Young Communicants & Voting

On Interviews & Testimonies, Part VI

Continued from Part V

Q.  Should these young children vote?  If they are full communing members of the church, how can they be forbidden the right to vote?  Should children admitted to the table become voting members as well?

No, young children should not vote.  They can eat at the Table, but they don't participate in ruling the church.  Surely one can discern the significant differences between eating at the Lord’s Table and passing judgments in the church’s council.  What happens in your families?  Children are invited to the family table to eat, but they are not invited to participate in the family’s decision-making process. Why?  That duty belongs to the father and mother since they have the prerequisite wisdom and experience to make wise judgments about the family finances, plans, etc.

Therefore, we must make provision for a two-fold distinction within the membership of the church: 1) members that do not vote (baptized children or new Christians who partake of the Lord’s supper but are not old enough or mature enough to vote); and 3) the adult communing and voting members.

Maturity is needed for voting, not for eating; for making complicated decisions, not for feeding on Jesus.  Jesus feeds all, but not everyone is qualified to make decisions that bear upon the doctrine and government of his church.  Every baptized member of the church is part of the family of God, but not necessarily mature enough to pass judgment in the assembly.  This means that the proper place for training and extensive examinations is at the time when the young man or woman prepares to take on the responsibilities and privileges of voting membership!

The distinction between communing and voting can be biblically sustained, even if the Bible does not really talk about “voting” as we practice it in America.  In the Bible, every circumcised member of the community and his entire family ate at the Passover and participated in the festival meals (Ex. 12:48), but only those who had reached a certain age could go to war and be counted in the census (Num. 1:3).  Oftentimes, modern Christians are more interested in avoiding any criticism of being “undemocratic” than genuinely thinking through the implications of nine-, ten-, or even 16-year-old children voting on pastoral calls, church by-laws, or building programs.  Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me,” not “Let the little children participate in the community's decision making process.”

In our homes we practice this distinction regularly.  Small children are acknowledged by the parents as being part of the family, as having a right to participation in the full life of the family, especially when this is manifest at the family dinner table.  Parents feed their children, they regularly provide them with all the tokens and symbols of their incorporation and membership in the family.  At the same time, parents recognize that until the child grows in knowledge and experience he will not be capable of making judgments about the leadership and direction of the family.   Children are not given responsibility for keeping the budget, nor do we call together the entire family and vote on the weightier matters that parents must consider in ruling the family.  Maturity and experience are needed to make such decisions.  Thus, we must make a fundamental and important distinction between communing and voting members, between partaking of the dinner with which Jesus feeds us and making informed judgments about the administration and direction of the church.

Nothing in the PCA Book of Church Order forbids the Session from establishing a voting age for communing members.  One of the former stated clerks of the PCA once noted that it is, in fact, the prerogative of the Session to establish a voting age if it so desired.   Members of the original committee that wrote the PCA BCO have expressed their desire to keep the language ambiguous so that each Session would have liberty in this area.

Young Child Communion & the Westminster Standards

On Interviews & Testimonies, Part V

Continued from Part IV

Q. Doesn't admitting young children violate the Westminster Standards?  Shouldn't we only admit mature believers who can understand what is happening at the Table?

Is young child communion consistent with the Westminster Standards?  Yes, I believe so.  First, consider the Westminster Confession of Faith (hereafter WCF).  No mention is made (wisely) of ages or intellectual capacity in either chapter 14 “On Saving Faith” or chapter 15 “Of Repentance unto Life.”  Furthermore, paragraph 3 of chapter 14 shows that the Westminster divines were sensitive to the fact that mature faith ought not to be made the criteria for genuine faith since saving faith “is different in degrees, weak or strong, may be often and many ways assailed and weakened, but gets the victory; growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.”  Surely it would be wrong to insist that a young covenant child give evidence of a mature faith before we count them as a genuine believer!  Genuine faith may be present in covenant children, not having as yet grown up into “the attainment of a full assurance through Christ.”  Why should such faith—weak and immature as it may be—serve as a barrier to the covenant child’s participation in the Lord’s communion meal?

The mention of assurance ought to remind us of another statement in the Confession which teaches that lack of the conviction of the assurance of faith is not necessarily evidence of the absence of saving faith.  The Confession does indeed hold out to us the goal of attaining full assurance since those believers who “truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace” (18.1), but the divines are also quick to remind us that “This infallible assurance does not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties, before he be partaker of it” (18.3).

