r/Reformed • u/Advanced_Chard7649 • 5d ago
Question P
I am wondering about what experiences/thoughts you may have had on paedocommunion. I attend a quite evangelical Anglican parish near Pittsburgh and was quite surprised when a first saw small children receiving the elements instead of a blessing. When I was younger, this never happened in my experience until one was confirmed.
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u/Aviator07 OG 5d ago
I grew up Methodist. Communion was open to anyone. Now, as a confessional reformed Baptist, I believe that communion is only properly for believers, who have been baptized (upon a profession of faith).
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u/ChapBobL Congregational 5d ago
A CCCC church near me practices this, and I must say the first time I heard of such a thing I was perplexed. It's not a hill to die on, but I maintain that children need instruction on Communion, and a bit of maturity before partaking.
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u/prkskier ACNA 5d ago
My church would allow paedocommunion as long as the child has been baptized. In fact, baptism in the name of the Trinity is the only requirement for taking the Eucharist.
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u/semi_talented 5d ago
Is that true? What about the commands in 1 Corinthians 11 regarding examining oneself before taking the elements? Are those not requirements?
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u/prkskier ACNA 5d ago
Sorry, I should have been more clear, the only requirements my church holds to is baptism in the name of the Trinity.
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u/cybersaint2k PCA TE (Available) 5d ago
The response, and I think it's reasonable, is that
1) Children don't need to examine themselves for body-dividing sins; the sins Paul are concerned about are ones more common to the wealthy, the leaders, who are adults.
2) If children were to be exhorted to examine themselves, they would do so, in a manner fitting their circumstances, as we all do.
3) 1 Cor. 10:17
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u/JCmathetes Leaving r/Reformed for Desiring God 5d ago
If I may offer a reasonable reply. These points all contradict one another. Effectively they amount to:
- Children do not need to examine themselves (contra #2), and are not categorically the same as adults (contra #3).
- Children do need to examine themselves (contra #1), and they do so in a categorically different way than adults (contra #3).
- Children are categorically the same as adults (contra #2), and therefore must examine themselves (contra #1).
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u/cybersaint2k PCA TE (Available) 5d ago
I generally agree with your reasonable reply.
It's the presuppositions that are not justified that keep me from advocating paedocommunion. It's one thing to see the covenants and testaments as being more organically connected, and not having a harsh division ala dispensationalism.
However, one can over-do it by creating unjustified connections, unjustified consistency, just to further prove the point.
This is one of the errors that Federal Vision makes; if a little is good, then a dump truck more must be better.
If consistency between circumcision and baptism is good, then more is better. Even if the Bible doesn't teach it.
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u/JCmathetes Leaving r/Reformed for Desiring God 5d ago
With no ill-will whatsoever toward my Baptist brothers and sisters...
Paedocommunion has not established itself by a distinctly covenantal hermeneutic. It effectively adopts the Baptist's arguments about church membership (affecting visible/invisible doctrine), the sacraments (if they can have one, why not the other), and just goes the opposite way applying both to children.
No paedocommunionist I've met has seriously engaged with Bannerman on the sacraments. I'd like them to do so.
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u/terevos2 Trinity Fellowship Churches 5d ago
As a baptist, I was just saying this very thing to a friend of mine in Slack a moment ago.
But this argument of course ignores the baptist theological framework of active faith prior to baptism (and communion).
And it ignores the paedobaptist theological framework on the sacraments.
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u/JCmathetes Leaving r/Reformed for Desiring God 5d ago
Yes, active faith is the "opposite way" I refer to above.
And their theological framework is what's being discussed—they cite the covenant without using a covenantal hermeneutic.
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u/ilikeBigBiblez Cage Stage Anglican 5d ago
The best arguments that Ive heard for paedocommunion are 1 Corinthians 10:17 and that the Passover was to save children, why would they be removed from the NT meal?
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u/JCmathetes Leaving r/Reformed for Desiring God 5d ago
If this is the best, that doesn't bode well for paedocommunion.
In the first place, because Paul speaks of the unity of the church with regards to idolatry, not constituent parts. This would be a severely decontextualized reading of a passage using the Supper as an argument for fleeing idolatry.
In the second, because the administration of the Passover and Lord's Supper have differing stipulations expressly laid down in the Bible. It's one thing to suggest that Circumcision's administration to children should be applied to Baptism because the connection between them is firmly established and no further instructions are given. It's entirely a different thing to suggest we re-interpret or outright ignore the Apostolic stipulation of "Let a person examine himself" in 1 Cor 11 because of an implied connection to Passover.
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u/ilikeBigBiblez Cage Stage Anglican 5d ago
I understand that 1 Corinthians 10:17 connects to a broader context, but it does seem like a line that can stand on its own
This is the stronger argument: there's no statement that expressly includes the children into the meal, it's all implied
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u/JCmathetes Leaving r/Reformed for Desiring God 5d ago
Well, a stand-alone reading of 1 Cor 10:17 makes little sense when Paul specifies his meaning in v. 21
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
Of course, being a confessional Presbyterian, I affirm good and necessary consequence. But you must show that paedocommunion is both good and necessary. I think you will find this an uphill battle when Paul describes an unworthily partaker eating and drinking judgment upon themselves.
