churchy musings
Mar. 31st, 2019 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird1My 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-31 11:03 pm (UTC)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.)
no subject
Date: 2019-03-31 11:27 pm (UTC)(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.