More than 2000 people in the three archdeaconries of Tonj east area in Wau Diocese of South Sudan were confirmed by the bishop during his recent trip around the diocese.
The Rt Revd Moses Deng Bol told ACNS that the confirmations were done over eight days during a tour of his diocese that covers two out of the ten states of South Sudan and measures over 13,000 square kilometres.
“These are very serious Christians and most of the them are adults who have became Christians for the first time in their lives,” he said. “So they’re not just children of Christian parents.”
The bishop disagreed with some religious educators who believe that by withholding confirmation until later stage, young people are kept involved in the life of the church for a longer period of time.
He equated such teaching to holding young people captive in order for them to receive grace from God. “How do we justify this? This attitude surely has a negative impact on young people and their experience of God and church,” he said. “Is this the God we want them to know? One who withholds grace until we’ve jumped through all the hoops that our church tells us we have to jump through?”
Bishop Deng said that children cannot be expected to have a positive memory or experience of the church or God later in their lives “if we keep dangling the sacrament over their heads like a carrot”.
Bishop Deng said, for the newly confirmed, it was crucial for them to have “a very intensive discipleship to really understand what being a follower of Christ means in their daily lives.”
More here-
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/digest/index.cfm/2013/6/10/2000-South-Sudanese-Christians-confirmed-in-just-eight-days
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