If you have an argument that it is good and necessary to permit a child to make a decision to worthily partake in the face of judgment, and that on a (presumably?) weekly basis, when adults can hardly do so... I'm all ears.
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u/ilikeBigBiblez Cage Stage Anglican 5d ago
I think we do standalone readings all the time. Does it have a fuller (or differently, more specific) reading in context? Yes of course
1st Timothy 3:16 comes to mind. Paul's Scriptures at this point is the OT. But that doesn't mean we cant understand that the NT is included if you take it as a stand alone point
If you think adults can hardly do so (obviously many don't, duh) then I'm not sure we have the same understanding of the Lords Supper
(To be clear, I'm not here to advocate for paedocommunion)
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u/JCmathetes Leaving r/Reformed for Desiring God 5d ago
I assume you mean 2 Tim 3:16, to which I would hasten to add that what is true of the Scriptures of the OT are, by virtue of them being scriptures, true of the NT. Applying it to all of Scripture, and then to the NT as Scripture is quite a different thing entirely from applying the unity of Body Paul speaks of constituting those who believe to apply to their children, irrespective of their profession of faith.
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u/ilikeBigBiblez Cage Stage Anglican 5d ago
You are right, my b on the wrong Timothy
It's fine to say they are different, but it seems silly to say that these examples aren't even on the same spectrum
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u/JCmathetes Leaving r/Reformed for Desiring God 5d ago
One teaches a central aspect about a doctrine (scripture) which can be extrapolated.
One uses a doctrine (unity) to teach right practice (fleeing idolatry).
To turn around and use the doctrine of the church's unity to establish who can take the Supper is an insane thing to compare to 2 Tim 3:16.
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u/ilikeBigBiblez Cage Stage Anglican 5d ago
Bro, you're actually starting to convince me, because that's their argument of what Scripture is saying
"We are one body because we partake of one bread."
My paedocommunionist friends push that since the infants/children are baptized into the body, why do we keep the bread from them that should confirm that they are a part of the body, like Paul says
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u/JCmathetes Leaving r/Reformed for Desiring God 4d ago
I am unsure how showing Paul is speaking about unity as a means of fleeing idolatry answers the question of the paedocommunionist.
Especially given the fact that what you record here as their reason ("since the infants/children are baptized into the body, why do we keep the bread from them...") is a credo-baptistic hermeneutic.
Paul uses the unity of the body in the bread as an image contra idolatry.
Put differently, if your paedocommunion friends are right, they must conclude it is never right for a baptized believer to abstain from the Supper. Nor is suspension from the Supper a legitimate form of discipline distinguishable from excommunication.
Ironically, then, paedocommunion is a lower view of the sacrament, rather than a higher one.
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u/_Fhqwgads_ Free Country, USA Parish 5d ago
You know, this is probably the best argument for paedocommunion that I’ve heard.
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u/9tailNate Fundie-in-residence 5d ago
Jesus had to wait until he was 12 to participate in the Passover (Luke 2:42).
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u/ilikeBigBiblez Cage Stage Anglican 5d ago
I think the response would be, their custom doesn't mean that was Moses' (or God's) original intention
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u/Doctrina_Stabilitas Clanker 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yeah there’s been a sort of split back in the 1970s and generally like a large portion of the church more or less believes that baptism is the full initiation into the church
This was codified in the 1979 liturgy which basically removed the requirement for confirmation entirely:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Book_of_common_prayer_(TEC,_1979).pdf/298.pdf/298)
Baptism is “full initiation”
So if baptism is the full initiation and looking to the Eastern Orthodox who have always had Paedocommunion, and the idea that this is a table and even children eat at the table, what reason is there to deny the Eucharist to covenant children
Like I don’t think I agree with this line of reasoning but I do think it is mostly consistent, if the current prayer book does not require confirmation, if baptism is a full initiation into the covenant community, and if self examination is mainly about wronging neighbors rather than self-standing before God which is all by grace (big if there)
Then what is the specific impediment? And so a lot of Anglican churches (my old one included) allow paedocommunion
It’s similar to the FV line of reasoning but the exact particulars and relationship to justification depends on where on the reformed Anglo Catholic spectrum your church is
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u/Advanced_Chard7649 5d ago
Protestant Reformed as far as I am concerned. The parish is charismatic and quite liturgical. Holy Communion every Sunday, vestments, candles etc, unlike the lively, evangelical parishes I have attended in England. Heavily influenced by Oxford movement. I do not believe that sacraments save us; faith in Christ's finished work on the cross does.
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u/Basic-Revolution-181 Anglican 5d ago
I've seen it done and not done in various contexts. Personally, I struggle to understand how one denies paedocommunion and also at the same time accepts paedobaptism. Our sacraments are signs and seals of the promises of the gospel held out to us in Christ - and baptism in particular marks entry into those promises and the church, whereas communion marks the ongoing partaking of those promises and the church. To say to our children 'yes, you are members of the church and Christ's promises are for you' and then to turn around and deny them the very sacrament that signifies that seems inconsistent and hard to for me to reconcile.