Secular Confirmations
Several secular, mainly Humanist, organizations direct civil confirmations for older children, as a statement of their life stance that is an alternative to traditional religious ceremonies for children of that age.
Some secular regimes have as a matter of policy fostered the replacement of Christian rituals such as confirmation with non-religious ones. In the historically Protestant German Democratic Republic (East Germany), for example, "the Jugendweihe (youth dedication) gradually supplanted the Christian practice of Confirmation." A concept that first appeared in 1852, the Jugendweihe is described as "a solemn initiation marking the transition from youth to adulthood that was developed in opposition to Protestant and Catholic Churches' Confirmation."
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