Godparenting

Godparents are adult Christians who act as sponsors at the baptism of an infant or small child, answering the questions addressed to the child by speaking the church’s statement of faith on the child’s behalf. In theory, this is understood to be the beginning of a lifelong calling for the godparent, who takes on a responsibility, along with the parents, for the spiritual nurture of the child. In practice, there tends to be little significance attached to godparenting as a spiritual calling. Why do we have godparents in the first place? What does it mean to be a godparent? How might one live out that role as the child grows up? These questions are rarely addressed, with the result that godparenting tends to become a purely ceremonial role, like that of a bridesmaid or groomsman. Yet the concept carries great potential. This potential is being fulfilled by members of ethnic traditions that emphasize godparenting and by individuals who find their own ways to connect with their godchild in an enduring relationship with a spiritual focus.

How Did the Role of the Godparent Develop?

In the earliest centuries, babies or small children were usually brought to the baptismal font by a parent, who answered the creedal questions for the child. Both Hippolytus and Augustine assume this practice, though Augustine allows that persons other than parents may sponsor a child when necessary (e.g., a master bringing a slave child, a dedicated virgin bringing a once-exposed infant she rescued and is rearing). By the sixth century there is evidence from both the East (Pseudo-Dionysius) and the West (Caesarius) that persons other than the parent are “receiving the child from the font.”

We do not know exactly why this shift in practice away from parent sponsors occurred. It seems to have been a grassroots phenomenon. There is no record of any official church pronouncement urging nonparental sponsors. Only centuries after the custom was established would there be a rule to that effect. It seems to have been the choice of the parents themselves to involve another adult in their child’s life in this way, thereby ensuring that adult’s interest in the child’s welfare. Just think, a sacramental role in the Christian tradition created by and for the people! When theologians first mention it, it is already an established custom, and the role of the sponsor is understood to be one of moral guidance and teaching, especially teaching the child to pray.

In the Middle Ages godparenting became tremendously important as a social institution in Western Europe, a nonbiological extension to the kinship structure. By asking someone to sponsor your child, you formed a quasi-familial bond between that person and your family, a bond that had important social and economic, as well as spiritual, aspects. The godparent was bound to the child in a reciprocal relation of duties and responsibilities. The godparent was expected to give gifts and throw the baptismal party and to provide protection for the child. In return, the godchild owed the godparent a special kind of lifelong respect.

Protestant Reformers who supported infant baptism maintained the role of godparent, though with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Luther, while noting that sponsorship was a human addition to the sacrament, commended it as an ancient and pious custom. Calvin downplayed the godparental role in order to place the emphasis on the parents’ own responsibility.

Since the sixteenth century, godparenthood as a social institution has gradually decreased in importance in western European societies, especially in northern Europe. It survived somewhat better in southern and eastern Europe, and from Spain spread to Latin America and the Philippines, where it developed into a crucial aspect of the kinship structure. Today in the United States, the practice of godparenting is continued in Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and some United Church of Christ and United Methodist churches, as well as in some Baptist churches, where the godparents are involved in the dedication service. The social significance and definition of that role varies according to ethnic and regional background more than denominationally. Some Latino and African-American godparents have a clear sense of the nature of their continuing obligation to the godchild (which can include financial support and rearing the child if the parents die), while many people of northern European extraction have little social guidance as to the nature of the godparent’s role.

Why Should We Care About the Godparental Role Today?

Bringing a child up in the faith is the responsibility of the whole Christian community. The parents (see Parenting) have the primary responsibility, but they cannot do it alone. This communal responsibility is taken on by Sunday-school teachers, pastors, confirmation mentors, youth leaders, “church grandparents” (in programs that pair children with elderly persons within a congregation), house churches, (see Church in the Home), godparents and others who take a personal interest in children and their spiritual nurture. Of all such relationships, that between godparent and godchild has the distinction of not being locality-dependent, so that it can last throughout a child’s growing up.

The need of children for concerned adults in their lives in addition to their parents is harder than ever to meet in our cultural setting. Mobility, the isolation of the nuclear family, the decline of community ties in neighborhoods and the increase in single-parent families are all factors that make this need more acute and more difficult to fill. Any custom that can create closer adult-child bonds deserves cultivating.

