The Lead

The House of Bishop's Theology Committee has just released their report on question of sharing Holy Communion with people who are not baptized. The report was requested by the 2006 General Convention.

Of some interest might be the names of the committee members which are found at the end of the report, the full version of which follows. The chair is Bishop Henry Parsley who notes in his letter introducing the report, "To date we know of no resolution on this subject coming before this convention."

REFLECTIONS ON HOLY BAPTISM AND THE HOLY EUCHARIST

A Response to Resolution D084 of the 75th General Convention

By The Theology Committee of the House of Bishops, June 2009

In the light of Resolution D0841 of the 75th General Convention, the House of Bishops Theology Committee has discussed matters related to the relationships between Holy Baptism and eucharistic practice. We have particularly focused our conversations on issues related to offering communion to the unbaptized, a practice often referred to as “open communion.” There are numerous distinct issues at stake here and the committee is not of one mind about them all. This paper will initiate the requested consultation with the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music concerning the theological, liturgical and pastoral issues surrounding this practice.

The sense of the Committee is that our work is not yet complete and that we have not had sufficient time to discuss all of these matters as fully as we would like. We offer this document to the House of Bishops and the larger General Convention as an initial reflection. In this document we try to reflect some of the issues around which our discussions have coalesced, though often without resolution. We also raise several issues and questions regarding the practice of “open communion.” These are issues that have either come up in our face to face discussions or from our examination of essays written on this topic or from conversations at various levels in our own dioceses. There may be need in the future to produce a more substantial document after further discussion and consultation with the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music and after receiving responses to this paper.

Preliminaries

No one, as far as we can tell, advocates that churches establish checkpoints on the way to the altar. Nobody wants to be the baptism police and nobody denies that clergy must exercise appropriate pastoral discretion in specific cases. Nevertheless, the canon with regard to baptism and communion is quite clear: “No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.”

Moreover, clergy enter into a type of covenantal relationship with their bishop regarding the “doctrine, discipline and worship of Christ as this Church has received them.” They also promise obedience to their bishop. It would also appear that both bishops and priests enter into a similar covenantal relationship with the people in their care. In that light, one might well question any deviation from the canons with regard to baptism and eucharist. It is equally important, however, that any change in practice occurs in the light of these covenantal relationships and therefore should be clearly thought out, openly discussed and prayerfully discerned. Regardless of one’s views about whether this canon should be followed, we all agree that it should not be willfully violated in arbitrary, secretive, or idiosyncratic ways, where clergy and parish become a law unto themselves. This is not so much for the sake of the canon as for the sake of the covenantal relationships between bishops, priests, and people.

At the same time, we recognize that the impulse towards open communion arises out of serious pastoral issues faced by clergy in the diverse contexts in which they seek to minister faithfully. Sometimes these pastoral issues are connected to the particular contexts of their ministries. Sometimes they arise in the course of particular liturgical occasions such as weddings or funerals.

Further, we recognize that there would be serious implications for ecumenical relations as well as relations within the wider Anglican Communion should the Episcopal Church alter its canons. These implications would need to be explicated and explored further.

With this in view, our discussions thus far have coalesced around three interrelated issues: 1) The Doctrinal and Liturgical Connection between Baptism and Eucharist. 2) Jesus’ Practice and Hopes for his Followers. 3) Mission and Eucharistic Participation.

The Doctrinal and Liturgical Connection between Baptism and Eucharist

Both those in favor of upholding the canon and those who advocate changing the canon on baptism and eucharist recognize that there is an intrinsic connection between baptism and eucharist and a theological sense to the church’s traditional practice. The relationship between baptism and eucharist can be understood in a variety of ways. We display some of these below. This list is not comprehensive but exemplary:

Baptism unites one to Christ. One receives thereby Christ’s own Spirit as the power to lead a reformed, Christ-like life. In the eucharist one actually draws upon that life-giving Spirit, which comes to us through the gift of Christ’s own humanity to us in the elements, to grow into and sustain under trial a Christ-like transformation of life.

Baptism inaugurates a particular relationship into which one then lives empowered and renewed through the eucharist.
In baptism one is graciously adopted into God’s household and then nourished by God in the eucharist.

Believers receive the Spirit in baptism leading to sanctification by the Spirit’s work in the eucharist.

Our baptism is a baptism into death and resurrection of Christ. We recognize with Paul that our eucharistic practice proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes.

In baptism one is made a member of Christ. In the eucharist we both remember and are re-membered as the body of Christ.

