Paedocommunion

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Bitterness, crackpots, and Joe Sobran...

This post was a private e-mail sent to me by a friend who thinks Joe Sobran went sour as his age advanced. My friend was responding to a couple recent posts (first and second) and comments made under those posts. I thought the e-mail worth posting on the blog given the movement of many young Reformed into libertarianism of a toxic sort (although I myself believe libertarianism is intrinsically toxic)

It's true that Joe's libertarianism went toxic, tending towards anarchism. A friend who serves as a civil magistrate remonstrated with Joe about this, personally, but seemingly to no avail. Joe remains our hero, but listen to these good warnings from a wise young man.

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I'll take this opportunity to identify myself as the "young man" with whom Tim corresponded. I agree with about 90% of what he's written about Joe Sobran—maybe more. Joe Sobran’s essays in defense of the faith were rare gems. "Is Darwin Holy?", one he wrote toward the end, is another one that stands out in my mind.

I started reading Sobran on the recommendation of a high school teacher when I was about 16. Reading him disabused me of the notion that a young man could make a good living writing truth. It's one of the reasons I decided to become an engineer, instead. Call me cynical if you wish, but I wanted to be able to support a wife and children...


The good father: a church with Biblical sacraments...

Sorry, this one is longer than usual, so please be patient and read the whole way to the end. What we're thinking about here is eternally important.

Right now, when your little family is just getting started and your newborn son or daughter is all a wonder to you, it seems a bit over the top to be talking about how important it is to find a good church. But watch out! Life seems to be passing slowly right now, but it's not. In a day or two, this infant will be leaving your home for college, and then comes marriage and grandchildren. Before you can snap your fingers, your children will be all grown up and the fruit of your fatherhood will be clear.

Last week, we saw that the most important food we provide our family is God's Word. Choosing a church where God's Word is preached faithfully is how we provide them that food. Yes, we read the Bible to our family at home, but home isn't enough. We must have the household of faith, and the most important mark of a Biblical church is faithful preaching. But there are three marks of a true church, so now we move to the second:

  1. A true church has preaching that is faithful to Scripture;
  2. A true church administers the sacraments as Scripture commands;
  3. A true church correctly disciplines her members.

What on earth are sacraments?

Sacraments are physical things God gives us to help us in our weakness...


Paedocommunion (6): infantile desires are neither discernment nor a confession of faith...

(This is the sixth in a series opposing paedocommunion, a practice started by some Reformed parents a few years ago in which they require their infants and toddlers to participate in the Lord's supper. Here are the firstsecondthirdfourth, and fifth in this series. For more on this subject, see the "Paedocommunion" tag.) 

Previously, we saw that those who have recently begun promoting paedocommunion are divided over the key matter of the proper recipients of the Lord’s Supper. One side we will call "Side A" claims both New Covenant sacraments, baptism and the Lord’s supper, must be administered to newborn babies. Because the child is of genetic descent from a covenant family, he is to be baptized and communed as soon as he is born.

Those we will call "Side B" claim baptism should be administered to the newborn baby, but not the Lord’s supper. In this view, some minimal confession of faith or discernment is required of every participant, so fathers are prohibited from communing their newborn infants.1

Both Side A and Side B say they believe in “paedocommunion,” but this is misleading. “Paedobaptist” has always referred to those who baptize newborns, whereas “paedocommunionist” sometimes refers to those who commune newborns and other times to those who oppose communing newborns.

As we have said before, the Side A paedocommunionist who communes newborns is a whole different breed of cat from the Side B paedocommunionist who refuses to commune newborns...


Paedocommunion (5): George Knight's exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11:17-34...

(This is the fifth in a series opposing paedocommunion, a practice started by some Reformed parents a few years ago in which parents require their infants and toddlers to participate in the Lord's Supper. Here are the firstsecondthird, and fourth in this series. For more on this subject, see the "Paedocommunion" tag.) 

