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: 2019-04-01 05:03 pm (UTC)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.