The strange rite of confirmation

What is it about?

Confirmation is a rite with a confusing history and no clear biblical foundation. For that reason, both Luther and Calvin were skeptical toward confirmation. Still, it was retained even in Protestant Churches, and were through Pietism and Enlightenment given an added significance as a rite of passage that meant graduation from compulsory education and acceptance as a responsible member both of the church and the society at large. This obscured both the understanding of baptism as the only rite of initiation that originally gave access even to the Lord’s table and the necessity of Christian instruction as a standing order for all ages. The challenge today is thus to maintain confirmation as a part of the Churches’ youth ministry while at the same time avoiding the impression of confirmation as the fulfilment of something that was only half-way completed through baptism. One way of doing that is to understand both the process and rite of confirmation as a way of confirming the youths’ belonging to the Christian community, thus spending the time of preparation for confirmation as a period of exploring the foundation and implications of being included in the Christian church.

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Why is it important?

The rite of confirmation is burdened by a confusing history and has had to fulfil different tasks during its complicated history. A better understanding of this history will help us to make better use of the confirmation rite and the time of preparing for it.

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