Confirmation Class

 

 

For generations, actually for centuries, Lutheran churches have followed the practice of providing confirmation classes for young people in the church, often studying with the pastor for two years – beginning at age twelve and ending with the rite of confirmation at about age 14.  In my youth I joined a class with Reverand Thorson for a two-hour session on Saturday mornings over the course of two school years.   My dad’s generation called it ‘reading for the minister’.  We studied Luther’s small catechism and were expected to have a thorough knowledge of the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s prayer – along with Luther’s explanations for each part of these, memorizing the answers to his famous question, “what does this mean?”. 

At the conclusion of this catechetical instruction, young people traditionally make a profession of their faith in a public ceremony called Confirmation – a rite for Lutherans but a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church.  The “public examination” portion of this rite was definitely nail-biting time.  We were supposed to be prepared to answer any question thrown at us, like, “what is the sixth commandment and what does it mean?”.  In truth, pastor Thorson usually assigned a particular question, i.e. “this might be the question I ask you, Jerry”. 

We arrived at the service fearing that we would forget what we had spent so much time memorizing when the moment of truth come upon us.  Ours was a fairly large class, I think about twelve, the girls dressed in white “confirmation dresses” and the boys in suits and ties – my first suit, charcoal gray, in vogue at that time, all of us with a white corsage pinned to the lapel.  Indeed, it was quite nerve wracking on that hot-humid June Sunday morning as the pastor moved down the line from one to the next and the whole congregation listened intently.   Two of the boys, including my good friend Jimmy Flom, fainted and crumbled to the floor in front of the alter rail.  They must have revived by the time the pastor got to them with their question and the process proceeded on. 

Many relatives were in attendance at this service and attended the big dinner that followed at our house.  The traditional gift for confirmation was a watch, also my first, given to me by my parents, and in addition there were cards with a couple of dollars in each envelope from assorted aunts, uncles and neighbors.   

I don’t remember catechism class as an intellectual exploration of the Christian faith.  It was mostly the pastor talking. We memorized the week's assignment, but there was not much time for asking questions.  I think in the years since that time long ago, pastors have tried to engage young people in more discussion and debate.  This is most certainly true in the church we now attend.

The author, John Updike, who grew up in a Lutheran home, was influenced by his early experience in Church, though his Christianity as an adult was anything but orthodox.  I know little about Updike from his writing, only some from what I have read about him and a couple of his short stories.  He seemed to have been obsessed with three things - writing, sex and religious faith.   

Updike writes about a fictional boy named David in a short story titled Pigeon Feathers,

“Catechetical instruction consisted of reading aloud from a work booklet, answers to problems prepared during the week, problems like, “I am the __, the___, and the___, saith the Lord”.  Then there was a question period in which no one ever asked any questions.  Today’s theme was the last third of the Apostles’ Creed.  When the time came for questions, David blushed and asked, ‘About the resurrection of the body - are we conscious between the time we die and the day of judgement?’

(Pastor) Dobson blinked, and his fine little mouth pursed, suggesting that David was making a difficult thing more difficult”.

I don’t remember asking any such questions of Pastor Thorson.  I wonder what he would have said to that question – though, in fact, that question has never occurred to me.  Actually, thinking about and asking deeper questions regarding life and faith didn’t happen for me until later when I was in college and when I traveled and lived for a year in Europe.

In a 1999 essay, “The Future of Faith,” Updike recalled what it was like to be in church with his father:

I remember . . . taking collection with my father at Wednesday-night Lenten services, as a scattering of the especially dutiful occupied the creaking Lutheran pews.  I was fourteen or so, newly (and uncomfortably) confirmed.  I felt tall with my father as we walked together down the aisle to receive the collection plates.  Although my head at the time brimmed with worldly concerns (girls, cartoons, baseball), it was nice, I thought, of this church . . . to cast the two of us in this responsible, even exalted role.

That memory of doing a serious thing with his dad was a reservoir of fuel that kept a flame of faith burning in Updike. Later he tried to stoke the fire by reading Barth and Kierkegaard, but he knew that faith distilled into ideas would not have remained without the memory of those early church services. He wrote in that same essay, “It is difficult to imagine anyone shouldering the implausible complications of Christian doctrine . . . without some inheritance of positive prior involvement.” [i]

Without some positive prior involvement, indeed.  That positive early involvement for me was Sunday school, weekly worship and confirmation classes.  But I had to move beyond the unquestioning juvenile faith of my youth to a more mature and sustainable faith in order to find meaning in life and a genuine faith in Jesus as my savior for the rest of my life.  I came to love the church, even with its blemishes and sins, and now I believe it is practically impossible for one to be a Christian outside of the church.

I am reminded of what St. Paul wrote:

. . . work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God at work in you enabling you to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13

To me this means a continuing effort to live faithfully, even as I constantly stumble and miss the mark.  It does not mean that I depend on good works for salvation, thank God!

I have seen many for whom their early faith formation experience did not stick.  They get stuck in the juvenile stage that did not serve them well in adulthood.  It is very common for young people to slowly or quickly withdraw from the church after confirmation.  They give it up and don’t move on to a life-long involvement and commitment.

Yet, in the juvenile stage of faith development it is important to be involved and feel, as Updike said, cast into a responsible, even exalted role.  I have observed this recently in my nine-year-old grandson, Colin, as he takes on the role of reader or acolyte in worship services.  He exalts in the responsibility and involvement and feels good about the positive feedback he gets.

I do not know what happened to all of my confirmation contemporaries after I left home post high school.  I have a hunch that their involvement with the church was a mixed bag – I know some became life-long members, some were lukewarm – maybe twicers, attending at Christmas and Easter, and some left entirely. 

Attending confirmation classes and worship as a young person does not guarantee an ongoing faith life or Christian identity. But it is an important place to start.  A theme I have pondered for a long time is why so many of the generations that came after me left the church, and seemingly, rejected the Christian faith.  I have yet to come up with a good answer to that question.  But we must never give up.  Confirmation class is still a good and worthy custom to continue. 

 

 

 

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[i][i] Quote from a Public Discourse article by Gerald McDermott, March, 2015 “A Rather Antinomian Christianity: John Updike’s Religion”