In baptism we are cleansed from sin and raised to newness of life. In the eucharist we partake of the blood of Christ which was shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

All of these ways presume that baptism leads to eucharist and not the other way around. Moreover, one can see this integral connection confirmed by comparing the language in the baptismal service with language in the eucharistic liturgy. In particular Eucharistic Prayer C explicitly ties baptism to eucharist (BCP 371). It is those redeemed and “made a new people by water and the Spirit” who offer the gifts that become Christ’s body and blood.

Both theologically and liturgically there is a rich tradition of reflection that develops and explains the connections between and the movement from baptism to eucharist. This raises a set of questions for those who wish to open communion to the unbaptized: Is it also possible to provide a doctrinal account of this close connection between baptism and eucharist in a way that might show how eucharistic reception might lead to baptism? Would such an account require a significant reconception of baptism or eucharist? That is, can we retain the intelligibility of baptism if we presume the eucharist precedes baptism? Clearly, there are accounts of people who have been moved to seek baptism through regular eucharistic reception. Are there any theological accounts of the relationship between these two sacraments that would enable one to think of this as a normal way of proceeding?

Jesus’ Practice and Hopes for his Followers

Many accounts of “open communion” seek to base their arguments on Jesus’ everyday eating practices, especially his well-noted habit of eating with “tax collectors and sinners.” In some cases it appears that people want to distinguish between Jesus’ final meal with his followers, which was an exclusive affair, and Jesus’ normal eating practices which are taken to be radically inclusive. Depending on whether one takes his final meal or normal eating practices to be the church’s precedent for the eucharistic celebration, different conclusions follow for the practice of open communion.

It might be worthwhile looking at what we do know about Jesus’ everyday practice and its relevance to this issue. Jesus is notorious for eating with “tax collectors and sinners.” This scandalizes many of his Jewish contemporaries. Nevertheless, we should recall that “tax collectors and sinners” were Jews and that Jesus confines his ministry and his eating companions to Jews (with the possible exception of the feeding of the multitudes in the gospels). Moreover, these people were already in a covenant relationship with God, even if that relationship was in need of repair and reconciliation.

More importantly, Jesus’ mendicant pattern of life meant that he was almost never the host of a meal. He responds to and even provokes invitations from a wide variety of Jews, but does not really offer invitations. Outside of the last supper and the accounts of the feeding of the multitudes and the post-resurrection meal in John 21, we never learn of Jesus hosting a meal. Even on the road to Emmaus Jesus is invited by the disciples to eat with them.

Further, if Jesus’ practice were as open as is sometimes assumed, it is difficult to account for the early church’s struggles over getting Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus to sit down at the same table. Indeed, it would seem that it is baptism and not communion that enables the diverse yet unified body imagined in Gal.3:27-29. Whatever one wants to say about “open communion,” it cannot easily or directly be based on Jesus’ day to day eating practices as best we can reconstruct them. Moreover Jesus’ focus on the “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” should remind us that that his engagements with tax collectors and sinners were directed at restoring and repairing their covenantal relationship with God.

Although baptism (at least Christian baptism) was not required of those at the last supper, the gospel accounts make it fairly clear that Jesus ate this Passover meal with his closest followers. On its own, though, this account does not straightforwardly argue for baptism prior to communion. Paul’s account of eucharistic practice in Corinth, however, presumes that Jesus’ last meal is paradigmatic for Christian practice. Following Paul and the Christian tradition, our liturgy also treats the Last Supper as the paradigm for Christian eucharistic practice.

Moreover, it appears that Paul assumes that the Corinthians are baptized even if that fact caused divisions among them (cf.1:10-16), but there is no explicit connection between baptism and eucharist. Nonetheless, for Paul, participating in this meal implies sharing a set of convictions about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and a set of practices that stem from those convictions. Further, misunderstanding or failing to embody those convictions can lead either to “unworthy” participation in the Lord’s supper or can render the meal as something other than the Lord’s Supper (cf. 1Cor 11:17-34). By the time of Didache (circa. 95-110 c.e.) baptism is expressly required to participate in the eucharist.

Mission and Eucharistic Participation

Many see “open communion” as part of an overall focus on mission. Without question, mission must always be a pressing concern for Episcopalians and all other Christians. At its best, the desire for “open communion” arises out of an impulse to reach out as far as possible into the ‘highways and byways’ where those who might be prone to follow Jesus reside. In the course of such outreach one also faces the question of whether those who respond to a well formed open invitation to communion might be catechized and baptized.2

This approach raises at least three important issues for our consideration. The first concerns the nature of the invitation. It would appear that there is a great deal of diversity in the ways in which people are invited to open communion. Some invitations simply note that whoever desires to come may come. Others invite those who seek God or are drawn to Christ. Other forms of invitation may be yet more specific. In each case, however we are concerned that people understand the nature of the meal to which they are invited.

