Consider the fact that most Anglican churches now celebrate the eucharist every Sunday at every service. Yet many people are not baptized. How do we reach them? Do we invite them to church for Sunday dinner and tell them they cannot eat the food?
How, in our multicultural and pluralistic society, can our churches be places of hospitality if we exclude table fellowship with the non-baptized? This is not an academic question. In Canada, a growing number of the population is not baptized. Included are people from different religious traditions or people with no religious affiliation at all. Quite likely, some are our grandchildren or great-grandchildren, whose parents neglected or refused to have them baptized.
How can the church effectively minister in a post-Christian world where a significant percentage of the population is not baptized? Some Anglican churches are attempting to meet this challenge by becoming open and inclusive faith communities, ready and willing to support people in their spiritual journeys. They understand that the Anglican tradition has never been content to adopt a sectarian mentality, to insulate itself from culture or to refuse to connect with an unchurched population.
Why stop there? Let’s go for open salvation. If we do that we don’t even need Christianity!. Most assuredly you don’t need clergy. Just put in vending machines and sell bread wafers and wine or grape juice for a quarter a shot. As for me I’ll go to a real Christian church and share in the Body and Blood of Christ with believers.
That argument is so worn out and so absurd! Just look at the Orthodox Church– they’re very clear that if you’re not initiated, you can’t receive. But also, a lot of the initiated don’t receive at every liturgy, so that the uninitiated are not alone. What we need to do is properly emphasize the seriousness of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ only when we are reconciled with God and men. It would be a healthy thing if a noticeable number of the congregation were not coming to the rail on a given Sunday. For it would show how seriously they take the Sacrament of the Altar.
Um, something about standards, about tennis not being tennis if you take away the net…. stuff like that. This is what oatmeal tastes like if you forget to put in salt. Larry
I am with Fr. Ian on this one. Communion with Christ is the point of the Church- at the very essence of why it exists, and we find western Anglican churches trying to make it into a marketing ploy.
If you want to share supper with everyone, by all means do so, in the parish hall after the service. Holy Communion is a goal which all new Christians seek. Communion of the non-baptized, in secular terms, is the equivalent to handing a diploma to every incoming freshman, before they take a class or pass an exam.
Well, yes, I am sure that it written in stone. I can’t imagine that makes it impossible for a priest or lay reader to come in an hour earlier to conduct Morning Prayer or or drop in later to conduct Evening Prayer. Try using all the pages in the BCP once in a while.
Unfortunately, the Anglo Catholic voting blocks, which in 1970 were a substantial percentage of GC and the Canadian Synod and the most vocal and effective opposition, have been completely eradicated. And with bishops throughout TEC (with a few notable exceptions) at the very least permitting the practice, and in many either openly condoning it or doing it themselves, it will soon be canonically permitted (within TEC, this is just a formality, as there probably are not 10 bishops left who would enforce the TEC or diocesan canons as written), if not mandated.
Well, it appears at least that the author took that point to heart, and neglected to assemble a reasonable, logical argument. Instead, he runs away from orthodoxy, providing only a light-weight article that reads like a marketing circular for the ill-informed. I feel sorry for those who are so unsatisfied with Christian orthodoxy that they feel compelled to continually tear it down so that they can re-fashion it according to their own devices and desires.
🙄
The church fathers divided full thye church service into two major parts for a good reason.
The first is the teaching part, intended for all, including those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior and as the only path to Salvation.
The second is Eucharistic part and is intended ONLY for those who have consciously accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. Recent developments in ECUSA have opened this part to those who have received a valid Christian baptism including infants and children before the age of mental and emotional maturity.
What does the participation in Holy Communion mean for a person who has not received competent instruction in its meaning, may not be baptized, who had not made his life-long and eternal commitment to Christ, who does not understand the necessity of seriously trying to lead a Christain life and the need for confessing one’s shortfalls in one’s attempts to lead that life, etc?
Derek Olsen’s arguments (which if I may toot my horn for a moment are all linked to through my post here) provide a cogent rejoinder, not to mention some of the responses.
And this organization wonders why Anglican clerics go to Rome! And they will KEEP wondering when their empty churches don’t have anyone to come up for the *open* communion right up til the doors *close*. The phrase “How’s that workin’ for ya?” comes to mind.
This is blasphemy. The sacrament is not “dinner.” It is a participation in the Body and Blood of Christ.
#1 Br. Michael says:
We’re getting close.
#6 you are correct on the division of the service. The liturgies of the East include the command for the catechumens to depart so that they do not participate in the Eucharistic Mysteries.
