churchy musings

[deird1]

My four year old son has started taking communion.

Most of you won’t get exactly why I’m mentioning this. But some of you might understand a bit more if I put it like this: my son, who has not yet been baptised, has started taking communion.

This is unusual.

Orthodox and Catholic churches baptise teeny babies – so when churchgoers take communion, one can pretty much assume they’ve been baptised. The Baptist church, where I was raised, doesn’t baptise people until they’re older – but it also operates on the assumption that you naturally won’t start taking communion until after you’ve been baptised.

I’m at an Anglican church. The middle road. The denomination where we try not to commit to believing something, just in case we leave people out. When someone asks “Does your church believe Theology A or Theology B?” the Anglican church will usually respond with “Yeah… one of those,” and leave all further details to the imagination.

As a rule, Anglican babies are baptised when they’re teeny. But not all of them. The church is quite willing to accommodate those of us who prefer our baptisms more “credo” and less “paedo” – so our two kidlets have both had an infant dedication, and won’t be baptised until they wish to be.

But… my church, being an Anglican church, also handles communion as vaguely as it handles just about every other theological point it’s asked for an opinion on. The Orthodox give communion to infants; the Catholics have an official First Communion at seven years old. The Anglicans opted for the middle ground of “Um… when you’re ready.”

And so my son, having decided he’s ready, is lining up for communion right next to me.

I’m somewhat uncertain about this. A lot of my brain keeps on glancing at me suspiciously and muttering “…but he hasn’t been baptised, Mez…” and I don’t really have an answer for it. I can’t entirely counter the no-communion-before-baptism argument, largely because I’m not sure where that particular theology is from. It’s tradition – but I don’t quite know why, theologically speaking.

On the other hand, there is a piece of theology I’m quite certain of: that Christ said “Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not”, and that if my son asked to encounter Jesus and I said he wasn’t ready, Jesus would kick my arse. (Or at least be extremely cross and pointedly sarcastic in my direction.)

So, I am putting the thing I’m uncertain about (whether un-baptised people are technically allowed to have communion) in second place to the thing I’m very clear about (Jesus wanting kids to be allowed to come to him, dammit). And if my boy wants to take communion, I’m cheering him on.

Comments

[shadowkat]

Eh...

There are differences although subtle between the two

Episcopal is more liberal than Anglican.

I've either been to or studied to some degree every Christian Demonmination -- Anglican, Episcopalian, Quaker, Christian Scientist, etc.

At one point I had four different Bibles.

The difference between the Protestant religions aren't as huge as they like to think. But, the Lutheran, Episcopalian, Anglican, and Catholic tend to be more traditional in their rituals, and base everything around the mass and communion. While the Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Methodist, Quaker, Unitarian (which is a congregationalist set-up), all focus on the sermon and don't have communion. Christian Scientist, Jehova Witness, Mormon all follow their own versions of the Bible and often have separate ones. Russian and Eastern Orthodox have separate holidays and tend to be more traditional in their rituals -- and more ornate than Catholic and Anglican.

There's two branches of the Lutheran -- one that is REALLY conservative, one that isn't.

I could on.

But I wouldn't call Anglican and Episcopalian the same -- there are differences between the two and the Episcopals do not follow the dictates of the Anglican church.

[melannen]

What I actually meant by that is "if you hang out with American Episcopalians, they will use the term Anglican and Episcopalian pretty much interchangeably" (which they do) - sure, there are differences between the churches in different countries (like with most churches) but if you roll into any town on the US East Coast and ask where the Anglican church is they'll point you to the one labelled "Episcopal". And the Episcopal Church of the United States is part of the Anglican Communion - they're not CoE, but they're Anglican. Which is why you can't find any churches labelled Anglican here - they're labelled Episcopal but still called Anglican.

Sorry I assumed you weren't familiar at all with Protestant churches based on that! There's such a range of how much people know about Christianity as it actually happens these days. (I have thirty-three different Bibles and a collection of books of worship/hymnals going back to the mid-19th century, it's a problem.)

In the US, the ELCA-Lutherans (the less-conservative one) are in "full communion" with the Presbyterian, Reformed, UCC, Episcopal, Moravian, and United Methodist churches, which means they've mutually agreed that any doctrinal or cultural differences, while not insignificant, aren't essential, and they acknowledge each other's sacraments and ordinations as entirely valid (so a UMC pastor can be called to an ELCA church, and vice versa.) A lot of the others have similiar arrangements between themselves (and working on adding more to the lists). So they really don't think the differences between themselves are that huge these days!

It's actually kind of an interesting process to watch, the last fifty years or so, as the many 'high-church'-ish protestant groups in the US are slowly and carefully sort of coming back together, and you'll often find that what denomination is on the door doesn't really tell you much about what's inside; it's all very fluid between the churches right now. (But UU, UCC, and Quakers all still tend to be at least somewhat progressive; with the others it's really a crapshoot regardless of what the official higher-ups say - two UMC churches in the same town may teach very different theology and politics.)

(When my mom was a kid, there were something like 15 large Lutheran denominations in the US, and when I started Sunday school, there were at least half a dozen. Now there's three - there are actually two conservative ones - wait, no, there are four, apparently the new one formally started up since I last checked: ELCA, the less-conservative-but-still-no-UU one; LCMS, the conservative one; WELS, who think LCMS are too liberal; and NALC, who think LCMS are too strict but want to still be able to hate the gays. WELS and LCMS keep making noises about joining together but then get in a fight again. NALC get the cold shoulder from everybody because fuck them.)