Regardless of one’s views about open communion Christians agree that eucharistic participation is part of our transformation into ever more faithful followers of Christ. Eucharistic participation is one of the central ways in which our friendship with God and each other is deepened and, in the course of that deepening, our habits, desires and manner of life are radically transformed through the workings of the Spirit. Eucharistic participation is part of our sanctification. As John Koenig notes, “What believers do by celebrating eucharistic meals is to join Christ’s ministry for the life of the world (1 Cor. 15:24-28)—not apart from the church but through the agency of the church as Christ’s body.”3 This is precisely what we ask God to do in the prayer that sends us out from the table into the world.

In this light, we should be careful about how people are invited to this meal. We do not want to practice an ecclesial form of the old bait and switch by which people are invited to the eucharist indiscriminately only to learn that there are rather significant implications for those who partake. Of course, the infants we baptize cannot understand those implications either, but those who present them in baptism can and are committed to seeing that the children they present learn the meaning of communion. This is an argument for more thorough catechesis of parents and godparents as well as the congregations who make rather extravagant promises to those who are baptized. The form of the invitation, then, will need to be a matter of careful and prayerful discussion. Moreover, even prior to that discussion one would have to determine if people could honestly be invited to this meal apart from already being some sort of nascent believer.

A second issue concerns the practice of hospitality. In some cases, a missionary impulse to open communion is driven by a concern to extend hospitality to the stranger. Hospitality to the stranger is a practice deeply embedded in Scripture. The unified table fellowship of Jews and Gentiles in Christ was seen to be a foretaste of God’s eschatological banquet for all the nations. Jesus himself urges his followers to find that in welcoming and feeding the last and the least, they are feeding him. All of this would seem to fit well with the idea that a well framed open invitation to communion could be a missional reflection of God’s own hospitality.

This emphasis on hospitality is salutary for the church at large. Nevertheless, there are several points that require further reflection. None of these points rule out the connection of open communion to hospitality, but they would require the practice of open communion to be tied to a number of other practices in order for its connection to hospitality to be evident. For example, in most Episcopal churches eucharistic practice is not regularly tied to a conventional meal. There may be some, but they appear to be rare. We thank God for feeding us with “spiritual food” every Sunday, but for us and for most Christians, this spiritual food is no longer tied to participation in a more substantial meal. Thus, making open communion the occasion for our demonstration of hospitality can undermine the really radical hospitality of opening our homes and families and tables. One can open one’s house without advocating open communion, but it is not clear how one can advocate open communion without a concomitant obligation to open one’s home or church to hospitality around shared meals.

Third and finally, if we are to retain the very clear historical, doctrinal and liturgical connections between baptism and eucharist, the practice of open communion will need to be tied to catechesis that is directed towards baptism. The practice of eucharistic participation leading to baptism as a missionary strategy need not become the norm, but it might become a norm. If that is to happen it can really only happen in the light of patterns of catechesis and formation that would need to be both developed and embodied. In addition, out liturgical texts would need significant revision, since in the language of the eucharistic liturgies of the Prayer Book baptism is clearly assumed.

Conclusion

Whatever our views on open communion, it appears that there is a great deal of catechetical work to be done in parishes. It is essential to understand the doctrinal and liturgical connections between baptism and eucharist, especially in a church that has been affirming the centrality of baptism. These rich and complex connections are deeply manifest in the historic faith and practice of the Church.

We invite the church into this work. For in the absence of a revived catechesis and a commitment to lifelong learning and formation among the faithful, it is likely that our views on open communion will be formed either by an unreflective repetition of tradition, or strongly formed habits of individualism and freedom of choice, rather than by careful habits of theological reflection.

Members of the Theology Committee

The Rt. Rev. David Alvarez

The Rt. Rev. John Bauerschmidt

The Rt. Rev. Joe G. Burnett

Dr. Ellen Charry

The Rev Dr. Sathianathan Clarke

Dr. Stephen Fowl

The Rev. Dr. A. Katherine Grieb

The Rt. Rev. Robert W. Ihloff

Dr. Charles T. Mathewes

Dr. Joy Ann McDougall

The Rt. Rev. Stephen A. Miller

The Rt. Rev. Henry N. Parsley Jr., Chair

Dr. Kathryn Tanner

Comments (33)

Just a note to say that these aren't the people on the panel studying same sex relationships. That panel was recruited by the folks named here.

Posted by Jim Naughton | June 29, 2009 2:15 PM

Interesting that the church is considering sacraments for the unbaptized, but cannot agree to let the baptized in the church receive all the sacraments. Let's really make our LGBT baptized feel second-rate -- good work, committee. One more slap in the face.

