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Interesting post by Solderpunk that I just happened to have seen while looking at their gemlog:
"All my Finnish friends had 'confirmations', a kind of second baptism which happens at adolescence"
Because I have graduated with a Theology major, however, I do feel a duty to add a correction: Confirmation is *not* a second baptism. Second baptisms are considered heretical and are in fact the reason why Anabaptists were killed and harassed in Europe, and what eventually led them to moving to the Colonies in North America. Anabaptist literally means "one who baptizes again", and it comes from the fact that they baptized into their faith even those who were already baptized as infants.
"Anabaptists" happens to be an example of a name that had a negative connotation (it was used by those who opposed this group of Christians), but was taken up as the self-identified name of the sect.
Confirmation is about confirming the promises you made when you were baptized. The reason why this is a thing is because when you are baptized as an infant/child, you don't really have the mental capacity to understand what is happening or choose it.
Of course, the view on infant baptism varried within Christianity - some denominations view infant baptism as heretical *because* infants can't understand what's happening and aren't making a conscious choice, so they only baptize a person who has the mental capacity to know that they believe in something - this is called believer's baptism, and it directly contrasts to infant baptism. In these denominations, because they have believer's baptism, they do not need confirmation. You are already fully aware of the promises and beliefs of baptism when you get baptized. Anabaptists would be a denomination that does believer's baptism.
Finally, in the denominations that have infant baptism, there is a legitimate reason why second baptisms are heretical - it has to do with the implication that the first baptism was somehow invalid and one needs to be rebaptized for it to be valid. This is not accurate in these denominations: your first baptism is valid and cannot be invalidated. This is very important because it means you can sin again and that will not invalidate your baptism. Additionally, baptism is a Sacrament. The intentions of the believer and the one who is doing the baptism matters, but whether or not the baptiser is part of the denomination or is a clergy *doesn't* matter in many sects; there's a historical reason for this.
Why is this important? Because the whole message of Jesus is that he came to save *sinners,* that's why. If at any moment you can have your salvation revoked for being a human being with a natural tendency to sin, then that diminishes God's message and diminishes why God became human. God incarnated into Jesus and died to save sinners, not perfect humans who don't sin. That is the very core of Christianity that some puritan sects have clearly lost sight of.
As for infant baptism, it's a complicated subject in *all* denominations, even the ones that allow for it. Many Christians do not feel infant baptism is moral or good because it's going against the conscious choice of the child, or it's forcing a religion on a child. Infant Baptism is also a later practice - the early Christians did not practice Infant Baptism, which is also why many Christians are calling for an end to Infant Baptism. The reasons why it's done is because people want to make sure their child is saved, which is what you get when you don't respect autonomy and when you have a hightened scrupulosity that comes with puritanism, much of Christianity in the US, and fundamentalism.
Addendum:
I wanted to explain this a little bit further:
The intentions of the believer and the one who is doing the baptism matters, but whether or not the baptiser is part of the denomination or is a clergy *doesn't* matter in many sects; there's a historical reason for this.
The fact that the baptiser's denomination doesn't matter is significant, because it means that baptisms within another denomination are still valid within a different denomination. One could be baptized as a Baptist and still enter the Catholic Church, for example, and they need not be repatized, because the first baptism was already valid and cannot be invalidated.
There are two reasons why baptisms outside of one's denomination still remain valid for many other denominations:
1. Baptism is a Sacrament. It confers God's grace. Ultimately, it is God's choice and his grace that affects the individual, not the person leading the Sacrament. The Sacrament confers God's grace to affect you spiritually, and no person can prevent or hinder this, because it comes from God.
2. There was a historical situation where those who fell from the faith during persecution in the Roman Empire came back to the faith and started leading the Sacraments for believers. One group said that all of those Sacraments are invalid because the people who fell from the faith were not allowed to lead the Sacraments for others.
The Catholic position is that the status of the person leading the Sacrament doesn't matter, so all of those people who were baptized remain baptized regardless of whether the person who led the baptism had fallen away from the faith previously.
I firmly believe the Catholic position is actually a good thing, and just makes sense (even though I'm not a Christian). It inevitably leads to the idea that Sacraments are given by God, because they confer God's grace.
Oct 24 · 2 months ago · 👍 gritty · 🤔 1
🚀 StanStani · Oct 25 at 17:15:
Interesting note, my cousins had their confirmation not much longer after first communion. I don't know exactly when, but they were still in elementary school.
I went through most of, but ultimately decided against, confirmation when I was in high school.
So even within Catholic confirmation there are differences.
🚀 clseibold · Oct 25 at 17:58:
@StanStani Yeah, there's always many differences depending on the place and time and denomination. But the idea that Confirmations are not second baptisms remains in many denominations, and that's because it's an established Theology that relies on the fact that Sacraments confer grace, and that this grace doesn't come from other humans (like the priest) but from God. Afaik, all denominations that have Sacraments have this underlying Theology.