A Theology Of Confirmation

A number of relatively clear theological assumptions under gird the liturgies of confirmation used by a variety of churches. Baptism must be regarded as complete Christian initiation; it is not the first part of a staged-out action. By it, one becomes a Christian, not a partial Christian. Many of the modern baptismal liturgies (for example, those of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches) require or commend some additional actions at the actual baptism itself, such as anointing with chrism, the laying on of hands, the sign of the cross, or the giving of a lighted candle. Such actions were rejected by the Reformation churches of the sixteenth century, which regarded them as otiose, if not actually harmful. Reformation emphasis was on what was needed for validity. In the twentieth century, however, such actions and their accompanying verbal formulas are no longer contentious. They seem to be ways of making explicit the ric…