Posted by BJ Landen | June 29, 2009 2:58 PM

I would hope that GC would either modify the canon permitting bishops to make exceptions to the restriction within their dioceses "for pastoral and/or evangelistic reasons" or have GC speak definitively against the practice of communing the unbaptized. As it is now, the canon will continue to be ignored in a large number of parishes and dioceses.

Posted by Tom Sramek, Jr. | June 29, 2009 3:30 PM

Sigh! I wonder if I am the only person who thought of Sara Miles.

Posted by Bonnie Spivey | June 29, 2009 4:23 PM

Bonnie,

There were at least two of us.

The other thing I thought was: this report was requested three years ago, and the two most striking elements are a) the request for more time and b)the apparent lack of consultaion with the Standing Commission on Prayer Book etc. It also isn't clear whether the committee discussed this report with any of the many liturgical scholars in the church. I hope they did, but I would like some reassurance.

Posted by Jim Naughton | June 29, 2009 4:30 PM

Can someone please tell me which canons and rubrics I can ignore (assuming I can get my Bishop to go along with it)? It seems that, according to many bishops and priests, the canon concerning offering the Body and Blood of Jesus to those who are not part of the Body of Christ can be ignored.

That first may seem snarky, but it is a real concern. Once we start to allow bishops and priests to ignore the canons for reasons that seem good to them, then we open the door to other canons being ignored.

If we are going to debate changing the Canon and the ancient practice of the Church, then let's debate it. But, during the debate, let's not allow priests and bishops to act unilaterally to violate "the doctrine, discipline, and worship of The Episcopal Church."

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

Posted by Phil Snyder | June 29, 2009 5:05 PM

I think the Church has spoken pretty clearly--by passing a canon. Those who flout this canon should be prepared to face the consequences.

The canons can be changed, but no one has provided a compelling theological reason why they must be changed. I can certainly see the arguments for open communion, but how can you really adopt the practice if you value the significance of holy baptism? Christians can maintain the open table fellowship of Jesus in other ways. The Eucharist is for those who have been made brothers and sisters of Christ and children of God by water and the Holy Spirit.

Here as elsewhere, it is vitally important that we develop the ability to enforce our own boundaries.

Posted by Bill Carroll | June 29, 2009 5:33 PM

Bonnie, Jim, make that three.

The report states:

Baptism unites one to Christ. One receives thereby Christ’s own Spirit as the power to lead a reformed, Christ-like life.

What is the stimulus that initially leads a person to move toward the Christian faith? Grace, yes? What is grace? A gift of God. In that sense, might it be said that the Spirit is already present and acting in an unbaptized person.

Having said that, I think that it's best that a change in the canon be addressed first, which is what the committee has done and will continue.

June Butler

Posted by GrandmèreMimi | June 29, 2009 5:48 PM

Bill - the problem is that there are rarely any consequences. TEC has boundaries that are so low as to be non-existent. Even priests who re-write the BCP and use unauthorized translations of Holy Scripture (thus violating at least two canons) are not disciplined - indeed, they are elected Bishop!

If TEC wants to reverse or even slow the rate of decline in membership, then it needs to recover Creedal Orthodoxy and an appreciation for obeying the canons and rubrics that order our common life together.

Posted by Phil Snyder | June 29, 2009 6:03 PM

Phil, none of the research I am aware of suggests that communion of the unbaptized has anything to do with our membership decline. Perhaps you could point me toward some materials that support your claim? I am not necessarily in favor of open communion, but I am in favor of addressing our membership decline, and I need solid evidence before I embrace any particular theory.

Posted by Jim Naughton | June 29, 2009 6:22 PM

I think I had the privilege of offering Sara her first communion. I know I baptized her and learned that day that the beginning of her catechesis, before that first communion, had been from one of the Jesuit martyrs in El Salvador.

I'm sorry the committee didn't ask us anything of our experience and politely refused the offer of writings we'd done over the years offering a rationale for the practice of Open Communion. I do find the conclusion of this report more promising that the beginning of it:

The practice of eucharistic participation leading to baptism as a missionary strategy need not become the norm, but it might become a norm. If that is to happen it can really only happen in the light of patterns of catechesis and formation that would need to be both developed and embodied. In addition, out liturgical texts would need significant revision, since in the language of the eucharistic liturgies of the Prayer Book baptism is clearly assumed.

"Whatever our views on open communion, it appears that there is a great deal of catechetical work to be done in parishes. It is essential to understand the doctrinal and liturgical connections between baptism and eucharist, especially in a church that has been affirming the centrality of baptism. These rich and complex connections are deeply manifest in the historic faith and practice of the Church.