Editor's note: Some have been convinced by Jeff Meyers' simplistic and novel exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11 in which he concludes that the only sin that text warns us against is the sin of disunity by not having absolutely everybody in the church partake of the Lord's Supper. His position can be summed up by his astounding statement:

I don’t believe that this passage requires an inward act of contemplating and evaluating one’s sins.

The violence this does to the text should be obvious to any man who honors Scripture and fears God. The Apostle Paul gives several examples of ways to disqualify yourself and destroy the unity of the body in his first letter to the Corinthians, including just in chapter 10 grumbling, fornication, and idolatry. Each of these sins God judged and punished with the death of his people "as an example" to us. The Apostle Paul then warns us, in verse 21, "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons."

Chapter 11 contains yet another warning against partaking while in serious sin—this time the sin of disunity. Where most paedocommunionists err is in their astounding assumption that "unity" is determined purely by the physical external sign of participation in the meal. Such a shallow understanding of unity dismisses as inconsequential the selfishness and jealousy that caused the incomplete participation in the first place. In other words, paedocommunionists who follow Jeff Meyers raise the importance of external conformity so high that one is forced to dismiss as unimportant the inward reality, what Scripture refers to as the circumcision of the heart.

At some point, we hope to address Meyers' treatment of 1Corinthians 11 ourselves. In the meantime, we hope that those who found Meyers' paper compelling will read this in-depth exegetical treatment of the passage in question by the respected exegete George W. Knight III, our Reformed friend and father.

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1 Corinthians 11:17-34: The Lord’s Supper: Abuses, Words of Institution and Warnings

by George W. Knight III

Introduction

1 Corinthians 11:17-34 is an important section in the letter to the Corinthians and therefore also an important section in the life and teaching of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and its Confessional Standards and Book of Church Order, as well as that of other Presbyterian and Reformed Churches.1 The Confessional Standards refer to these verses more than fifty times and especially to the warning verses over twenty times.2 It, therefore, demands our most careful attention...


Paedocommunion (4): a house divided...

...the division among those who say they believe in "paedocommunion" is far deeper than most imagine. Those who require discernment on the part of the child before he can partake in the Supper have already rejected the reasoning of a large part of the paedocommunionist camp.

(This is the fourth in a series opposing paedocommunion, a practice started by some Reformed parents a few years ago in which parents require their infants and toddlers to participate in the Lord's Supper. Here are the firstsecond, and third in this series. For more on this subject, see the "Paedocommunion" tag.) 

We showed in our previous post that those who demand they be permitted to feed their infants and toddlers at the Lord's Table (denying their children need to obey Scripture's command to discern the body) have lost any reasonable, biblical grounds for delaying the participation of their baptized children in the Lord's Supper even a single day. By their own logic, immediately following their newborn's sacramental initiation into the Church of Jesus Christ through baptism, they must commune their child.

We now turn to the paedocommunionists who reject this no-discernment position and require some form of discerning the body on the part of their child...


Paedocommunion (3): when proper discernment requires no discernment...

(This is the third in a series opposing paedocommunion, a practice started by some Reformed parents a few years ago in which parents require their infants and toddlers to participate in the Lord's Supper. Here are the first and second in this series.) 

melina take communion.jpgAs stated in the previous post in this series, Jeff Meyers's novel exegesis of 1 Corinthians 11 subscribed to by paedocommunionists leaves them convinced that, when the rest of the Covenant community is partaking of the Lord's Supper, regardless of age, for a member of the Covenant community to abstain is sin. Those who refuse to commune with the rest of the covenant community have failed to discern the body. In fact, Meyers demands that orthodox Presbyterians examine themselves by this rule coming out of his exegesis. As he sees it, the historic Presbyterian and Reformed church's requirement that all who partake of the Lord’s Supper must be able to discern the body is proof the historic Presbyterian and Reformed church has failed to discern the body, and thus they are guilty of breaking apart the Church's unity—the sin of schism.

