ABC on Child Communion

The Archbishop of Canterbury seems to be in favour of admitting baptised children to Communion before confirmation. In his brief foreword to Stepen Lake's Let The Children Come to Communion (SPCK, 2006) he has a number of positive things to say about the practice and adds:

If there are risks, they are worth taking for the sake of really sharing Christ's life in his Body with the children whose company he loved on earth and loves still.... I hope [Stephen Lake's]... vision will invite and persuade... (p. vii)

"Bread! Me!"

The boy is repeatedly asking to be admitted to the Lord's Table.

Children and the Religious Meals of the Old Creation

Some jottings from James B. Jordan's chapter of the above title in Strawbridge (ed.), The Case for Covenant Communion:

... every single passage in the entire Bible that mentions or discusses children speaks of them as included in whatever religious event is under consideration. Jesus says to let the little children come to Him. Paul addresses children in his letters. Moses tells Pharaoh that the children must accompany Israel to the great feast God is calling them to. Moses, in Deuteronomy, commands that children be allowed at the feasts. Search how you will, you will find no passage anywhere that hints at the exclusion of children from any religious event or meal. (p50)

... there is no passage anywhere in the Bible that commands, hints, or show that children need to be catechized or instructed in order to make them eligible for any religious meal. Instruction took place at the meal, not before it. (p50, emphasis original)

It is sometimes asserted on the basis of 1 Corinthians 11:28 that a child must be old enough to examine himself before being served the Lord's Supper. But it is clearly adult sins that are being discussed, and, if this verse excludes children, then we should be starving our children on the basis of the command "If a man will not work, let him not eat" (2 Thess. 3:10). (footnote 2, p50f)

To summarize: the Bible contains no warnings against children participating at religious meals. It provides no age limit or other qualification of entry that differs from what is required of adults (circumcision for Passover; ritual cleansing for all Tabernacle events). On the contrary, every single passage that discusses children speaks of them as included in religious events. (p51)

As the contest between Moses and Pharaoh intensifies, it is precisely the presence of children at the feast that becomes the issue. During the plague of locusts, the eighth plague, Pharaoh dismisses Moses to go and be a slave to Yahweh. But then he asks who is going, and Moses says that all, including children, must go, and livestock for sacrifice as well. Pharaoh's response is that he must will not let both them and their little ones go. The men may go to the communion meal, but not the children (Ex. 10:8-11). [Footnote 7:] Personally, I'd be nervous about siding with Pharaoh on this. (p54)

Let's be very clear about what is being demanded of Pharaoh. Yahweh intends to have a feast with Israel. Communion-sacrifices as well as Ascensions ("burnt offerings") are required. And Yahweh insists that the children be present for this feast. For the men alone to be present, without wives and children, in unacceptable.

This is the whole purpose of the exodus: to celebrate a feast to the Lord at which children are present along with adults (p54, emphasis original).

... the analogies between the wilderness meals [1 Corinthians] chapter 10 and the Supper of chapter 11 could use more attention. Is not water called "blood" in 2 Samuel 23:17, and does not Jesus convert old "Jewish" water into wine in John 2:6 and 9? It would seem that the old meal of Rock-water and Heaven-manna is found anew in the Lord's Supper of wine and bread. And this being so, the fact that children as well as every other baptized person were included in the old meal has much to say about who is included in the new. (p64)

Against this kind of restrictive view, the Bible presents a God who generously feeds multitudes from His table. He showers down "sacramental" bread from heaven upon Israelite and Gentile alike, upon man and woman alike, upon old and baby alike. Jesus similarly feeds 5000 men and their families on one occasion, and 4000 on another, without seeming to worry about who was "worthy."

In fact, the inspection God is interested in does not take place before the meal, as a way of excluding people from it. Rather, it takes place at the meal. God judged Israel while they ate the heavenly food (Num. 11:33; Ps. 78:29-31). Paul says that the Supper ministers judgment, but he never says that because of this anyone should stay away. (Indeed, those in the wilderness had no choice: they had to eat the heavenly food, or starve.) In Matthew 22:11-12, the king inspected his gustes while they were already at the wedding feast. Belchazzar's Feast is another example. (p66, emphasis original)

Anyone living with this system of law and festival for 1500 years would naturally think that children belong at the Lord's Supper as soon as they are old enough to eat, and that Christian baptism is the ticket to the Lord's Supper. That's how it had always been.