I do think there's more of that careful theological reflection that's been done than the report acknowledges, but more and deeper is good.

In terms of membership decline, I can report that we built 250 plus member congregation from scratch when regionally church attendance was in severe decline and our diocese was losing 1/3 of its membership. The people we gathered were mostly coming from lapsed or wholly unchurched folk.

Finally, Bill and Phil, I think the oirdination promise to pattern our lives in accordance with the teachings of Christ takes precedence over bishop and canons. No, we don't want to go to that place of disobedience lightly or easily, and we did so openly and were in fact blessed with a supportive bishop - so it was simply the canons. But as I read church history, change in church law (and scripture before that) happens in response to the wily Spirit changing practice and not the other way around. Beyond the Gospels themselves and Jesus' steady reminder that the sabbath was made for man and not many for the sabbath, and his deliberate transgression of purity laws (like in Sunday's Gospel reading) we have the church following his lead as an inspired rule-breaker in the circumcision controversy and baptizing Gentiles in Acts.

love,
donald

Posted by Donald Schell | June 29, 2009 7:26 PM

I misplaced the quotation marks in my excerpt from the report. Sorry for confusion.

love,
d

Posted by Donald Schell | June 29, 2009 7:27 PM

I remain unconvinced about the appropriateness of giving communion to the unbaptized. However, I am uncomfortable with matters being framed in terms of obedience to rubrics and canons. On this "problem" of disobeying canons and rubrics the proverbial barn door has been open for more than a century. It isn't just in the last couple of decades that we have seen priests and bishops engaged in "conscientious" disobedience of rubrics and canons. Anglo-Catholics did it, and faced a great deal of opposition, but all of their innovations (such as candles on the altar, wearing chasubles for the Eucharist, elevation of the elements) are now accepted practice in our church, and some are "givens" in most parishes. Even today, we have a handful of Anglo-Catholic parishes that use liturgical texts not authorized by the canons (the English Missal, material from the modern Roman Rite)... and my guess is that we'd also find conservative Evangelical-oriented parishes taking liberties with the Prayer Book.

Posted by William Gilders | June 29, 2009 8:00 PM

From a purely theological or liturgical standpoint, eucharistic participation should be open to all baptized persons, as our present canons require.

That being said... when we first started coming to our parish, my wife hadn't yet been baptized, and I think the 'open communion' practiced there was a factor in us returning week after week... we were both raised in evangelical protestant churches, and although I later became very catholic in my own beliefs/tendencies, she's definitely on the 'low-church' end of the spectrum. Feeling included from the beginning has made her much more receptive to the historic catholic faith.

I don't mean to argue for open communion here; if anything the problem we're encountering has been created by evangelicals who, denying the sacramental nature of communion, offer it to all and sundry. But I do think there are evangelistic arguments for open communion, or something like it; for instance, perhaps placing an emphasis on inviting the unbaptized to come forward and receive a blessing (as is often offered for those who don't feel comfortable receiving communion) would achieve the desired inclusiveness without compromising the traditional relationship between our sacraments. I don't really have an answer, but my own experience points to the need to further study this question, even if it will (as I expect) only affirm our present canons.

Posted by Jason Lewis | June 29, 2009 8:18 PM

Jim,

CWOB is not responsible for the decline. I submit that the lack of creedal orthodoxy and lack of a clear message - lack of boundries is one of the causes of the decline.

Combine the fact that TEC is often spoken of as a church where you can believe anything (and there is precious little in some places that is considered out of bounds) with the fact that our "discpline" seems to be focused only on the theologically conservatives and the fact that we are now know as a church that sues each other to get our way and you have a recipie for rapid decline. Witness the ASA decline in the last 6 years.

CWOB is only a symptom of a larger problem. It is a symnptom on ill formed anthropology, sotierology, and ecclesiology.

Posted by Phil Snyder | June 29, 2009 9:53 PM

So when asked for evidence you repeat your assertions, get in more digs, and don't really back it up. I understand you have opinions about our theology, etc., but what you are arguing here is that if we embraced your preferences, we would grow. And that requires evidence.

Posted by Jim Naughton | June 29, 2009 10:00 PM

the fact that TEC is often spoken of as a church where you can believe anything

Spoken of by you and who else, Phil?

JC Fisher

Posted by tgflux | June 29, 2009 10:59 PM

So when asked for evidence you repeat your assertions, get in more digs, and don't really back it up.

I have never seen him work any other way.

