"The communion table is a place of welcome, and it's not a place to turn people away from."

Applause

"But ..."

While I am grateful for the Presiding Bishop's willingness to be forthright at the cost of losing a little applause (leadership charges forward even if it has something unpopular to say), I'm sensing from this clip a pretty significant variance between where she is and where the crowd is; and I'm wondering if there are further extrapolations to be drawn between the sentiments of those sworn to uphold rules and those for whose benefit such rules have been brought into existence.

I'd love to know if others who may have been present at this meeting were perhaps left with a similar feeling.

Torey Lightcap

I'm with ++ KJS on this. Open font, open table. There's no other way for the Church to do its business if it follows Jesus.

I'm very glad that she said what she said: the sacraments belong together because together they participate in bringing us to maturity in Christ. I wish she'd gone a little further and used the "discipleship" because that's what's really important and at stake here: Baptism and Eucharist together form a sacramental path to discipleship.

God's grace given to us in the sacraments isn't just generic "divine favor"--it's the grace to live into the discipleship described in the Baptismal Covenant.

Beautifully and succinctly put, Derek. You hit the nail on the head.

I agree with the PB. Jesus ministered to everyone without preconditions. So, why does the institutional church do what Jesus did not? Those that disagree with the PB will require the leadership of priests and bishops to see that excluding people is not following in the steps of Jesus.

For once I agree with PB.

Eric

I'm with you Eric, finally she does one thing consistent with the duties of a bishop, guard the faith.

Count me among those who, for once, agrees with the PB. It's not a situation I'm used to, but I like it.

I was at that meeting (2012 annual meeting of the Diocese of North Carolina)and agree with the PB. I would hope that someone known not to have been baptized would not be turned away the first time--but that an effort would be made very soon after that service to fold that person into that church body, including an understanding of baptism and the reasons and process of it. A blessing can always be given at future visits to the altar if baptism doesn't happen.

"I'm sensing from this clip a pretty significant variance between where she is and where the crowd is"

Torey, this clip is from the PB's visit to the Diocese of North Carolina's Convention in January 2012 - I was a clerical delegate.

I don't think that you could or should deduce the crowd's mood based on the video. In fact, quite the opposite - we had the occasion to discuss and debate the issue of Eucharist and Baptism through a Resolution on the same and it was very clear that the majority of people in the room were in support of keeping the two sacraments connected (to use the PB's words) - our resolution calls for the careful study of the question, but those who spoke were mostly in favor of them remaining connected.

I agree with the PB, and with Derek, above. Communion and baptism are both about discipleship. Jesus preached to everyone, but the Last Supper was only for disciples. Thus the PB's (and the church's) position is consistent with Jesus'.

Although, it seems to me that everyone is hearing the PB say different things according to his/her belief. I'm not hearing "open table" without "open font" in what she's said. To be clear, I don't support "open table" for the un(sacramentally)-washed.

Genie,

Your idea is not logical. If you don't believe someone should not receive communion after the first time, they shouldn't receive it the first time -- that is logical. I would ask you, and anyone else that wants to respond, where in the Bible does it require baptism to receive communion? Another question is where in the Bible are we told to have communion? I receive spiritual nourishment from communion, so I am not saying not to do it. But, what right does the Church have to deny communion to someone because they haven't satisfied the requirements of membership of the club (church)? Perhaps this and other institutional requirements were needed in the beginning to ensure the church did not die and continued to grow. But, perhaps this and other requirements are pointing the Church toward its demise.

John, when did we become a Church driven by the Bible alone? We've got at least three legs on our stool, so the appeal to "where in the Bible does it say _______?" seems to be a little illogical in itself. But there's a Scriptural basis for celebrating the Eucharist, as it turns out: Luke 22:19.

And opposition to CWOB, from what I can tell, isn't primarily about making sure non-Christians never, ever take Communion, but about not changing the norm of our Sacramental practice. So not freaking out at the ocassional unbaptized communicant might not be as illogical as you think.

I really like the idea of "on-call" baptism--it's radically inclusive, biblical (Acts 8:36) and may be more responsive to the contemporary culture than the BCP ideal lays out. More here: http://bit.ly/JwtjEC

Bill,

The problem I have with your response is you seem to be emphasizing reason and ignoring the Bible. This is a problem I have observed in the Episcopal Church as a whole. It seems to me that the pendulum has swung too far, placing too much emphasis on reason and little emphasis on the Bible, and spirituality in general. I embrace the concept of the three-legged stool, but with legs comparable in size, not with the leg of reason being much larger than the other two.