The burden of proof in this matter lies with those who think Jesus or the apostles introduced some striking change. (p68)

The Kingdom of God and Children at the Table

From Tim Gallant's chapter of that name in Strawbridge's Case for Covenant Communion:

The overwhelming evidence for paedocommunion from approximately the third through twelfth centuries is an imposing record that does not deserve to be dismissed lightly. (footnote 1, p35)

In Gallant's words, C. John Collins in WTJ 66 (2004) argues "that the early Church understood the Lord's Supper as a peace offering, noting that children participated in these during the old covenant period. (Note also that the Passover was actually a specific instance of the peace offering.)" (footnote 2, pp35-36)

... the Lord's Supper is not merely an exercise in private devotion, nor yet a symbol to engage our intellects; it is a sign-act of the kingdom which has a central place in that kingdom.... 1 Cor. 1:9; ... 10:16 (p38)

Just days before [the original celebration of the Supper], Jesus had been hailed as the Son of David, welcomed into Jerusalem in Messianic style (Matt. 21:1-11). At the Last Supper, Jesus surrounds Himself with those who will sit on twelve thrones, governing the re-established kingdom (Matt. 19:28); even as God communed with the elders of Israel in the inauguration of the Mosaic covenant (Ex. 24:9-11), so Jesus does here. [We may add that the apostles are elders in the New Israel.] This meal is kingly and covenantal, and formally inaugurates the kingdom which supplants the old covenant era. (p39)

Presbyterian, examine thyself

Some jottings from Jeffrey J. Meyer's chapter in The Case for Covenant Communion:

1 Cor 11:28 - dokimazw - to prove, approve, accredit or test - not typically in Paul a self-reflexive act of internal evaluation but often public and in relation to others - cf. 1 Cor 3:13; 16:3; 2 Cor 8:8, 22; 13:5 (pp20-21)

How then does a man "prove" himself? In the immediate context of 1 Corinthians 10-12 the "proof" that a Christian must display is his or her behavior at the table with respect to the unity of the body of Christ and not the performance of introspective self-examination. A man "proves himself" by how he eats, not how much he understands or how thoroughly he searches his heart. Understanding and heart-searching may be involved, but the proof is in the way one behaves towards others in the body. (emphasis original, p21)

The Case for Covenant Child Communion

D.v., I hope to blog my way through some notes I've made in the margin from the book of that title. From Robert S. Rayburn, 'A Presbyterian Defense of Paedocommunion':

... so far as Holy Scripture ever speaks to the question, it always includes covenant children in the meals of the church. (p5) That as a matter of course little children partook of the Passover meal may be said to be the consensus of the commentaries (footnote, p6)

Dt. 12:6-7, 12, 18

... the Scripture often says that covenant children participated in the sacramental meals of Israelite worship; it never says that they did not or were not to. Scripture knows how to say that certain privileges are reserved for those who reach a certain age, as, for example, it does in the case of the priesthood, but it never says anything like this regarding the participation of children in the sacramental meals of the covenant. Indeed, it says nothing remotely like this. (p7, emphasis original) ... it is very doubtful we should understand Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 as actually laying down some liturgical requirement of self-examination as a prerequisite for participation in the Lord's Supper. Paul is speaking to adults about sins they were committing. He is relating the repentance he demands to their practice of the Supper. He is not thinking about the participation of children and is not addressing their case.... We do not draw such a conclusion when Paul tells a congregation that those who do not work should not eat, or when Peter tells his hearers that they must repent in order to be baptized. (p10, footnote)

All Israel partook of the same spiritual food and drink - 1 Cor 10:3, 18 (see p11)

The fact is, the argument that Baptists use against infant baptism has exactly the same form as the argument the Reformed have long urged against the participation of little children in the Lord's Supper. (p11)

i.e. (1) The Bible requires that people believe before they can be baptized (2) Babies cannot believe (3) Babies must not be baptized (1) The Bible requires that people examine themselves before they can take the Supper (2) Babies cannot examine themselves (3) Babies must not take the Supper. Quite apart from what it means to examine themselves or whether babies can have faith, one may question whether the Bible requires *all* people to do so before being baptizes or taking Communion.

It is admitted by everyone that from the mid-third century onwards the practice of paedocommunion was commonplace in the church. (p12) [We cannot really prove what happened before that]. The fact is that even later authorities [and so called authorities] who do not approve the practice of paedocommunion, such as Calvin and, interestingly, the Council of Trent, accepted that it was the common practice of the early church. (p13)

The majority report of the Presbyterian Church of America and the minority reports of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Christian Reformed Church are all critical of peadocommunion but admit that children ate the Passover. (footnote, p16) In Greg Strawbridge (ed.), The Case for Covenant Communion (Athanasisus Press, 2006)

Agape Child Communion

If, as seems likely, the early church sometimes celebrated the Lord's Supper in the context of an ordinary meal (or so called Agape), as 1 Corinthians seems to imply, then it seems especially likely to me that children of believers would have participated both in the meal and in the bread and wine of the Holy Communion.

We know, by the way, that children were included in church assemblies in New Testament times as they are addressed directly in Ephesians, which seems to have been designed to be read out "in church".

