christening too.

Re: Interfaith families

Im Catholic and DH is Jewish. We're raising them Catholic.. we agreed on this before we were even engaged. He is not very religious at all.

Im sure his mom will have an opinion especially since she thought I'd convert
Id like them raised with a solid foundation and that's the best I can do.

It wont be perfect but it's important to me. And DH is ok with it.

Re: Interfaith families

I am Jewish, DH is Catholic.

When we were married, a priest and rabbi married us. When we had our DD, they both blessed our baby in a joint welcoming ceremony. It was beautiful. We had a party at our home afterwards.

FM me if you would like contact info for the priest and rabbi, or any other info. It's definitely something I needed more info on, so don't be shy about asking!


ETA - We are raising our children interfaith.

Message edited 5/17/2012 7:16:49 PM.

Re: Interfaith families

We're probably doing nothing for #2. We did nothing for DD.

We *might* have a mohel come do a home circumcision rather than do it at the hospital, but we're still undecided about that, too. My friend just had a bris and her mohel does circumcisions without the ceremony too and he was great. DH just isn't sure whether he wants to circumcise or not so we're going to continue to discuss it and talk to the ped about it, etc.

Message edited 5/17/2012 7:59:18 PM.

Re: Interfaith families

I was raised Catholic and DH was raised Jewish. We had Rev. Deb perform our wedding ceremony and she has done a baby blessing for both kids. We had the blessing with water and oil for the Catholic side and each kid received a Hebrew name. It satisfied both sides of the family. BUT we don't plan on doing sacraments or the Jewish equivalent. Neither of us are very religious so we just teach the children both religions at home.

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My mom was Jewish so i used to say i was Jewish since you are what your mom is. DH is catholic but not very religious. We got married at the wedding hall by a reverend. MIL did not like that because according to her our kids could not be baptized in a catholic church, but it was not up for debate. We wound up baptizing the kids in a catholic church only because it was important to DH. I know consider myself agnostic. We'll do the same with this baby. But we made it 100% clear to the family that in no way shape or form will we force any type of religion on our kids. They will learn about different religions and decide their own faith when they are older. So we're obviously not going any further with a communion or anything.

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I'm Jewish. DH isn't religious at all although he's technically Episcopalian. DC will be raised Jewish although we celebrate Christmas with DH's family in a non-religious way.

DS had a bris. Depending on what #2 is, we will have a bris or a baby naming.

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Thanks everyone for your feedback!

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DH was raised Catholic and I was raised Jewish, but neither of us are religious. We did nothing.

What my father explained to me is that you *should* really pick either one or the other if you want to do something, because when you have the child baptized/christened you are promising to raise them as a Christian, and by giving them a bris or a baby naming you are kind of negating that promise, so you can't really do both (from a religious standpoint). Hope that made sense

Re: Interfaith families

im jewish and DH is christian. his family is very religious and mine is not as much, although i was bat mitvahed.

we decided before we even got married that we would not do anything religious for our children, because , frankly, it was not that important to us, and we did not want to pay for 2 ceremonies/parties. we also did not want my parents or in laws to feel uncomfortable. although, i recently found out that my ob outsources their circumcisions to another doctor, who also happens to be a moyle. i may ask him to some prayers for me and my hubby and my parents, but i will not be doing it at home and will not have a party afterwards, so as not make in laws uncomfortable.
they asked DH if he still believed in jesus when he told them he would ask them to marry me, so i think if we did any jewish ceremonies they would have a hard time with that!

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We have Christian backgrounds and raising baby Unitarian - I am so excited about this choice. I never knew it existed until now.

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my dh was raised catholic and i was raised jewish. Our plan is to have the baby circumcised (if a boy) in the hospital , then have a baptism in our church, and a naming in my moms temple. My dh has a hard time trusting a moil to do the cutting, so this ishow he felt best. for me that was ok, so long as teh naming was also done in the temple. Some women will do both- bris and baptism. Good luck.