[shadowkat]

I sort of fell out of exploring religions back in the early 00s? Although I did join a UU in 2010 or thereabouts...UU's are interesting. First off, they are all different. There's four UU churchs in NYC. One is cultural humanist (basically atheist), one is somewhere between the atheist and agnostic, a third is Christian program church, the fourth was Christian and now is leaning towards Jewish/Humanist. The only thing they have in common is their principles -- which is basically a strong view towards the inherent dignity of all humans, social justice, and accepting anyone regardless of their race, sexual orientation, gender, creed (well within reason -- they don't like the evangelists and fundamentalists), and being kind (generally speaking.) From an organizational perspective? They are congregationalist. Congregationalist religions -- don't really recognize an authority outside of their own congregation. And they are the most politically "progressive" of the religions (I don't know if this is debatable or not) - and from their perspective the least exclusive (personally, I think all religions are exclusive of someone, so that's debatable) and most progressive liberal of the Christian faiths (again debatable).

(I have MAJOR issues with organized religion. So, I try not to discuss it too much. ;-) That and politics, tends to get me into trouble.)

Coming from the Catholic faith, and having played around with Episcopal and Lutheran (the less conservative branch, although I've seen both), and Presbyterian (which annoyed me -- it was most likely the church), I'd say that Congregationalist is odd.

The congregation picks the minister -- ministers audition for a panel. The panel listens to their sermons and interviews them. Then they present their final selection to the congregation -- and invite the selected minister to preach a few sermons. Then the members of the congregation vote -- and if selected -- they hire that minister, and pay to house them, move them, etc.

In UU faith -- they don't really follow one bible or set of teachings. They follow various ones -- everything from Buddhism to well the Koran, Torah, St James Bible, Wisdom stories, etc. While they are historically Christian, over time they've sort of pulled away from it or to it, depending on who the minister is and the congregation. It used to be Unitarian up until a certain point, then they merged with the Universalists. The difference? As far as I can figured? The Unitarians broke with the Catholics roughly around the time of St. Augustine -- because they thought the Trinity was illogical and mad no sense. (I can't say I blame them, it doesn't make a lot sense to me either.) The Universalists broke away because the concept of a heaven and a hell and a purgatory was nonsensical to them. They believe everything rejoins the source or goes to heaven, to the degree they believe in such a thing. But most UU's don't really believe in much beyond a source or God, after that, they tend to be rather agnostic in their beliefs. Although it varies -- in my church, I have disillusioned Jews, disillusioned Catholics, Buddhists, former Protestants, and a lot of humanists. Also UU tends to be more accepting of transgender and LGBTQA, which is about 50% of the makeup of the church at the moment. But again, not all UUs are the same -- because congregationalist churches vary greatly from each other.

[zeborah]

My Presbyterian church has communion once a month. I gather that this has traditionally been seen as a slippery slope towards Papism or something. I don't think the Presbyterian tradition has ever *completely* got rid of communion (because of that inconvenient bit where Jesus commanded his disciples to do it in remembrance of him) but have a vague recollection the really strict churches/branches only had/have it once a year or something?

Certainly the focus is on the sermon rather than communion (which is a pain if you have a guest minister whose style does not mesh with yours; has a tendency to shout into the microphone; and has also managed to choose a slate of hymns none of which anybody knows the tunes to. For a hypothetical example from yesterday.)

(I wouldn't class Orthodox churches in among Protestant churches though! but presume that was more for the sake of not-Catholic completism. :-) CS/JW/Mormon I wouldn't even know what, if anything specific, they split off from.)

[deird1]

Certainly the focus is on the sermon rather than communion

That tends to drive me mad!

My old church was the same - but I much prefer, these days, going to services where the communion is the high point.

[zeborah]

In theory I like the idea of actually learning something new and even better practical at church, but in practice I feel like these days I learn a lot more about living in the world and how to treat other people, and even theology, by just listening to folk on Twitter/Dreamwidth.

I have complicated yet mild feelings about church services these days that are taking me a while to resolve.

But I do like the hymns. When I know them.

[lirazel]

Me too! We took communion every week in the church I grew up in, but even though it was supposed to be the focus, in practice the sermon was absolutely the focus. I love being in a church where communion is actually the whole point!

[shadowkat]

Eh, I meant to separate Russian Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox from all of them -- they are in a category all their own. ;-)

As are the Seven Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, Mormons, and Jehova Witnesses who sort of follow their own thing. All of these don't have the same religious holidays as the others do. Nor the same practices.

The Protestant are a varied bunch. One group celebrates communion, one doesn't at all, and one sort of does a play-acting version of it (crackers and grape juice). The big difference between the Catholic's and everyone else in regards to Communion -- is the Catholic religion tends to see the communion wafer and wine as the actual body and blood of Christ and has a lengthy ceremony where it is transformed during the Mass. The whole focus of the Catholic Mass is the communion, the rest isn't really that important. People go to Catholic Mass for the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Which is why it's blasphemous for someone who is not a confirmed Catholic to partake of the sacrament. All the other faiths tend to run the spectrum -- from the sacrament view -- to no communion at all. UU's don't do communion -- they don't believe in the Trinity, or the sacrament. Russian Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopal, Anglican, Lutheran -- all have some version of it, but they don't read it quite as literally a sacrament as the Catholic faith does. And the Presbyterian does the grape juice and crackers bit.

In ritual -- I find the Catholic, Episcopal, Anglican, Russian and Eastern Orthodox to be the most similar...although the latter two do not celebrate the holidays the same...among other things.