History of Paedocommunion

Here is the conclusion of Tommy Lee's "The History of Paedocommunion: From the Early Church Until 1500”: (emphasis added) From the third century until the twelfth and thirteenth century there is overwhelming evidence that the Western Church regularly brought her infants and young children to participate in the Lord's Supper. This is evidenced by several primary sources and substantiated by numerous secondary sources. Before this time, "we have no unambiguous evidence about the practice"⁸³ of paedocommunion. However, not even the most ardent opponents of infant and young child communion have been able to adequately explain why it "suddenly" became the common and universal practice of the church in the third century. The most logical explanation of the church's third century paedocommunion practice is that it was the same as the church's first and second century paedocommunion practice. The efforts of Coppes and others to shed doubt on the presence of infant and young child communion in the first and second centuries have been ineffective. We do not have any direct references to paedocommunion in first or second century documents, but as soon as references to this practice appear, (far from being considered novel) they are accidental remarks about a practice as common and ordinary as going to sleep at night.

In the West, history records the infants and young children of the church being denied the Lord's Supper for the first time in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is important to note that "the Lord's Supper was lost to the church's children in the west not as a result of a purification of the church's practice of the sacrament but rather as the result of a horrible corruption of it."⁸⁴ There were three or four minor realities that deterred people from having their infants and children communed, but the primary reason for their exclusion was the superstitious fear of the elements provoked by the theory of transubstantiation.

In Eastern Christianity , there has never been a reason to discontinue the ancient tradition of paedocommunion which has been handed down to them from the early church. "Still today in the Eastern Orthodox Church, infants [receive]... the three sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist, within a few minutes of each other, and in that order."⁸⁵

There have been a few reformational attempts in the West to restore the early church's custom of communing her infants and young children, but these endeavours have never totally won the day. The most famous of these attempts came from the fifteenth century Hussites. The following is a portion of one of their communion hymns:

"You gave us his body to eat, His holy blood to drink What more could he have done for us?

"Let us not deny it to little children Nor forbid them When they eat Jesus' body.

"Of such is the kingdom of heaven As Christ himself told us, And holy David says also:

"From the mouths of small children And of all innocent babes Has come forth God's praise That the adversary may be cast down.

***

"Praise God, you children You tiny babes, For he will not drive you away, But feed you on his holy body."⁸⁶

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⁸² Ibid., 35. ⁸³ Leithart, 34. ⁸⁴ Robert S. Rayburn, "Report of the Ad-Interim Committee to Study the Question of Paedocommunion," in PCA Digest Position Papers 1973-1993 Part V, ed. Paul R. Gilchrist (Atlanta: Presbyterian Church in America, 1993), 513.

⁸⁵ DeMolen, 54-55. ⁸⁶Cited in Rayburn, 514.

As every schoolboy knows

I think Calvin is a little over optimistic about how well informed people are when he says:

Who knows not that ancient Christians were wont to give the Eucharist to infants at the breast?

Calvin's Tracts, trans. Beveridge, vol 3, p322

(Wrongly, in my view, Calvin disapproves of young children receiving the Lord's Supper because he thinks 1 Corinthians 11:28 means that to receive it aright they would have to examine themselves in a way they are incapable of).

Little Ones In Church

Thanks to Mrs Lloyd for directing me to Mrs Wilson's blog post on little ones in church.

http://femina.reformedblogs.com/2008/07/24/little-ones-in-church/#more-418

I would love to see all our children with us in church for the whole service and admitted to the Lord's Table, but I think we might be a generation away from that as a congregation. Who knows. How would you move a church in that direction? Do you have experience of doing it in a church where others don't? It would be great if we could manage it with our little Jono. I don't really want to see him exiled or excommunicated.

Mrs Wilson's post should also be read in conjunction with Pastor Wilson's post on children in worship, which as I remember argues something like that whilst it is not a sin for the church to gather without the children and there are times when age specific teaching / addressing male heads of households / those who can understand etc. might be appropriate, as a norm the kids should we welcomed and included.

The Sunday School movement in the UK is a fairly recent invention and rather a mixed blessing in my view.

Mrs Wilson's post also shows the value of large families and long term settled ministries it seems to me. If, say, by the grace of God we had 4 kids who each had 4 kids, and the grandchildren and parents came to church, we would have a pretty sizable congregation. And if we had 4 other families like that in our church...

Foetal Communion

Revd James B. Jordan argues that "those who believe that children do not belong at Jesus' table should excommunicate all pregnant women during the terms of their pregnancies."

Jordan sees in Judges 13:7, 14 evidence that symbolic or quasi-sacramental food eaten by the mother applies to the unborn child since Monoah is to observe the Nazarite food regulations until Samson is born.

The Sociology of the Church: Essays in Reconstruction (Eugene, Wipf and Stock, 1986) p249