The deep red glow of the sun setting over the city of Suva was reflected in the dark brown eyes of my Fijian friend as he gazed earnestly into my eyes. “But Brother Harry,” he implored, “why do I need to be baptized and confirmed again? I’ve already made my covenant with the Lord Jesus.”
The question stabbed at my heart, for I had no easy answer. I had been given the task to plant the church among the indigenous people of the Fiji Islands. The church had been established in Fiji for a number of years and had an active congregation composed of members of Indian descent. This young Fijian man had previously had a powerful experience of baptism and confirmation in another denomination in which he had felt the outpouring of the Spirit in great abundance. It now appeared to him that what I was asking him to do would demean and invalidate his previous experience.
Why am I telling you this story? Because I have struggled with (and continue to struggle with) the place of baptism and confirmation in the life of the church. We are moving into an increasingly relational age and need to interpret and administer the sacraments of the church within this framework. Twenty years ago, I wrote these words in an article published in Restoration Studies III (“The Church and the Sacraments: Toward a Functional Interpretation,” 1986, p. 29):
The challenge before the church today is to build relational ministry in today’s cultures. We must guard against the tendency to attach permanence to the church’s forms of expression. Today’s church should release the resources which allow persons to enjoy a contemporary experience—indeed a contemporary lifestyle—empowered by the living presence of the Holy Spirit.
We are born into a world of spirit, even though we often fail to recognize this. Contemporary science assures us that the nature of all being is based on energy. At the center and extremities of life is a dynamic, flowing energy that holds everything together in relationship. The “Holy Spirit” is a term and a concept that Christians have coined to explain this relationship. Sacramental acts, such as confirmation, do not somehow “endow us from on high” but are rather acts of response to the creative and empowering Spirit that is at the core of our being. In them we both symbolize and participate in the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit.
The book of Acts (chapter 2) records a powerful group experience with the Holy Spirit. The day of Pentecost has become a model for understanding the expression and endowment of that Spirit. Yet most of those who participated in the endowment of the Spirit that day had not yet been baptized—hence Peter’s admonition in verse 38 for them to “repent and be baptized.” In a sense, this natural act of response “confirms” that innate presence of the Divine within us, and the sacrament of confirmation marks our willingness to live in the power of the Spirit.
The warm tropical rain was beginning to fall as I quietly told my young Fijian friend that I could find no theological reason why he needed to be rebaptized and reconfirmed. “But if you want to be a member of this church and this community,” I said, “then the only way to do that is to be rebaptized and reconfirmed.” As his own warm rain began to flow down his cheeks, my friend responded, “Brother Harry, I want to serve my Lord Jesus, and I want to do it in this church. Will you baptize and confirm me?”
What do you think I said?
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