Yet, when we examine the range of practices among paedocommunionists, particularly with regard to “discerning the body" around the Lord's Table, it is clear this is no united group holding to the same doctrine and practice. Rather, paedocommunionists are split into two camps: first, there are those who require no discernment at all from the Covenant child; and second, there are those who demand the Covenant child has enough discernment to recognize he is part of the body. Even within these two camps, though, there is inconsistency of belief and practice.

In this post, we'll focus on the first of the two groups—those who require no discernment at all from the Covenant child...


Paedocommunion (2): permission or requirement...

"Why do we eat as a divided body? [1 Corinthians 11] judges traditional Presbyterianism as a church for 'not discerning the body'! ...traditional Presbyterians have for too long 'despised the church of God and humiliated those who have nothing' (1 Corinthians 11:22)   - PCA paedocommunionist pastor, Jeff Meyers

There are varieties of belief and practice among paedocommunionists. Some bring infants to the Lord’s Table, others wait until the children are sign-language toddlers, and still others wait until the toddlers are capable of some level of verbal communication. Beyond age and maturity, some paedocummunionists reject regeneration, others are sacramentalists, and still others believe in regeneration and deny sacramentalism. 

Paedocommunionists typically used to be credobaptists who changed their view to paedobaptism and don't see why their children shouldn't immediately come to the Lord's Table, also. This is key to understanding their arguments and the strength of their commitment to the practice. As they see it, both paedobaptism and paedocommunion are the logical and necessary steps to leaving their Baptist roots behind and embracing covenantal theology.

Paedocommunionists acknowledge the Reformers and Reformed fathers since the Reformation have practiced paedobaptism while opposing paedocommunion. But paedocommunionists approach the history of the Reformed church's condemnation of paedocommunion the same way credobaptists approach the history of the Reformed church's practice of paedobaptism: both paedocommunionists and credobaptists claim they are the true keepers of what Scripture requires and that the historic Reformed church did not have the courage or faith to...


Paedocommunion (1); Introduction...

[The sacraments] are no means of grace except through the faith of the recipient, and in consequence of his own spiritual state and act. There is no inherent power in the ordinance itself to confer blessing, apart from the faith of the participator, and except through the channel of that faith. There is no deposit of power—whether, with the Church of Rome, we deem it physical and ex opere operato, or whether, with Tractarians and High Churchmen, we call it spiritual—in the Sacraments themselves to influence the mind of him who receives them. They have no virtue of themselves, apart from the work of Christ through His Spirit on the one side, and the spiritual act of the recipient through his faith on the other side. - James Bannerman, The Church of Christ

This is an introduction to a series of posts on paedocommunion, the practice of communing at the Lord's Table children who have not yet confessed their faith and been examined by their pastor or the elders of their church. This practice is most common today within the broad Evangelical church where parents simply commune their own children. When the bread and wine are passed, the children whisper to their father or mother that they "want some, too," and the parents see no reason to say "no."

What we are going to examine, though, is a much less common version of paedocommunion found in a small number of congregations in the Protestant and Reformed tradition. Their practice differs from that of the broader Evangelical church in three ways: first, those young children in mainstream Evangelical congregations who commune have not yet been baptized while the children communed by their parents in Protestant and Reformed congregations have been baptized. Second, children communing in mainstream Evangelical congregations don't normally do so because their fathers and mothers believe paedocommunion is Biblical and have developed a system of doctrine to defend their practice. It's really only an ad hoc practice which exists because no one's thought about it and parents aren't inclined to tell their children "no" when they want to do something that seems good, spiritually. On the other hand, parents who commune their children in the small group of paedocommunion Protestant and Reformed congregations believe Scripture requires their children...


From Yale's Edwards manuscripts, this response to the paedocommunionist novelty...

As an example of the value of online searches of Jonathan Edwards's works, here is an extended excerpt from Edwards's sermons against the full communing of the unregenerate which had been instituted in his Northampton congregation by his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, who was his predecessor as Northampton's pastor. After succeeding his grandfather, for years Edwards followed his grandfather's sacramentalist practice, serving the Lord's Supper to those who made no claim to being regenerate. His grandfather believed that the Lord's Supper was a converting ordinance, and thus his practice of the indiscriminate communing around the Lord's Table of regenerate and unregenerate alike.

