There’s a new book out arguing that Christian children ought to be permitted to partake of the Lord’s supper without first having to jump through hoops to satisfy their older brothers in the Lord (pastor/elders) that they are worthy enough to have table fellowship with Jesus and His Body.
For more stuff, go here.
I guess the title of this post may seem melodramatic, but I think I am accurate. The current consensus in the average Protestant church is to assure young children that they aren’t part of the new covenant in Christ’s blood. The child hears about the body and blood of Christ being given for partakers and is not allowed to partake with everyone else. How is this not an assurance that the child is outside the kingdom? How could the child interpret the pastors’ words in any other way?
Mark, it strikes me as curious that some of the most vehement opposition to young-child communion comes from those among us with a Zwinglian (at best) understanding of the Sacrament.
I also find it interesting that most of these same people base their opposition to young-child communion on a particular reading of I Corinthians 11 which equates “discerning the Lord’s body” with having a sufficient level of understanding of Reformed sacramental theology, but at the same time they will readily welome any visiting Baptist (who have no sacramental theology whatsoever) to partake of the Sacrament.
It would appear, from the context of St. Paul’s words in I Corintians 11, that discerning the Lord’s body refers to us, the Church. To me, that obviously leads to the question, “Well, are baptized children part of the church or not?”
I wonder, do these same people object to their children singing “Jesus Loves Me” in Sunday School?
I visited a PCA church plant the other day and in the course of an otherwise fantastic service including weekly communion with wine the TE mentioned something about praying that someday your children will accept Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, or something along those lines. I found myself totally distracted, thinking ‘Do these people really think that all these little kids are damned to hell and hate Jesus?’ The Bible offers no middle ground. You either love and serve the Lord Jesus, or you are in abject, high handed rebellion against Him. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but if I had a young child in the service this would have offended me even more than it did as a single guy.