different terms and expectations

HEADER FOR Expressions

(Click picture to go back to Table of Contents)

Welcome

Enjoy... But remember
"Don't give in to winning the argument
and losing one of your eternal crowns..."

God bless you...

different terms and expectations

Forum: Theological Expressions
Re:

Letter to a Roman Catholic
Re:

Thankyou my Brothers for the Letter! (Emmanuel)
Re:

Not all evangelicals are alike....
Re:

Philgrim (Emmanuel)
Re:

To Emmanuel, (SK)
Re:

Ignorant (Emmanuel)
Re:

To Xavier and Damien (Emmanuel)
Re:

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES ?
Re:

I agree with you.......... (Emmauel)
Re:

No need confirmation course. Only God can confirm us
Re:

Ridiculous........ (Xavier)
Date: 2001, Jul 10
From: <Anonymous>

Xavier, 1 In some of our Protestant churches, they dont practice infant baptism. They baptise only adults who profess the faith. So there is no need of a confirmation course or confirmation service in as far as meeting the need to have the pre-baptised candidate (in the case of someone who had been baptised as a baby), "confirm" publicly his or her belief. What they will have would be the baptism class or believer's or discipleship training class. Hence the issue about confirmation /confirmation course never crops up for these Protestants.
2 If you mean confirmation not only as a time for "reconfirming or reaffirming" a faith received from one's parents (in the case of infant baptism) and one's church....but confirmation as the place and time for receiving the special release of the Holy Spirit in the person's life....well, in many Protestant churches, they dont wait till confirmation to receive that 'touch' from the Lord.... They receive the 'zap' which they call 'baptism in/of/with the Holy Spirit' anywhere and anytime as the Lord sees fit (and the person comes to a point of full surrender of his or her life to Him).... I am not saying that all would not accept that God would/could/ might touch them by the bishop's laying on of hands during confirmation....It is a case where in the RCC, the expectation is that water (or touch from God) comes via the pipes (church rites and people) and in the Protestant side, the expectation is that water (or touch from God) comes via the rain...droplets from the sky.... In a sense, both are right in that God uses both pipes and sky to bless His people....All are means of grace. We might be more familiar with one form than another. No need for us to knock the forms or expectations of the other but to say: Hey, guess what? God is touching us through so many ways....and He is faithful to the ways He has indicated that He will touch us through (eg baptism). Wow.
3.If you are thinking of confirmation as 'reception into the church', well, many churches practice it as merely reception into the church- a welcome service. In the Salvation Army, the new soldier (ie Christian) swears allegience to Christ under the unfurled flag of the Salvation Army (SA brothers and sisters, please correct this if I am wrong...). By the way, Salvation Army neither has baptism nor confirmation...nor Communion....They are not against it but they do not have it.
We do need more time to understand each other across the denominations because each has a different practice, history, theology...and sometimes terms which mean something to one might mean absolutely nothing to another....
God bless. Warmly, THE PILGRIM

to: "different terms and expectations"