Introduction
Well, there’s been a little bruhaha on the interwebs concerning my denomination, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches and our common practice of paedocommunion – welcoming young, baptized children to the Lord’s Supper.
The impetus for this I think is two fold, and they are actually related. The first reason is simply the fact that God is blessing the CREC. We are a small denomination punching far above our weight class. I think we are currently around 130 congregations, including 10-15 international churches, and we are having an outsized impact on our culture through classical Christian education, Psalm singing and biblical worship, a growing literature and media presence, and political and cultural engagement. For example, Canon Press published The Case for Christian Nationalism by Stephen Wolfe, and one of the founders of our denomination, Douglas Wilson, was interviewed by Tucker Carlson recently, and word is getting out that there is an association of evangelical churches that almost universally stood up against the COVID mandates and continues to stand up against the woke, DEI zeitgeist.
And in the midst of all of that undeserved blessing, we have had more folks joining us and with this growth, some of our commitments and practices have needed clarification. One of those is our widespread practice of communing young, baptized children. Traditional presbyterian and Reformed churches have baptized infants of at least one believing parent, but the majority have argued that communion should only be received by those who have demonstrated evangelical faith and repentance after being examined by the elders of a local church. This practice of “credocommunion” has widely varied, with some elders admitting very young professions of faith (3-5 years old), while others have insisted on older teenagers, with the majority probably averaging somewhere in the 9-12 year old range.
What the CREC?
Something you should know about the origins of the CREC is that it was started by three independent churches who had been coming to Reformed/Calvinistic convictions, with some elders embracing infant baptism (sometimes referred to as “presbyterian”) and others remaining credobaptist (waiting until someone professes faith before baptism). The elders of these three churches determined not to divide over that difference on baptism, and therefore found themselves a poor fit for any existing denominations. The traditional presbyterians wouldn’t take them because they had baptist elders, and the Reformed baptists wouldn’t take them because they had presbyterian elders. So in an effort to pursue unity, the three independent churches united to form the CREC, with a sacramental cooperation agreement, and our constitution for many years read thusly:
“All members in good standing in a local CREC congregation must be received by any other CREC church regardless of confessional differences between the churches. All CREC churches will handle problems arising from differences in how membership is reckoned from church to church (e.g. individual vs. household) with all charity and good faith, seeking to include one another’s members.
In the transfer of members from one CREC church to another, differences arising from issues such as membership, paedo-baptism, and paedo-communion, must be handled with pastoral sensitivity. Receiving churches do not have to adopt or practice such variations, but they should do all within their power to accommodate them.”
Thus, for many years (25 in fact), the CREC has allowed for local churches to teach and practice their confessional commitments with this strong language of accommodating transfers and receiving one another’s members regardless of differences. The cash value of this has been a strong consensus to receive one another’s members with their baptismal and communicant status intact. So, you can be a Reformed Baptist in the CREC and teach the necessity of credobaptism, but if you join the CREC, you are committed to receiving a transfer of membership of a presbyterian family and accept any infant baptisms that have been previously performed. Likewise, a credocommunion church would be free to teach and ordinarily practice their confessional convictions, but in joining the CREC, they agreed to receive transfer members from other churches that may have admitted younger children to the table than they ordinarily would. On the flip side, paedobaptist, paedocommunion churches agreed to receive Baptist and credocommunion families into membership and allow them to ask for baptism and admission to the table according to their conscience.
While on the surface, it can feel like the baptists and credocommunion churches have to flex more, the fact is elders convinced of paedobaptism and paedocommunion are still flexing by welcoming families into membership with different convictions as well. And in some ways, the Reformed baptists and paedocommunionists understand one another better since we all believe that baptism and communion basically go together; we just disagree on timing.
Now, the reason for the hubbub is that some questions were raised over the exact details of this arrangement, and so at our triennial council last Fall 2023, some of the language was revised to make explicit that by “receiving members in good standing,” our expectation was that this would include the governmental actions of fellow CREC churches, specifically with regard to baptism and communion.