John, if I have a bias towards any one leg, it's Tradition. There was a Church before there was a Bible (well, at least before the NT). But you're right - I like Reason, too. Guilty as charged.

Bill, in my opinion, relying too heavily on tradition is more dangerous than relying too heavily upon reason, as relying on tradition can easily close one off to the leading of the Holy Spirit. By the way, your response to my post was pretty much a non-response--you just left me hanging.

We have to be careful not to confuse our own voice for the Holy Spirit's. That is been a big issue over the past 20-30 years.

Not sure I agree that baptism and communion need be linked. There's nothing in the Gospels that indicates that participants at the last supper were all baptized. Similarly, the Catholic notions of baptism by desire and baptism by blood, and the Protestant notion of salvation by faith alone (which typically treats baptism as not conferring absolution from sin), suggest to me that we may have a variety of views on this topic within TEC.

Eric Bonetti

John, I'm sorry you think I left you hanging. What do you think I should have addressed?

While we're on the subject of nonresponses, though, in answer to your "Where in the Bible does it say to celebrate Communion" question I did provide a reference - did you see it?

But Eric, we're not talking about people who necessarily have any faith in Christ at all, but about making broad invitations to all and sundry, including casual visitors. I don't see how eithe Baptism of desire or being saved by faith alOne applies here.

And again, this need to validate every practice by a scriptural warrant seems odd to me. I thought the traditional Anglican attitude toward scripture was that nothing could be taught as necessary to salvation without scriptural warrant, not that every practice of the Church needed one. AFAIK, this is not a salvation issue.

Hi Bill. To clarify, my points didn't go so far as to say we should open communion to all and sundry; I took no position on that matter, nor of the role of scripture. I only pointed out that the whole issue has many more loose ends than is suggested by the PB's comments, and that there already are doctrinal exceptions around these matters.

Beyond that, I hope this will not be another issue in which TEC gets hung up, but instead that we respect and rejoice in the diversity of understanding within the church. Too often, we lose sight of our great tradition of tolerance and pluralism within the church.

Eric Bonetti

Thanks for clearing that up, Eric.

Incidentally, I learned this morning after Mass that our parish's curate has a paper coming out in July critiquing how proponents of CWOB treat Scripture. Sounds like it's going to be interesting.

Eric,

You are mistaken regarding the asserton that the gospels give no indication that the participants at the Last Supper were baptized. In all likelihood, they were.

Andrew was certainly a follower of John the Baptist (John 1:40) and thus presumably baptized. Even more significantly, Jesus is recorded as baptizing (John 3:26), or at least having his disciples baptize (John 4:1). Whether by John or after responding to Jesus' call, they were baptized before the Last Supper.

And, of course, significantly, Jesus himself was baptized.

Matt Gunter

Hi Matt. I think my point apropos the last supper was there's no mention of baptism as being a condition precedent to participation; note that I said "were all baptized." Beyond that, much of our understanding of the last supper is conjecture, with some believing that it was an expansion of the Seder meal, others that it was a throwback to the gentile custom of memorial dinners for the dead, and still others a totally new event. Even among the Gospels, only Luke contains the command to repeat the meal, "Do this is remembrance of me." So, lots of room for differing understandings of the role of both sacraments and the connection between them.

Eric Bonetti

A quibble: the Last Supper was not a Seder, because the Seder only developed after the destruction of the Temple made it impossible to eat the Passover lamb - the Passover meal of the Bible is not synonymous with the Seder, which is sort of a memorial of eating the Paschal lamb.

Of course, the Gospel of John denies it was the Passover (which helps explain the Orthodox Church's use of leavened bread). If it wasn't the Passover, then the likely model is the ordinary before and after meal blessings of a chavura, a sort of religious society that regularly shared meals.

I find this thread fascinating, especially because there are a number of folks on all “sides” of this issue who not only register agreement with the Presiding Bishop here, but find her comments to bolster their own position! I was also a delegate to the NC diocesan convention and the questioner in the above video asked the Presiding Bishop to “say a bit more” about this issue because I had already asked her a similar question earlier and her answer to me wasn’t quite sufficient. My question was about the relationship between the communion without/before baptism issue and TEC’s baptismal ecclesiology. Here’s the link to that video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BQbTtspNhc

I actually don’t think that Bishop Katharine’s answers in either instance clearly identifies what she thinks about the issue at all, which is why they are both very safe, even “political” answers (hence the broad agreement from all sides we’re witnessing here), -- which also means I don’t think it’s possible to discern any discrepancy or continuity between her views and the crowd’s. And in that sense, her responses were brilliant, rhetorically. She effectively patted the backs of those on all “sides” at the same time without ever giving away her own hand.

