religion and culture intertwine

we didn't baptize sabin as a baby. i was reminded today, during easter services at the local church, why we didn't baptize her. there were two babies being baptized and in both cases, when the minister asked the question of whether the child believed in god and accepted the whole jesus christ story, the mother answered "yes" on the child's behalf. so two children were indoctrinated into a faith without having any say in it or knowledge of it themselves. which is precisely what i didn't want for sabin. i wanted her to understand and accept for herself when the time came. it's what my parents did for me (tho' i'm not sure if it was on purpose on their part or if baptizing the baby just wasn't really in fashion back then in the late 60s presbyterian church). whatever the reason, i am grateful and have done the same for sabin.

after the baptism part of the service was over, one of the families just left and didn't stay for the rest of the easter service. that struck me as a little bit harsh. kind of like a drive-in baptism. let's get it over with and get on to our party (and most importantly, our gifts). the grandparents sneaked out during the next song, as they missed out on leaving when the family themselves left.

the minister himself, a down-to-earth fellow who clearly didn't feel like shaving this morning (or possibly yesterday morning), despite it being probably the most important christian holiday, took it in stride, seeming not to even notice. he went on with his sermon. it was an easter sermon, of course, based on the reading of the easter story from one of the gospels (i'm not a biblical scholar, so don't ask me which one). it was the verse where the marys find jesus' tomb empty and there is talk of an earthquake and the appearance of an angel. he talked about how in the orthodox faith, people take it quite literally and on easter, greet one another with "he is risen, praise be, he is risen," or something along those lines.

he seemed quite cognizant of the fact that in today's denmark, people don't take the gospel quite so much as, well...gospel. it's more of a story and a culture and a metaphor that something bigger than us is there for us. we have chosen, in our culture, to call it jesus and god and the holy spirit, but what really matters is that this is a story that endures through the ages. and that, if we let it, it has the capacity to be a comfort to us in the midst of all of our other personal crises - deaths of those close to us, divorce, losing jobs, and the like. and somehow, it felt like he was ok with the family leaving after the baptism of their child, fully aware of the purposes the church serves in danish culture and his contribution to it. and the church was full (we and about a dozen others actually sat in extra chairs in the aisle, because every pew was filled), so he must derive some satisfaction from that.

confirmation is a big thing when you're a 7th grader in denmark. the preparations are held as part of the school day (thursday mornings from 8-9:30) throughout the school year, so if you should choose not to be part of it (which you are free to do), you would just go to school late that day. but i've told you about this before, so i won't rehash it all here. suffice it to say that sabin has chosen to be confirmed, which means that today, she had to be baptized. she's a teenager, so she didn't want to make a public spectacle out of it, so we arranged to do the baptism after today's easter service. i've had my issues with this minister, since he made sabin feel negated since he hadn't married, buried and baptized her family for four generations before meeting her at the first confirmation preparation course, but i have to say he won me over today with his pragmatic sermon and his scruffy beard. he was kind to her and understanding of her teenager-y angst about not being on public display. he talked to her kindly and when she answered for herself that she was accepting the christian faith, it was ok.

some part of me wishes she had chosen not to do it, mostly because as i heard those mothers accepting on behalf of their children today during the service, i thought about what a hard time i would have had, standing there lying in a church. because although i'm also raised in the tradition, i don't think i believe in it all in the same way anymore. but i believe she has gone into this with open eyes and that what she has accepted is to be an active part of the culture in which she is raised and in the western cultural tradition as a whole. i am also confident that she is an enlightened young woman and she is aware that the bible is a collection of stories with a historical basis and which are metaphors for meditation on the larger questions of life. we didn't baptize her because we wanted her to choose for herself and now she has, which is precisely what we wanted for her, that she would be the one to choose, not us. and next weekend, along with the rest of her peers and social group, she will be confirmed, not only into the church, but into the culture.

and there is something special about the ceremony of it all. i think that we, as humans, need ceremony in our lives. ceremonies around the different junctures - marriage, birth, puberty, winter and spring transitions and yes, death. the christian religion gives us that. and maybe that's not all bad.

a wise child once said, "you can be interested in god without believing in god."

my deeply engrained cultural background, which constitutionally mandates a separation of church and state, bristles at any hint of religion mixed into the public schools. denmark has no such separation of church and state. in fact, they have a state church (a brand of protestantism that's more or less lutheran in its manifestation, tho' they refer to ministers as priests). it's the kind of religion i can get behind, mostly because it's perfectly ok for ordained, practicing ministers within the church to say, out loud, that they don't believe in god. that's just how the danes roll. however...

you knew there was a however.

sabin is in the seventh grade and that's when all good danish children are conformed confirmed. they go through 8 months of conformation confirmation preparation classes and activities (including, oddly enough, some kind of orientering run in a forest near silkeborg) and then in april or may, they dress up in really slutty-looking white dresses (think along the lines of danish design meets my big fat gypsy wedding here) and have a big party where family members and their parents' friends throw a rather obscene amount of cash at them for saying yes to jesus. it's quite a racket, since no one really believes in that stuff in this country. the kids do it for the dress, the party and the money. and many of them will actually say so out loud.

so let's just say that i'm a bit skeptical of this whole thing.

sabin isn't baptized. we aren't religious and tho' we have no objection to her choosing to be baptized, we didn't wish to make the choice for her as a baby. if she wants it, she can choose it, but she needs to learn about it and understand what she's getting herself into. in order to be confirmed, you have to be baptized. she's not keen on that if it means a big, public brouhaha, so she wasn't going to go to the confirmation preparation classes. however, as her friends began talking about it, we all realized there is an element of social pressure in it and an element of socializing in it that she will miss out on if she doesn't go to the preparation course. so, she signed up after all. we also learned that she can be quietly and privately baptized a few weeks before the confirmation, so that was a factor as well.

and as she very wisely said, "you can be interested in god without believing in god."

the other thing about the confirmation preparation course is that it takes place during school hours. not after school or in the evening as one would expect. but from 8-9:30 on a thursday morning, when everyone should be in school. in fact, it counts as part of their school hours. because of that whole lack of separation of church and state. and at the end of the month, they have a whole day off from school to go to that orientering run together in a forest near silkeborg. tho' what that has to do with jesus is beyond me (it's not very well explained). maybe it's just teambuilding, i don't know.

but the whole idea that school time is taken up for an activity that is not compulsory really gets to me. if she were choosing not to take part, she could just stay home until 10 on thursday mornings and have a day off from school that thursday at the end of the month (hmm, maybe i could sell it to her on those grounds). they're doing this instead of learning something like science or math or english or even german.

i want to scream.

then, on top of it all, at the first meeting last thursday morning, the minister (i refuse to use the word priest) spent the whole time showing off to each kid how many of that child's relatives he had baptized, married and buried. since sabin's not from this little town, he couldn't do that for her, so quickly skipped her over, making her feel at least quasi-heathen (she is half american and a quarter swedish after all) and less important, when really the whole thing was an exercise in how important he felt himself to be.

i fear this is going to be a long school year. and i will likely have words with that man before it's over.

i'll admit that i hope that in the end, she does as her father did - he went through the confirmation preparation and on the last day of it, attempted to convince the minister that god didn't exist and left never to be confirmed. he had the the party anyway. and his father was very proud of him. the same will be true for sabin - we'll happily throw her a nonfirmation party and even buy her a foofy, slightly trampy dress if she insists.  but it really truly is up to her to make the choice for herself. happily, i think she's perfectly capable of that.