Jeff has just released this paper. He gives 30 reasons not to vote for the adoption of the report. I have another one to add, for anyone who cares.

The report attacks paedocommunion as a result of the so-called “Federal Vision”:

A major consequence of covenantal objectivity is that membership within the covenant is viewed in an undifferentiated manner. One upshot of this is that the BCO distinction between “communing” and “non-communing” members is set aside or eliminated.

Paedocommunion has been granted as an exception for decades in many presbyteries. Indeed, when the General Assembly voted on paedocommunion, it ruled:

That the Committee on Paedocommunion prepare an annotated bibliography of sources both for and against the practice, and that resources be collected by the Committee for distribution to those who request them (at the requesters’ cost) to study this matter further.

Plainly, no one thought that paedocommunion was some sort of heresy striking at the “vitals of religion” (would resources both for and against Mormonism ever be sent to people by the denomination?).

What is worse is that this statement is simply inserted into the committee’s deliberations without any real connection to the issues the committee purports to be dealing with. In context, the committee is discussing the issue of “election.” But the distinction between the elect and the reprobate within the covenant (which no one denies, by the way, but that is another issue) is not and never was the same as the distinction between children and adults in the church. Everyone knows that there are (alas, far too many) communing members in our church who are determined to have a credible profession of faith who later demonstrate that their faith was not genuine saving faith and depart from the Church. If the committee mixes up this question with the question of paedocommunion it would be forced to rule that no one should ever be permitted to partake of the Lord’s Table.

There are, in fact, small denominations of Reformed believers in which the vast majority never take communion but simply attend. Their behavior is explained on grounds much like this, so it is not merely a hypothetical worry. This sort of thinking would massively change the religious culture of the PCA. If the Bible demands such a thing, then let the committee demonstrate the fact. This bare assertion should not be allowed to stand. Even if one is opposed to paedocommunion, one should still get the report fixed so tht the distinction beteen communing and noncommuning members is not equated with the elect and reprobate in the visible Church.

PostScript (3:55 pm): One thing I feel I should emphasize some more here, is that the entire distinction between communing and noncommuning membership has never been based on some abstract theological commitment to either a “differentiated” or “undifferentiated” covenant in the way the committee seems to presuppose.  John Calvin argued exegetically for the distinction from Exodus 12 and First Corinthians 11.  It had nothing to do with various definitions of election (though Calvin was aware of them and used them in interesting ways).  I happen to disagree with Calvin’s exegetical arguments.  But the point is exegesis, from which the details of the nature of the covenant should be derived, rather than some overarching idea of Covenant to which God’s mouth is shaped.