In time, orthodoxy won and the communing of children of the covenant who made no claim of saving faith or regeneration was stopped. Sadly, though, Jonathan Edwards lost the battle in his own church and was fired as Northampton's pastor. The people were so committed to allowing their unregenerate children to come to the Lord's Table without hindrance of any sort that they wouldn't even allow Edwards to preach to them on the subject. Hence this work is called "lectures" rather than "sermons."

As I said, this is just an excerpt from the lectures, but you can read the entire set of lectures here. (Edwards did other work against the error, also.) 

Why, from all Edwards's works, have I chosen this?

Because modern proponents of infant communion (commonly and confusingly called "paedocommunion") including most notoriously Jeff Meyers (PCA), Peter Leithart (CREC), and Rob Rayburn (PCA) make the same arguments made by Edwards's opponents centuries ago... 


Precisely what is paedocommunion and why does Calvin condemn it...

...why should we offer poison instead of life-giving food to our tender children?

                                             - John Calvin condemning infant communion

Under another post, a commenter entered into the comment field three paragraphs of text written by the Rev. Dr. Rob Rayburn promoting infant communion (commonly referred to as “paedocommunion”). Dr. Rayburn’s promotion of this practice—condemned by Protestants and Roman Catholics alike at the time of the Reformation—is a good example of fashion replacing Biblical doctrine and theological precision. Men who have climbed on the “paedocommunion” bandwagon have believed Dr. Rayburn’s assurance that “none of our authorities favored the practice or, in most cases, ever discussed it.” 

Rayburn's point in saying this is not to warn readers that our Reformed fathers condemned paedocommunion, but rather to dismiss their condemnation under the reasoning that they had not given the practice proper consideration. After all, “in most cases” they had not “ever discussed it."

What Dr. Rayburn writes is not true. John Calvin discussed infant communion in his commentaries and Institutes, considering many arguments in favor of the practice while consistently condemning it.

So then, here are the first two sentences of the three paragraphs by Dr. Rayburn in defense of paedocommunion...


The robber wasp...

Here is a taste of the abuse Zwingli suffers at the keyboards of the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision men, these excerpts from that self-styled "Reformed theologian," Peter Leithart:

...the most obvious sleight of hand here is to make Zwingli stand in for the Reformers as a whole. How many readers will realize that Luther vociferously battled Zwingli (and hence stood on the side of “sacramentality”), and that Calvin was equally opposed to Zwinglianism? Gregory makes it sound as if Zwingli’s admittedly dualist eucharistic theology was the most logical outcome of Protestant metaphysics. In fact, many of the Reformers rejected Zwingli.

And...


Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision men abuse Zwingli...

It's impossible to reconcile the Zwingli-bashing of former Baptists within the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision party with the actual words of Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy and here in Zwingli's Short Exposition of the Christian Faith (1531). Zwingli is no "mere memorialist." Read his doctrine below. Then read his actual liturgy for the Eucharist, asking yourself if anyone in the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision group would object to this liturgy if they had no idea where it came from?

Two things they may object to (even not knowing they were hearing Zwingli's liturgy) are things where Zwingli is right: namely, Zwingli's repudiation of special attire for the celebrant and the faithfulness of Zwingli's warnings of danger to participants who don't eat and drink by faith.

The liturgy is at the end of the Short Exposition, beginning with the words, "Here follows substantially the order of service we use at Zurich, Berne, Basel, and the other cities of the Christian alliance." It's also instructive to read the text from Augustine near the end of the Short Exposition which Zwingli cites as an explication of in his position. Scroll to the end for Zwingli's liturgy and his defense from Augustine.

