Confirmation As a Sacramental Rite

Confirmation as a Sacramental Rite D a v id p . Sc a e r Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus est; hoc Lutheransest etenim — interrupted tradition, eonfirmation is less suscep- vere propieque catholicum tibie to a common definition and practice. Confirmation does not lack historical precedent, but it is uncertain which of the FFICIALLY, NON-SACRAMENTAL RITES devour more of many historical precedents should determine our definition the minister’s time than those which have the confes- and practice of the rite. In Orthodox churches priests admin- sional imprimatur like baptism and the Lord’s Supper. ister confirmation and the first Communion immediately toi- a pastor’s wife made this lowing baptism. Eastern Orthodox confirmation is recognized ة16و Shortly after I was ordained in profound theological statement: “If pastors spent as much time by the Roman Catholic Church, though in this communion it is evangelizing as they did with weddings, the whole world would administered later in life and by a bishop.3 The infant confirma- have a long time ago been converted” — an exaggeration, but in tion of the Orthodox is hardly an option for Eutherans, unless some cases only exaggerations are the most effective vehicles the anointing with oil (chrism) in Luther’s baptismal rite of 1523 ofthe truth. Whereas a baptism, over which there is no doubt (which he omitted in the 1526 rite) is recognized as confirma- about its status as a sacrament, can take fifteen minutes at the tion. Historically the chrism given at baptism was seen by some most, a wedding with the counseling, the rehearsals, the advice as the origin of confirmation.4 of the relevant mothers —counting step-mothers, there could Martin Chemnitz notes that originally baptism was accom- be as many as four —the ceremony itself, which requires that panied by the anointing and the laying on of hands, and that the minister be there at least thirty minutes before and the for several reasons these three actions were separated. Eirst, obligatory receptions, the time involved can be more than half those who received an heretical baptism were received into the a typical work week for our parishioners. Eor the weddings of orthodox communion with the laying on of hands. In the East seminarians, add an hour or two for the ceremony. this was accompanied with an anointing. A second case was an Until the proposal now afloat in some Lutheran churches emergency baptism administered by a layman. Its legitimacy was that the church bless the unions of same sex couples,3 we were confirmed by the laying on of hands by the priest. A third case more or less agreed who could get married. Even if the R0- arose with the spreading out ofthe church from the towns where man Catholic Church called marriage a sacrament, Eutherans the bishop resided. When a presbyter (priest) or deacon admin- together with the general Protestant population saw ft as the istered baptism, the bishop would come later to test and confirm blessing of a union which belonged to the kingdom ofthe right the faith ofthe newly baptized by the laying on of hands.3 hand and so doctrinally there was little about which to quibble. Our current rite of confirmation does not exactly correspond Eor the church, marriage is a lifelong union, but in the view of to any of these three usages, but they do provide a framework the world divorce can end ft. Each church tradition has learned within which it can be understood. We can go even further and to live within this tension. Even if we are unable to pstablish conclude that there are elements within our present rite which a firm foundation for confirmation, the Lutheran Church has have biblical precedence. Even if we should agree on a tentative learned to live with ft. $ome of our problems in defining or de- definition of confirmation, we could hardly insist that such a termining the value of church rituals is the word “sacrament,” definition would be exhaustive or the last one. Confirmation a word and category not known in the $criptures and for which is more easily described than defined. We know that the rite is the Apology allows latitude in definition.