In the self-consciously liturgical churches, the liturgical movement has brought a greatly increased focus on the lifelong centrality of baptism to Christian identity. Baptism is not just an entry rite, and certainly not just a life-cycle rite for Christian babies. Baptism is seen as incorporation into the death of Jesus and, through the cross, into the promise of the resurrection. Churches that practice infant baptism teach that in baptism the child is adopted into God’s covenant people and called into ministry for the sake of the world, an identity and a mission that are (at least!) lifelong. Helping godparents understand and live out their calling is one way to raise awareness of baptism as the enduring core of Christian identity. If godparents can come to see their role as one of remembering with the child that she or he is baptized, the institution of godparenthood can be a key part of baptismally focused renewal.

Churches that do not have godparents as part of their tradition might consider adopting the practice, even if it would not have a baptismal focus. Some churches that do not practice infant baptism have adapted the godparental role to their situation, letting parents choose godparents who participate in the service of dedication, agreeing to share with the parents the responsibility for the child’s spiritual nurture. The task of bringing a child up in the faith is much the same regardless of when the child comes to be baptized. All children could use an extra adult or two to connect with them in a long-term, person-to-person way and feel a special concern for their spiritual development.

How Can Godparents Live Out Their Calling?

The calling of a godparent is to help the parents raise the child in the faith. This means finding ways to share with the child about God, faith and values. Few people in our cultural setting are comfortable talking about matters of faith, and even fewer have any idea of how to do that with a child. What should I do—ask him if he likes church? give her a doll that says prayers? If the only “religious” things I can think of to do feel uncomfortably preachy or pious, I will never explicitly address the spiritual side of life at all.

One of the responsibilities of the Christian community is to teach adults how to listen to children and share the faith with them. For centuries godparents have been told, “Be an example to the child, and pray for him”—advice which did little to help them form a relationship with the child where the faith might be nurtured. Godparents need much more concrete advice about ways to dialogue with children about the things that matter, ways to form a long-distance relationship with a child, ways to remind a child that she is baptized and explore with her what that means.

Here are some of the things that godparents might do as ways to share the faith with their godchildren: Draw pictures together about Bible stories, baptism, Christmas or Easter. Mark the child’s baptismal anniversary, rather than the birthday. Give presents that recall baptism symbolically, like bath or pool toys. Let the child designate some of your charitable giving. Play games that allow for discussion of feelings and values (e.g., the Ungame, LifeStories, Choices). Make a bedtime tape where you sing a Christian lullaby. Talk together about what to pray for. Make a personalized Advent calendar. Go together to a synagogue’s sabbath service, or to a Greek Orthodox Easter midnight service. Give (or read on tape) well-written children’s books that address religious issues: the nature of God, the problem of evil and suffering. (There is no more appropriate godparental present than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—dedicated by C. S. Lewis to his goddaughter, Lucy!)

It is important to note that many of these things can be done by long-distance godparents. One of the main things the church needs to get across to people in our mobile society is that it is possible for an adult to form and maintain a significant relationship with a child who is far away. Many people do not believe this is possible, particularly with a small child, and even if they think it can be done, they probably need to be taught how to do it. Long-distance godparents could find helpful ideas on relationship-forming in how-to books written for long-distance grandparents or noncustodial parents.

Godparents who faithfully live out their calling cannot help but grow in faith themselves. There is no better spiritual discipline than learning to listen respectfully to a child; after all, Jesus said we should look to a child as a model of faith and should become like children ourselves. There is no better way to have the stories and images of the faith come alive in a new way than to hear them in a child’s telling, to see them in a child’s drawing. The adolescent’s driving demand for honesty can challenge us to face up to theology’s unanswerable questions, to admit our limits and our compromises. These opportunities for growth in faith should not be restricted to parents alone. As children need other caring adults in their lives besides parents, so adults need the chance to become a soul friend to a child.

» See also: Church as Family

» See also: Parenting

References and Resources

J. G. Fitzpatrick, Something More: Nurturing Your Child’s Spiritual Growth (New York: Penguin, 1991); J. M. Hull, God-Talk with Young Children (Philadelphia: Trinity, 1991); J. H. Lynch, Godparents and Kinship in Early Medieval Europe (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986); E. Ramshaw, The Godparent Book (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1993).

—Elaine J. Ramshaw