A Short and Clear Exposition of the Christian Faith

by Ulrich Zwingli

Chapter IV: The Presence of Christ's Body in the Supper

To eat the body of Christ sacramentally, if we wish to speak accurately, is to eat the body of Christ in heart and spirit with the accompaniment of the sacrament.


Calvin on Covenant Renewal, Federal Vision worship...

Responding to the post titled, "Worship wars: Jeff Meyers and Peter Leithart have won...", one brother comments:

Surely the issue is not how often, but simply "how"? Weekly communion is Reformed (Calvin). Communion without a sermon, communion which is somehow emphasized at the expense of the sermon, communion in which there is any adoration of the elements, any concern that "Jesus is being spilled," etc., communion which is understood and presented as repetition of the sacrifice of Christ—or anything approaching that—is not.

I respond: Most of the things you highlight have been Reformed commitments from the beginning. The pairing of weekly communion and paedocommunion have not. Each without the other would have less of an implication for Reformed worship than both together. And make no mistake about it: both together are a confessional issue to the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision crowd. Yet there's no precedent for it in Reformed sacramentology or worship.

Everyone likes to say Calvin was for weekly worship, acting as if that supports what the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision men have done to Reformed sacramentology and worship, but they miss the larger picture. Calvin was for weekly communion, yes; but Geneva's observance of the Lord's Supper was quarterly and Calvin didn't leave Geneva over it. In other words, for Calvin and the Geneva reformers, frequency of communion was adiaphora.

You'll never get the Covenant Renewal Worship, Federal Vision crowd to agree with Calvin on this. For them, weekly communion is anything but adiaphora. To them, weekly communion is a confessional issue and you'll know it because you'll watch as they drive from Geneva to Strasbourg every single Lord's Day to get their family...


Worship wars: Jeff Meyers and Peter Leithart have won...

I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  - 1Corinthians 1:14-18

Luther didn't bother writing a systematic theology because his dear friend Melanchthon had. Luther held Melanchthon's volume of systematics titled Loci Communes (Commonplaces in Theology) in such high esteem that he declared them worthy of inclusion in the canon: "Invictus libellus non solum immortalitate, sed quoque canone ecclesiastico dignus."

Considering the current fascination with all things sacramental among the Federal Vision crowd and Covenant Seminary alumni... 


Paedocommunionists and Redeemerites agree...

NOTE: Likely I should add that I don't really believe the statement quoted below is characteristic of paedocommunionists while I am certain it is characteristic of Redeemerites. I should have done a better job on the title of the piece.

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A federal vision, paedocommunion, PCA pastor writes that in 1Corinthians 11:2-16: "Paul speaks to the men and women in the church about issues of headship. In certain defined relationships, men are the heads of women (e.g., in marriage and in the church). The woman is the glory of the man, having been created from the man and for the man. This is an order of authority that arises from the creation itself. Since Christ came to redeem the creation and set it back on God’s intended track, the order established in creation matters. The whole issue before us about head-coverings has to do with observing that order."

"Men are the heads of women" only "in certain defined relationships," and that headship is because the Creation Order "matters" and Christ came to set that order "back on God's intended track." The Creation Order was established in the state of perfection in the Garden of Eden, prior to the Fall, but it now has application only "in certain defined relationships." In other words, there is no connection between sex and authority anywhere but "in marriage and in the church." This is the teaching of both Federal Vision paedocommunionists and Tim Keller Redeemerites.

When we deny that sex and authority have any connection outside the home and the Church, we are limiting God's Order of Creation to the private spheres where the doctrinal commitments of Christians may remain hidden from the sight of unbelievers. Thus we change our Lord's command...


Leithart's future-end of Protestantism IX: liturgy and ritual will lead the way...

Auburn Avenue was where Federal Vision started and Federal Vision theology continues to smolder in a few hamlets, but in the main the theology part of this battle has divided into two streams that now oppose each other—and may the faithful men win.

One camp we call the oatmeal stout Federal Visionists. Led by Dr. Peter Leithart, this group has decayed into the same old sacramentalism which has proven itself over thousands of years to be instinctual to the sinful heart of man which is intent on denying the Holy Spirit distinction between circumcised foreskins and circumcised hearts.

