An Englishman wants to be the first “Christian” in Britain to be “de-baptised” after complaining that at five-months-old he was too young to decide.
Mr. John Hunt, 56, says that he wants his 1953 baptism at the St Jude and St Aidan parish church in the Southwark diocese, south London, cancelled because he was not consulted and does not believe in God.
Mr. Hunt has had a “Certificate of De-baptism” made up, in which his baptism is revoked and has paid £60 to record it in the 17th-century London Gazette.
The diocese has agreed to have the church records amended with the Gazetted note.
Mr. Hunt has obtained a de-baptism certificate from the National Secular Society, which reads: “I, John Geoffrey Hunt, having been subjected to the rite of Christian baptism in infancy hereby publicly revoke any implications of that rite.
“I reject all its creeds and other such superstitions in particular the perfidious belief that any baby needs to be cleansed of original sin.”
Mr. Hunt would prefer to have the record of his baptism at the parish church at Thornton Heath completely erased.
The Church of England told him that his non-attendance since leaving Sunday school at 11 meant his membership of the church has “effectively lapsed” and that the record of his baptism could be amended with a note but not erased, as it was an historical record.
A Church of England spokesman said: “We are not a ‘membership’ church, and people may consider themselves part of the Church for a wide range of reasons. We do not keep a running total of the number of baptised people in the Church of England, and such totals do not feature in the statistics that we regularly publish.”
[The article goes on to argue that the Anglican church does indeed count baptized people as members for the sake of political representation in the House of Lords and representation in the World Council of Churches; actual church attenders are only 1.1 million, rather that the figure of 25 million they give for their membership.]
Mr. Hunt said: “It was a long time ago but I think it struck me there was a lot of hypocrisy around. Religion is a familiar part of our culture and tradition. I’m happy for children to be taught about religion and understand how they operate but I am totally against the indoctrination of children in any religion.”
Mr. Hunt said: “I think it’s important that more people speak out and say they don’t subscribe to the historic beliefs of the Church.”
He obtained a debaptism certificate from the National Secular Society, which says that 100,000 others have downloaded similar certificates from its website over the last five years.
Although the Church of England’s policy is that it will not record formally those who wish to renounce their baptism, Roman Catholic canon law allows a process known as a “formal act of defection” from the faith. This means that a note will be made on a person’s baptismal record stating that they have left the church.
De-baptism movements exist in Catholic countries such as Spain, Italy and Argentina, while Germans are allowed to renounce their baptism officially in order to get out of paying a church tax.
“They get privileges by counting people who don’t subscribe to their views,” said Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society.
He admitted the de-baptism certificate had been produced originally as a “tongue-in-cheek” joke but added that the procedure is now being taken seriously by an increasing number of atheists.
He said: “There’s so much anger against the church that people actually want to make a statement against it.”
In a letter to Mr. Hunt, Andrew Lane, from the Southwark Diocese, wrote: “Because the promises made by your parents and godparents on your behalf at your baptism were to God and not to the Church, membership of the Church effectively lapses by non-attendance. The fact your baptism took place is a matter of public record. The records cannot be amended retrospectively.”
The Bishop of Croydon, the Right Rev. Nick Baines, added: “It’s a bit like trying to expunge Trotsky from the photos. You can’t remove from the record something that actually happened.”