Confirmand

 

Isaiah with his Confirmation mentor, Christie

We have a new member of our church. He is our 15-year-old son, Isaiah.

It was Confirmation Sunday for Isaiah and five other youth in our Lutheran church. We are proud of the two-year journey of scholarship, learning, and faith that he willingly undertook to become an official church member.

It's funny: Any adult can join our church, and after a congregation vote, can become a member. But our youth take Confirmation classes to attain the same standing. I have no problem with this, as I think it's great the kids learn about Lutheranism, have time to think about religion and their faith, and bond as a group in classes and out-of-church activities. Who doesn't want more young adults imbued with kindness, compassion, and service in this world?

Each youth was required to write a faith statement as the capstone to their Confirmation journey. As you might guess, it essentially is an opportunity to express what their faith means to them and how they will, or would, want to express their convictions. Nice and simple, open to however each confirmand would want to interpret how they feel.

After days – weeks – of nagging, Isaiah came downstairs one recent evening and announced he had written his faith statement. He opened with this:

"I, Isaiah Lewis, like all people in this room, had a 1 in 400 trillion chance of even being born. Even from my birth, I was blessed even to be alive."

Michelle and I glanced at each other. We were thinking the same thing: This is very specific, with a singular, oddly chosen fact. It is grammatically spot on. It seems quite formal. Could our son, perhaps, been assisted by some disembodied spirit (And I don't mean Holy)?

We remained silent as Isaiah read his full statement. There were some turns of phrase and word choices that struck us as too polished to be his. I won't add them here, because I don't want to embarrass him, but suffice to say there were a few real lyrical nuggets for the reader to snack upon.

When he finished, we gently asked Isaiah whether he had written this solely by himself. He looked aggrieved. 

"No," he replied.

We tried again. You didn't get some help from ChatGPT?

He flashed an angry look.

"No! Why would you think that?"

"Well," we replied, "some of your sentences don't sound like you."

Now, Isaiah had become indignant.

"Now, you're rage baiting me. You don't think I wrote this?" he thundered. "I got no help from ChatGPT!"

Michelle and I are not versed enough in AI to directly challenge him. Despite our suspicions, we didn't probe further. We didn't want to mar his thoughts and effort, externally aided or not. This is his profession of his faith and how he shows it, and do we really want to turn the focus on whether everything there was original or assisted? 

So, we decided to let it go. 

During the Confirmation service, our pastor included excerpts of each confirmand's faith statement into the liturgy. I loved how she wove each youth's thoughts about faith into the larger service. This is what she included from Isaiah during her sermon:

"I want to give back to the unstoppable force that pushes me, motivates me, and, most importantly, loves me. To give back to the lord, I must aspire to be like the lord, and the way I plan to do that is to love. I want to give out compliments like a soup kitchen to the homeless. I want to bring others up the way he brought me up, but overall, I want to practice loving everyone."

Pretty tidy, huh? Maybe a little too tidy.

But .... does it truly matter whether there was non-divine assistance to his prose? Doesn't it matter far, far more that he's learned more about – and hopefully believes and want to embody – those principles? 

That answer is clear. We are proud of Isaiah for going through Confirmation. We are proud of the young man he is, and the adult he will be. He has the core values, the morals, and the principles that will guide him to become the best version of himself. 

That's what matters the most.