Although, I don’t see the evidence that paedo-communion is really an innovation as it has been practised in the East for at least a millenium. And I really don’t want to defend TEC, as it may fall under the rubric of innovation in the West.
[blockquote]Consider the fact that most Anglican churches now celebrate the eucharist every Sunday at every service. Yet many people are not baptized. How do we reach them? Do we invite them to church for Sunday dinner and tell them they cannot eat the food?
How, in our multicultural and pluralistic society, can our churches be places of hospitality if we exclude table fellowship with the non-baptized? This is not an academic question. In Canada, a growing number of the population is not baptized. Included are people from different religious traditions or people with no religious affiliation at all. Quite likely, some are our grandchildren or great-grandchildren, whose parents neglected or refused to have them baptized.[/blockquote]
Maybe for a generation or so we should have baptism every Sunday and communion only a few times every year.
Or we could go back to Morning Prayer three Sundays a month and Communion one Sunday a month.
I think open communion is a bad idea, for many of the reasons already stated. But there is a logic problem with drawing the line at “All Baptized Christians.” Why would, say, an unchurched adult who was baptized as an infant but never consciously accepted Christ be welcome at the rail if the point of excluding the non-baptized is to underline the commitment it requires to take communion?
Reply to Dan Ennis (#4.).
I thought that the purpose of Confirmation was to make an adult “confirmation” of one’s faith in Christ God’s Messiah as the only path to Salvation.
I just have a few questions:
1. Who made the law about what a person must do before receiving?
2. What would Jesus do?
3. The whole idea of evangelism is bring friends/relatives to Christ. Don’t you think the Lord can sort out for whom the communion “works” and for whom it doesn’t
4. Did Judas take communion at the last supper?
16, no. According to John Judas left before. See John 13:30. As for your first question baptism Jesus commands it in Matthew 28:16-20 and Mark 16:16. And the Church required it from the earliest days. See Acts.
Remember every argument for “open” communion makes the same sense for every other former sacrament. Marriage got the treatment in the Anglican world several decades ago. How’s that workin’? Oh yes, new and interesting *kinds* of marriage, where there is any.
There still seems to be no shortage of bright new liberal ideas bubbling to the surface in a church seemingly hell-bent on “modernizing” itself into oblivion–all for the best of reasons, of course.
#17, I too am opposed to “open” communion; but I am not sure I understand your answer to #16. John seems unclear to me as to the timing of Judas’s departure and whether he might have returned before the feast, as some of the other disciples speculated he was sent to purchase food for the feast. On the other hand, Mark seems to state explicitly that Judas was present at the feast and participated in the feast.
Mark 14: 17-23
17 When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve.
18 While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me—[b]one who is eating with me.â€[/b]
19 They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely you don’t mean me?â€
20 “It is one of the Twelve,†he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me.
21 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.â€
22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.â€
23 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they [b]all[/b] drank from it.
#16. Things didn’t go very well for Judas when he partook [blockquote]As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him — John 13:17[/blockquote]. Indeed Paul implies that partaking of the Eucharist is extremely dangerous (1 Cor. 11:29, 30). See even 1979 BCP p. 316 (last paragraph).
Judas was there for part of the meal, but he left in the middle. John’s Gospel gives a little more information on the timing than do the Synoptics. John clearly says that Judas left before that part of the meal that we now associate with Communion. To argue that Judas returned is to make an argument from silence. Plus Judas was absent when the 11 went to Gethsemane. Judas left to betray Jesus and only reappears with the Temple guards. If he returned as you suggest he would have had to leave again. I am satisfied from the Gospels that Judas did not participate in that part of the meal that became Communion.
Reply to 15–Yes, so why isn’t the invitation “all confirmed Christians are welcome at our table?”
Dan, it was up until the 1979 BCP. Up to that time Confirmation actually meant something and you had to be both baptized and confirmed to receive. Confirmation is the place for the public declaration of faith and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. As far as other denominations were concerned the invitation was to all persons baptized [b]and authorized[/b] to receive in their own denomination.
I well remember my Confirmation at age 12 and my first communion which followed immediately thereafter.
Personally, I think that this was an unfortunate change. I also sometimes think that we need to return to the three year catachuminate and the triple immersion baptism. Infant baptism requires the parents and congregation to take vows on behalf of the baptized and the promise of instruction in the faith, but this is not always faithfully done.
I think Br. Michael’s comment waaay up above may hold the answer:
bring back Morning Prayer for at least an earlier service, and the Eucharist at the later service.