A reader writes:
My brother in law is expecting to be "baptized" as a JW in September. I fear that my in-laws, although they don’t agree with this "religion", feel that it has done my brother in law good, and would like all of us (me, my husband and our 4 children) to go. I am planning on declining on attending, and insist that my children stay home with me. I think my husband may go too. What do I do if arguments ensue? I feel that, as a Catholic, I cannot attend because then I would be giving my approval of this. I certainly don’t want my children attending this “baptism”.
If arguments ensue, I would point out that our presence at a ceremonial life event says something. If we attend a wedding, a baptism, or a similar event, we are in a sense lending our endorsement to it or to some aspect of it.
To show up at a Jehovah’s Witness baptism would communicate either approval of the fact that the person is becoming a Jehovah’s Witness or–at a minimum–that one recognizes that there is some kind of legitimacy to the baptism that is being performed, even if one doesn’t approve of the fact it is JWs who are doing it.
To show up at such an event thus would constitute a form of false witness. It would deceive people (either the brother-in-law or others who were at or knew about your attendance at the event) into thinking one of the above things.
Even if one tells the person that you do not approve or do not regard this as a valid baptism, the message will remain that it obviously wasn’t important enough to you to keep you from coming and thus you value what the person will think of you was more important than your concerns about the baptism or the person’s new religion.
And telling the person getting baptized that you think the baptism is invalid doesn’t tell that to all the other people who will see you at the event or who will learn of your presence there.
My policy is that if a sacrament will be valid then it will be possible in principle to attend. My reasoning is that if God is going to show up at the sacrament (in the sense of his action to make the sacrament valid) then it is in principle permitted for me to show up and watch as God does this.
If God isn’t going to "show up," though (meaning: the sacrament will be invalid) then I shouldn’t either.
To do so would send the wrong message, no matter what I might say with my lips.
In the end, it is more loving to an individual (and others) to be honest with them about the fact that a sacrament is not valid–and to prove that you’re serious about that by not showing up–than to paper over the matter and send the message that you’re not really serious or even that you approve.
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