I submit that the lack of creedal orthodoxy and lack of a clear message - lack of boundries is one of the causes of the decline.

I submit that the Southern Baptist Convention fulfills all of those requirements in their own fashion. And yet decline; lack of folks in the pews, hands working the fields and mucho menos dinero in the coffers is a big concern to them as well. And other brands of Christians also; baptist, congregational, lutheran, methodist, presbyterian, etc., etc. Obviously something other than what Phil constantly pushes is involved.

Posted by David Allen |dah • veed| | June 30, 2009 12:55 AM

Phil,

You paint TEC with a pretty broad brush.

I find myself in partial agreement with Phil. To grow we need to be clear about who we are. This won't guarantee growth, to be sure, but we say that we have a baptismal ecclesiology. We ought to live that out in practice. I don't see how this kind of departure from the logic of the Catholic sacraments helps our "brand." Anglicanism has always presented itself as preserving the faith and practice of the undivided church. Certainly there can be evolution, but there has to be a clear reason for it.

Donald,

I'm willing to go against my bishop or the canons on a question of conscience. I've never been convinced that this rises to that level, and, in any event, those who pursue questions of conscience should be willing to accept discipline of the community.

Posted by Bill Carroll | June 30, 2009 2:17 AM

TEC has been in decline since the mid 60s. We've lost 1/3 of our membership. The rise of what is commonly called "Liberal Protestantism" within TEC accelerated from the 60s onward and TEC has been in conflict almost non-stop since then (controversies over what vestments the priest wore, the revision of the Book of Common Prayer, ordaining women, inclusive language, divorce and remarriage, blessing what the church has always called sin, etc.). The correlation between the rise in controversy and the change in the theology of TEC leaders and the decline in membership and ASA is so strong so as to suggest caussation. As Kevin Martin+ said, conflict is deadly for a church. Almost all of the conflicts that have occurred have been pushed from the theological innovaters.

This is not to say that some of the innovations were not good or needed. But they were pushed onto the Church before the Church was ready or had reached consensus on the issue.

Now we see priests and bishops openly violating the canons of the Church and the Rubrics of the BCP and not being disciplined. We have bishops who write books denying the basics of the Christian Faith and no discipline comes to them either. We have priests who re-write the Baptismal Covenant and the priest is elected bishop.

We have substitutted political activism for spiritual discernment.

Posted by Phil Snyder | June 30, 2009 8:22 AM

Dear Friends,

This discussion is at the heart of our common life, and I’m grateful for the breadth of conversation. I'd like to move away, though, from talking about church growth, since the suggestion that we can manage the sacraments, one way or another, as part of a marketing plan makes me very uncomfortable.

And while I understand the importance of questions about order and authority, I have say that what happens in Eucharist and baptism is bigger and wilder than can ever be contained by church decisions about practice.

Sisters and brothers: this thing is real.
Grace is not sequential.
And even little dogs can eat the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table.

My own experience as an atheist who was led to baptism through taking communion has obviously formed my thinking about the sacraments. But I’m not arguing for inclusion of the unbaptized at communion because it’s friendly, or a good recruiting tool, or a way for baptized Christians to be “welcoming” to the outsiders. That would be like saying the reason for the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people is to be nice to them, to make them feel good.

I believe the presence of unbaptized people at communion is a call to conversion for the baptized. That the presence of the unwashed, the queer, the Gentile, the Syro-Phoenician, all outsiders, is always a gift from Jesus to us. We welcome strangers because our own salvation depends on them: because through them God interrupts us, breaks down our idolatry, offers us new ways to experience God’s presence than if were we locked away in a small room with the like-minded and doctrinally pure. It ain’t our Table: and the ongoing converting power of the Eucharist can’t be contained by our attempts to control the ritual.

But we can open the door, and pray to be changed.
We can open the Table, and have faith.

Under His Mercy,
Sara

Posted by Sara Miles | June 30, 2009 1:40 PM

That X happens after Y is not conclusive evidence that X was caused by Y. There is research that suggests that some of the decline in mainline denominations was caused by liberalization of doctrine, but there is no evidence that it is among the principal causes of the situation in which we find ourselves.

Posted by Jim Naughton | June 30, 2009 1:49 PM

Bill,

I'd expect you'd have a Catholic understanding of conscience and I welcome it to the conversation. That we disagree on whether this is situation demanding exercise of conscience is also evident. I appreciate your making it clear that a discernment, a listening to the Spirit and a disagreement about conscience as you and I (and a number of other sisters and brothers) hear it is what this conversation is about.

Sara's voice here offers the personal, pastoral, and theological ground of the argument I hear for conscientious disobedience of the canons.