There really is a tight rope walk here of honoring the authority and responsibility of local churches to fence and admit to the table, but by the same token, and for the same reason, honoring the authority and responsibility of other churches in the same denomination doing the same. It is not true that the CREC is seeking to undermine the authority of local elders. We believe that the keys of the kingdom are given to the elders of the local church, and what they bind on earth is bound in heaven. It is elders who admit members into the visible church through baptism, and it is elders who admit to the table, not fathers, not mothers, not personal vibes or feelings. This is a great and terrible responsibility that Christ has entrusted to elders. But for that very reason, if what one local body of elders binds on earth, by baptizing or communing or excommunicating, is bound in heaven, what sense does it make for another body of elders to reject that, except on very serious grounds? To reverse or ignore the decision of another duly ordained body of elders seems to us to be a very serious matter. Our sense is that we must do all in our power to honor those governmental actions that Christ Himself has said that He will honor in Heaven. Otherwise, are we not dishonoring Christ by dismissing the true authority He has granted to other elders in His Church?
A Closing Note on Including the Kids
Welcoming very young covenant/baptized children to the Lord’s table who are able to otherwise participate in worship has been admittedly a minority position in the history of the Protestant church. For this reason, I believe those of us convinced by Scripture that we ought to practice it ought to be extremely patient and accommodating with those who are unconvinced. This includes cheerfully submitting to elders who request that our children profess faith before communing. And if one of my people were thinking about visiting or transferring to a church that did not practice paedocommunion, that would be (and has been) my counsel. There’s nothing quite so unbecoming as being divisive about communion. And it really doesn’t help your case to say that they started it first.
We do not believe that the grace of the sacraments is a magical juice, but rather the same Spirit who feeds us through the meal, feeds us the same Christ through the Word and prayers and fellowship. This doesn’t mean communion doesn’t matter; it just means it isn’t the most important thing. There is a grave danger in what might be called sacramentalism, thinking that the grace of the sacraments is so unique that children who are not communed until five or six years old are described as being “starved” or something. Children, who are otherwise received as full participants in the church, are being fed Christ in the Word and prayers and fellowship. They are not being spiritually starved. It’s more like they’re getting steak and salad, but no mashed potatoes.
Nevertheless, there are two things that remain a great mystery to me biblically speaking: First, given the scriptural warnings about prayers and worship offered in hypocrisy or ignorance and God’s fierce warnings that He will judge and destroy those who do not pray in faith and with understanding (e.g. Is. 1, 1 Cor. 14), why are young children so often allowed (required?) to join us in the rest of the worship service, listening to sermons, praying, and singing to God? The concern among most credocommunionists is to honor 1 Cor. 11, and the requirement that those who participate in the Lord’s Supper be able to examine themselves and discern the Lord’s Body. I fully affirm this requirement, but I also think that it should be understood in the same vein as many other requirements in Scripture for coming to the Lord. As is often the case, the primary audience is adults (e.g. repent and believe, don’t get drunk at the Lord’s Supper, no going to prostitutes, etc.), but this does not exclude young children learning faith and obedience according to their maturity and capacity.
If we teach young, baptized children to pray and sing to God (who do not fully understand what they are doing and do not have a mature faith), why do we not welcome them to the table? In other words, if there is not some super-special grace in the sacrament, but the same Christ is communicated by the Holy Spirit in the Word and in the prayers, and all must participate by faith and receive those blessings by faith, why not welcome young baptized children to the same Christ in the Lord’s Supper? Won’t God hold your little ones to account for any “Amen” they didn’t fully understand? He will not hold guiltless those who take His name in vain. But of course, I believe that young children should be taught to pray and say “Amen,” believing, as I do, that Christ receives little ones according to their capacity and maturity to know Him and believe in Him.
Finally, one of the key texts for demonstrating the continuity of the covenants is 1 Cor. 10, in which Paul argues that all of Israel was baptized in the cloud and in the sea and all ate spiritual food and drink, and the Rock that was with them was Christ, but they were destroyed in the wilderness because of unbelief. The apostle says that those things were written for us in the New Covenant, that we might not sin like them but believe. Notice that at the very least, old covenant Israel practiced paedocommunion. All of Israel, young and old, ate spiritual food and drink. All of Israel, young and old, partook of Christ in the wilderness. And Paul says that what they had, we have in the New Covenant. All of Israel was baptized, just like us, and all of Israel ate a communion meal in the wilderness, just like us. But the point he presses is not: “so some of you really ought to stop taking communion,” but rather, the warning is to not continue in any hard-hearted unbelief, pride, idolatry, or sexual sin.
“Let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). The exhortation is not to keep anyone from baptism or communion until they make some kind of public ritual profession of faith or pass an exam. The exhortation is to repent of all sin, from the youngest to the oldest. And if you can discipline your young child, then you believe they are capable of repenting. And if they are capable of repenting then they are capable of believing. And if they are capable of believing, then they are worthy partakers of Christ.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
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