Fondly these men had put their hope in a Lutheran/Presbyterian theological hybrid, but Westminster archivists bludgeoned them with national pronouncements sufficient to warn timid pastors off, leaving their main support among teachers, not pastors, and teachers high enough in the PCA food chain that they could embrace mongrelism with impunity. Such allies at Covenant Theological Seminary and out in Pacific Northwest Presbytery were sufficient to keep Pastor Jeff Meyers and Dr. Leithart from being convicted in their heresy trials, but Meyers and Leithart have their sights set higher than spending the rest of their lives explaining to their other PCAers that their trials are over and they were acquitted.

Dr. Leithart himself has expanded his vision from the PCA to "conservative American Protestantism" where, as we have been showing in this series of articles, he is aiming to move all Protestants back to Rome. And what is his method?

For years he has been "chipping away at the old divisions of dogma," and hence his being brought up on heresy charges.

Those charges failing to be sustained, though, Dr. Leithart is turning his focus toward the formal structures of worship—especially the sacraments and liturgy. What he terms "ritual" will be the vehicle for bringing "ecumenical passion" into staid Reformed churches. He and Pastor Meyers will bring sacerdotalism (the pastor as presiding priest in worship) into Presbyterian Church in America worship. They trust their sacerdotal and sacramental "ritual" may accomplish what their aberrant theology couldn't. This is Dr. Leithart's self-acknowledged "vocation"...


Doug Wilson and Biblical Horizons/Trinity Institute Lutheranism...

In the post Accountability in the CREC..., I commend Pastor Doug Wilson, which leads a longtime, faithful commenter to this remonstrance:

Brother,

From the standpoint of biblical truth, reformed theology and the Confessionalism that flows from it, this post is disappointing.

Not only do you endorse a leading proponent of the errant 'federal vision' theology, but by unnecessarily putting down a biblical, reformed communion as a means of doing it.

Not only has this man repeatedly been warned and hardened himself...


Superstitious sacramentalism is a danger within the Reformed church...

Under this post, a dear brother writes to say he believes my concern about superstitious sacramentalism within parts of the conservative Reformed church is unwarranted. He writes, "I haven't seen anything resembling contending for superstitious sacrementalism..."

To which I respond...


A liturgical reform to make Reformed liturgical renewalists gnash their teeth…

Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. (Matthew 7:6)

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! (2Corinthians 13:5)

We Reformed types have our shibboleths. “You’re not really Reformed,” we say, “unless…(insert qualifier of choice)."

"Unless you’re a cessationist."

"Unless you’re Sabbatarian."

"Unless you're Psalter-only (sing only Psalms in worship)."

"Unless you’re liturgical (as if any worship isn't)."

"Unless your worship is robustly liturgical (Lutheran)."

"Unless your robustly liturgical worship is ordered according to Jeff's principles of Covenant Renewal."

"Unless you celebrate 'the Eucharist' every Lord's Day (just like Calvin didn't)."

 

May I add another to the list? Trust me, this one will weed out all those Reformed posers. It will separate the men from the boys. It will make all the other shibboleths look really silly...


Repenting of parachurch, Baptist childhoods; Home Sweet Romans...

Here's a revealing, Biblically inaccurate interview with another in a long line of Evangelical intellectuals who felt that repudiating--really, really repudiating--their Baptist roots required them to turn to the Roman Catholic heresy. Honestly, what's with these guys? Can I see the hand of a man--just one man--who repents of his parachurch, Baptist heritage without becoming a Sacramentalist (you know, ex opere operato and all that), and then a full-blown Roman Catholic?

This is why I've said to my F-V sympathizing friends that we have to find a way to innoculate our parachurch, Baptist brothers against feeling the need to take the most radical step possible to put the faith of their childhood behind them.

First they embrace infant baptism, and that's not enough; then it's the smells and bells of...