By the way, it's a pleasure to disagree with you - not for the satisfaction of disagreement, but because, even with important disagreement, we're continuing to find our way to conversation in communion and in the Spirit. Thank you.

Posted by Donald Schell | June 30, 2009 2:50 PM

I will readily admit that I remain very open minded about open communion. However, I do think it is interesting that we as a Church have spent such considerable amount of time and energy re-instituting the centrality of Baptism with this version of the Prayer Book only to give it another nudge back in the corner. Someone in another forum suggested,

"Baptism is our sacrament of inclusion. Communion is our sacrament of intimacy."

I really appreciated that. I believe we can be "inclusive" through baptism. However, as others have stated, I would be concerned that by allowing open communion we could be undoing the very work that was done to return baptism to its rightful place of centrality in our common life together.

In any event, I wholeheartedly agree that this is a matter for much more catechesis within our parishes. I also do not like how it often can get changed "on the sly" with a simple update to the service booklet and announcement texts. Whether we are in favor of open communion or not, this is an important teachable moment for us. I hope we will take the opportunity to use it fully.

In Christ,
Shawn

Posted by Shawn Strout | June 30, 2009 4:38 PM

I certainly appreciate Sara's voice and yours, Donald. Her book remains an inspiration.

I'd also note that I'm a student of Kathryn Tanner's, one of the members of the HOB theology committee who has argued for open communion in the ATR.

If anyone could convince me, it would be the three of you.

It is a pleasure to have a theological disagreement where you are sure that the other side is acting in good faith. I remain convinced that theology needs to occur in the context of relationship. I look forward to meeting you and Sara face to face some day.

Posted by Bill Carroll | June 30, 2009 5:09 PM

Phil,
You might find it helpful to read this detailed report on the membership decline in TEC:
http://www.cuac.org/documents/2004GrowthReport(1).pdf.

Reading your argument that the "rise of what is commonly called 'Liberal Protestantism'" is responsible for TEC's membership decline, I found myself wondering how we could know that we would be any better off had "conservatives" dominated TEC and dealt firmly to suppress any "liberal" dissent. I can respond as an individual on this point: I wouldn't be a member of a "conservative" Episcopal Church... and I suspect I'm not alone in this.

Posted by William Gilders | June 30, 2009 5:14 PM

Thanks to Donald and Jim for their insight, and to Sara, for your practical beauty.
A flood of questions has come to me, and I share them because it's never happened before, and if I'd been asked to make them up I would have run screaming…

How can we both create and become the fluid mechanisms that can continually interrupt our habitual responses and open us to strangers we may find at the margins of our common life?
How do we hear, experience and honor the movement of the spirit?
How are we to be transformed by grace, both individually and corporately?
How can we lift up our hearts, enlarging their compass, until they're big enough to hold whoever/whatever God sends to the table we’ve been given?
What if spiritual discernment and political activism are two sides of the same coin?
What if we are only given what we need, and what if our evolution can only become clearly articulated after we dare to walk by faith, with thanksgiving? How might we change if we were to trust the leadings of the spirit in the lives of other people?
How do we pattern our common lives after the life of Jesus? My mother does it by making sure everyone is fed when they come into her house. It would be folly to try to make her wait to invite someone to dinner until she knew whether they were actually going to marry into the family. Why? Because she is an incredible cook, and feeding people is the best she can offer; her best gift.
In a third c. image of the woman touching the hem of Jesus' garment, the right hand of Jesus is extended in giving. As I looked at the painting, I expected the left hand (tradtionally, the receiving hand) of the woman to be touching the garment, but no. The one who receives also gives to the healer. In the case of open communion, the opportunity for us to build this type of two -way openness into our use of God's table is perhaps one of the greatest opportunities we have been given.
How can we communally plot to entertain angels?

Ana

Posted by Ana Hernandez | June 30, 2009 6:41 PM

By what warrant do we overthrow Apostolic teaching?

(Editor's note: We need your full name next time, Thomas.)

