Infant baptism has been the dominant form of baptism in the Christian West for well over a millennium and a half. How has this affected the understanding and practice of baptism? David Wright conducts a searching critique of traditions of earlier centuries down to the present. This story is variously surprising, disturbing and sobering, not least against the backcloth of the New Testament. Today, in the twenty-first century, reform promises a fresh consensus on baptism. Written for all with a serious interest in baptism, including church leaders, historians, students of liturgy and Christians on both sides of the "baptismal divide," this enquiry at the end of Christendom is thought-provoking, necessary and historically illuminating.