Confirmation

This term is understood in several different senses.

1. It is an act in which the clergy lays hands on those who have been baptized, with perhaps the anointing with oil, as a sign that they have received the Holy Spirit, and/or His gifts. This idea of the confirmation is based on a particular interpretation of what happened to the new believers in Samaria and Ephesus as recorded in Acts 8:14-17 and 19:1-7.

2. In churches that practice infant baptism, confirmation is a rite by which those who had been baptised as infants may now publicly affirm their own faith in Christ and take responsibility for their life before God, when their baptism had only symbolized their parents' claim of faith on their behalf.

3. In other churches, the rite means nothing more than the public reception of persons into membership of the congregation.