Posted by Thomas | June 30, 2009 8:55 PM

William: You're not alone. I was attracted to the Episcopal Church specifically due to the combination of orthodox faith and social liberalism. And by orthodox faith, I mean the "generous orthodoxy" that has defined Anglicanism, the commitment to the historic faith of the undivided church. It seems to me that, despite being a home for Bishops Pike and Spong, as well as Fr. Thew Forrester, the heterodox peregrinations of a few individuals have, by and large, not compromised the corporate orthodoxy of the larger Church. In fact, it seems to me that in some cases, the election of Fr. Thew Forrester most recently, that when a few individual clerics stray too far beyond the pale, it serves to remind the rest of us to see that our own houses are in order, that "anything" does not, in fact, "go." Indeed, although it is unfortunate that the schismatic bishops and dioceses who left the church of late felt it necessary to do so, I think it confirms that our "generous orthodoxy" is both generous, and orthodox, given that we, and not they, remain in communion with the See of Canterbury. Furthermore, I think the fact that, unlike ACNA and the bishops of the global south, we can continue to distinguish between 'orthodoxy' and 'bigotry,' it demonstrates that our commitment to authority--the 'three-legged stool' of scripture, tradition, and reason which has historically been the source of authority for Anglicanism--is well intact. I believe that sooner or later, ACNA will find that a stool missing a leg will certainly fall.

Certainly, one of our priorities as a church should be growth, and we should be concerned about our decline in recent years. But our decline has been similar to the other mainline denominations, and while the evangelical and pentecostal churches have shown the most rapid growth, I believe that tide is turning. As long as we remain true to the Creeds, Scripture, Sacraments, and the historic episcopate, as well as that three-legged stool, we will prevail. I am one of many children who was raised in one of those conservative pentecostal churches who, after a 'lapsed' period (biblical literalism is indeed a fragile foundation for faith), turned to the Episcopal Church for everything the Christianity of my youth lacked: reason, tradition, liturgy, sacraments... I believe in the coming years there will be more of us, not just looking for a more liberal church, but looking for a more orthodox expression of the catholic faith.. as well as a weekly high-church, Rite I, ad orientem celebration of the Eucharist.

To get back to the topic of communion... I don't feel like I ever truly received communion until the first time I knelt at the altar rail. And if I hadn't been baptized... well, I think that I would have sought baptism, and that once I did kneel at that rail and received the Body and Blood of our Savior... well, that's something worth waiting for.

Posted by Jason Lewis | June 30, 2009 9:11 PM

Hi Jason,

You said above,

"I don't feel like I ever truly received communion until the first time I knelt at the altar rail. And if I hadn't been baptized... well, I think that I would have sought baptism, and that once I did kneel at that rail and received the Body and Blood of our Savior... well, that's something worth waiting for."

What a wonderful way of saying that. In a culture of consumerism and easy materialism, including spiritual materialism, I think we as the Church can remain a counter-weight to that tendency. There is something very powerful about expectancy. Imagine how the catechumens in the early Church must have felt as they were being prepared for that great holy day when they would be baptized into the Body of Christ and then into the intimacy of Christ's Communion! In a world of McDonalds, microwaves and Google (all of which I love!), we just don't have that sense of expectancy any more.

Posted by Shawn Strout | July 1, 2009 11:06 AM

The pilgrims by their tird generation here were offering communion as a converting ordinance. They had made the requirements for Baptism so excessive that their children were leaving the church! So they loosened up on communion to make the path to baptism more palatable.

That said, I must also say that I am tired of the liberal bashing with respect to decline. I grew up in the Episcopal Church and in the 1960s it was the Republican Party at Prayer. The assistant at my parish was accused of communism for having weekly teen dances.

Those of us who came of age in the 1960s and were moved by the press for justice had almost no home in the Episcopal Church. And the reality is that most of my peers from growing up are no longer active. There was nothing in the irrelevant, close minded environment to hold them.

That the Church moved to become more openly active in justice movements may now offend the constituents of the Institute for Religion and Democracy and their supporters who have been attacking TEC for years. Too bad. It is as fair to surmise that the conservative stolidity of the church in the 50s and 60s drove the boomers away as it is to suggest it was liberal policies.

That said, I do not think we should be doing a generalized open communion until we think it through and change the canons. Those who make it their general practice should be ready to be presented for it. Who says martyrdom is dead?!

Posted by Michael Russell | July 1, 2009 5:35 PM

I see little problem with allowing those who are unbaptized receive the eucharist, provided they find some meaning/comfort in it and are not pressured to reject their own traditions.

The linear logic of saying that one must be baptized first, then receive the eucharist, and then possibly be confirmed, etc., seems very Western. I like the idea of doing all three at once as in the Greek Orthodox tradition. I know, of course, that the Greeks are even less friendly to outsiders. But I like their nonlinear logic.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Posted by garydasein | July 3, 2009 9:15 PM

Thank you all so much for the open, listening dialogue here about this from most. 2005 my family & I went out of the normal flying route to be part of St Gregory's - and it lived up to everything I had hoped for and more. I have added aspects of this reflection to my own blog post on this:
http://www.liturgy.co.nz/blog/baptism-communion/1099
Blessings

Bosco+

Posted by Liturgy | July 4, 2009 3:40 AM

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