^ administered with hands and appropriate words, but we maybe ة.less certain on what the rite requires and accomplishes A RITE WITH PRECEDENCE BUT ND DEFINITION Behind marriage, confirmation is a close second in devouring CONFIRMATION AS RITE OE PASSAGE: a minister’s time. With a more complex, diversified, and —for RATIONAEISM’S UNRECOGNIZED HERITAGE -at Trinity in Rockville, Con وWhen I arrived in January 164 npr.tir.11t■ the oldest Eutheran church in that state, I discovered U a v id P. S c a e r , a contributing editor forL o g i a , is Professor of Sys- old photographs of the church decked out in flowers for con- tematic Theology and New Testament at Concordia Theological Semi- firmation. In the space at the middle of the altar rail stood a nary, Pt. Wayne, Indiana. trellis studded with white flowers, the kind of thing which reap 49 50 LOGIA peared in the marriage ceremonies ofthe flower children in the After being ennfirmed, ennfirmands are, in the eyes of the late 1960s, when nuptials were leaving the church to take place ehureh and their parents, no longer eonsidered ehildren. Our outdoors in fields and woods. In my experience at Trinity of experienee teaehes us that children confirmed in eighth grade Elatbush in Brooklyn, New York, boy confirmands wore white can hardly be called children one year later. They have reached shirts and dark suits, and the girls wore long white evening-that age when they begin to assert their rights as individuals, style dresses. We all have our own memories of confirmation. often with a vengeance, ?hysical changes can be dramatic. Church basements and attics may yield their own treasures of Eighth- and ninth-grade students are at various levels of the relics from this golden age of confirmation in the Lutheran evolutionary process between childhood and adulthood. One Church — Missouri $ynod. feature of the Enlightenment definition is lost. Confirmation no longer recommends the confirmands for employment, especially in a society in which the church carries few if any func- tions for the government. Eor many, responsible adulthood does not settle in until age Today childhood ends around thir- thirty, as evidenced in the sitcom Seinfeld. Today childhood teen orfourteen and a prolonged ends around thirteen or fourteen and a prolonged period of ad- olescence ends more likely in the mid- or late twenties. Mean- period ofadolescence ends more ingful, permanent employment, marriage, and parenthood are -late twenties. often first-time experiences of adults in their thirties. Confir ٠٢ -likely in the mid mation certificates as rem m endations for employment were long ago replaced by high school and now college diplomas, and in some cases master’s degrees. With all these changes the view of confirmation as the boundary between childhood and adulthood persists. This is - ، W h a t this all meant became clear in a visit to a German١١١ tural museum in Berlin, which featured an exhibit on confirma- especially true among larger Lutheran congregations with pa- tion in its nineteenth-century section. In what then had becomerochial schools, in which confirmation is almost like a bacca- a united German Empire, confirmation was the rite of passage laureate service followed by graduation in a matter of weeks. from youth to adulthood. A confirmation certificate served $till popular in the older Midwest congregations are confirma- also as a diploma testifying to the good moral character ofthe tion class reunions which reinforces it as a rite of passage. High confirmand, mcommending the confirmand to his or her firstschool and college reunions assume the role that confirmation employers. It seems that this view ofthe rite came with the Ger- reunions once had. This may indicate that the church is losing man immigrants to the United $tates, where confirmation was its place as a significant factor in the lives of most Christians. seen as a graduation ceremony from formal education, at which Many religions and cultures, including Jews and Moslems, time the confirmand took up manual work of some sort. Con- have rites of passage to instill in those receiving these rites and in firmation took place on Palm $unday, which was the traditional the community observing them that one phase of life has come end of the school year in Germany. In the nineteenth centuryto an end and another one is beginning. With the advent of fie- universal high school education still lay in the future, college ligionsgeschichte, EMightenment Rationalists understood that education was rare, a master’s was still the highest degree and communities are held together by their rituals and accordingly some schools like Johns Hopkins were just thinking ofimport- defined the sacraments in this way. They held that the sacraments ing the German doctor’s degree. Around the age of fourteen were only customs intended for the apostolic period and not my grandfather, Gustav Zimmermann, went to work delivering binding on the church, but still they had value as cultural forces. flowers for a New York Cfty muhi-millionaire, Eugene Higgins, Even from a confessional and biblical point ofview, church ritu- a man for whom he worked for sixty years until Higgins died in als, including the sacraments, serve to identify the community 1949. He had been confirmed and this meant in the minds of hisof believers to themselves and others and to bind them together.^ parents he was qualified for a job.

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