That said, I still find her answers inadequate. In her answer to me, the Presiding Bishop claims that the split between baptism and eucharist occurred when, in the “medieval period,” confirmation entered between them as a requirement for the completion of baptism and thus also for the reception of eucharist (this is Canon Fisher’s by now classic account of the “disintegration of the rites of initiation”). Of course, the ’79 BCP effectively removed that requirement such that, as others have noted, even though we don’t practice “communion without (or before) baptism” we do indeed practice “open communion” in TEC. But, if I’m following her here, she seems to be saying that this “won’t be a question any longer” for us when we get baptism and eucharist back together on the other side of this medieval introduction of the confirmation requirement. But, if confirmation has already been removed as a requirement between baptism and eucharist, hasn’t this already happened? Why is this still a question for us? Perhaps she is referring to what Ruth Meyers and others have argued when they have noted that, in many ways confirmation still stands between baptism and “full” initiation into the church, even though it no longer stands between baptism and eucharist. Or, as Meyers has claimed, our “baptismal ecclesiology” has yet to fully take root in our actual liturgical life (cf. the canonical requirement for confirmation to serve on a vestry, as an LEM, or to be an ordinand, etc). But, that would make the issue of the proper relationship between baptism and eucharist primarily about “confirmation” and not at all about whether the non-baptized should be welcomed to the altar.

So, while Bishop Katharine’s answers may appeal to folks on both “sides” of this issue, she has effectively not answered the questions at all, which to me signals that she probably doesn’t think this is going to get much “play” at General Convention. She certainly does not give the impression here that “opening the table” to the non-baptized is an issue of justice as some have claimed. However, while I do not believe that this particular issue is quite as massive as some have made it out to be, I do think that the church needs pastoral guidance on how concretely to deal with this it – especially insofar as the “issue” involves an explicit and intentional breach of canonical obligation (not in the refusal to turn folks away from the altar rail, but in openly publishing that the non-baptized are welcome to receive eucharist). Bishop Katharine’s answers here do not provide the kind of pastoral guidance I think we need. With all due respect. That certainly is not to say that her answers cannot be a helpful entrée into fruitful conversation, but that conversation needs to be able to happen in a context where we are all having this dialogue as part of a wider whole that outstretches our own individual self-determination…the canons function in part to guide us into that truth (though that certainly does not make the canons irreversibly absolute). How can we fruitfully have a conversation about whether canons should be changed (which I do not believe is what this conversation should be about, by the way) if some folks who are a part of the conversation have already decided to disregard the canons? I think it would be beneficial for the Presiding Bishop simply to say that, and then we can get on with difficult work of intentional dialogue, which is always messy business, but that’s part of what it means to be a member of the church.

Historically, theologically, and rationally, it's impossible for me to see both Baptism and the Holy Eucharist as rites of discipleship. The former developed out of the radical disjunction between the life before and the new life; the way of death and the way of life. The former is the radical departure from the past in the search for the future. It is the rite of initiation into the life of discipleship. It is such a radical disjunction that the preparation of catechumens took a long, long, time. The initiation of infants into this life makes sense, practically, but was recognized as provisional.

The weekly community meal, however, the chavura, was the central act of the gathered community. The shared meal was what the community gathered to DO on a weekly basis -- and it was understood that the community was not secret and exclusive, but welcoming to outsiders. Why would you invite an outsider to a shared meal unless you expected the outsider to actually share int he meal? This shared meal was based neither on the radical disjunction from the past nor the intentional life as a radical disciple -- but only on being part of the community. (Which explains why St Paul spoke such harsh, scathing words about doing this in an "unworthy manner" -- which, contextually, clearly had nothing to do with one's purity or faithfulness. Eating and drinking in an unworthy way was 100% about being less than inclusive, caring, and welcoming to the other.)

Our sacrament of Holy Eucharist grows out of that inclusive, gracious, shared meal. Our sacrament of Baptism grows out of the radical disjunction expressed in the vows.

Frankly, it makes NO theological sense to have any prerequisite rites prior to a shared community meal focused on radical welcome. It makes even LESS sense to diminish the requirements for a rite of radical discipleship.

The PB has her sentiments 180 degrees backward.