On Interviews and Testimonies, Part IV

Continued from Part III

Questions About Interviewing Young Children

Let me take some time now to answer some common questions.  Remember, I am a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). We don't practice paedocommunion.  I believe it is biblical.  I have taken exception to the Westminster Standards on this point.  What our church does practice is young child communion.  This is the closest we can get and still be true to our PCA church order.  What this means is that young children are admitted to the Table by the session when they give evidence of a credible, age-appropriate profession of faith.  I say all this because the questions that will be addressed in the next few posts will all relate to this practice—that is, interviewing young children.

What follows, then, is largely advice to fellow pastors and elders who practice some form of "young child" communion.

Q.  My five-year-old daughter is not mature enough to sit before nine blue-suited elders and answer probing questions.  She will freeze up.  Should she be denied the table for this reason?

This is a great question. Why should Christ’s little ones be denied the benefits of the Table simply because they might be too shy to answer questions under the intense scrutiny of a room full of older men?  After all, most adults are often quite intimidated when they meet with the full session of the church.  In the case of most interviews with adults for membership the Session is not examining for knowledge, but a credible profession of faith.  But when our young children come before us we interrogate them with questions about their knowledge of the Bible, the sacraments, etc.  We seldom, if ever, do this in membership interviews with adults!  Why should there be two standards—one for adults and another for our covenant children?  Isn’t it enough that our children confess their simple faith and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins and their hope of heaven?  I would argue that such a confession is sufficient, and that most of our four-year-old children would have an easier time before the elders if they knew that it wasn’t going to be an “examination.”  Our Lord made it easy for the little one’s to come to him.  When he saw his disciples making it difficult for parents to bring their little ones to him “he became indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God’” (Mark. 10:14).  Therefore, the first way that we could deal with this problem is to drop the insanely intense oral examination that we often require of our children before they are allowed to come to the Table.

Welcoming Little Children

In Luke 9:46-48 Jesus puts an end to an argument among his disciples about who is the greatest by taking a child and "putting him by his side." Then he said to them,"Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me."

There's a lot going on in that little paragraph. But I'd like to highlight something that is often missed. When Jesus sets the child by his side this is not first of all a metphor for something else. Receiving a child is not an allegory pointing to something “deeper” or more spiritual. It’s not simply an “object lesson.” Jesus means first of all that true greatness in his kingdom is about receiving little children. You want to be great? Then welcome little children in my name.

By placing the child by his side, Jesus is identifying himself with the child. You receive this child, you receive me. This is similar to Matt. 25 where Jesus says that "when you do something for the least of these my disciples you do it for me."

Children have a position of honor in Christ’s kingdom, and adults better get with Jesus’ program. This is also evident from Paul's discussion in 1 Cor. 12 of the seemingly weaker members of the body. They deserve special honor. And remember all of those times in the Gospels were the disciples are rebuked by Jesus for not paying attention to babies and little children. Suffer the little children to come to me, and so on.
There's another interesting thing about Jesus' words. The language of "welcoming" repeated 4 times here by Luke was virtually a technical term for hospitality in the original language. Receiving/welcoming a little child means showing him hospitality, honoring him as a guest at your table.

In his commentary on Luke Joel Green notes that Jesus action and words

"undermines everything that the Roman world would hve taken for granted regarding questions of status and social relations. 'To welcome' people would be to extend to them the honor of hospitality, to regard them as guests (cf. 7:44-46), but one would only welcome a social equal or one whose honor was above one's own. Children, who's place of social residence was defined at the bottome of the ladder or esteem, might be called upon to perform acts of hospitality (e.g., washing the feet of a guest), but normally they would not themselves be receipients of honorable behavior. Jesus turns the social pyramid upside down, undermining the very conventions that led the disciples to deliberate over relative greatness. . ." (p. 391-2).

Jesus says, make children honored guests at your table. If the church is a family, and the Lord's Table is the ritual center of the family, then the children ought to be there.

In the Roman and Helennistic culture of Jesus’ day, children were not honored, they were little higher than slaves on the social scale. Jesus turns the social pyramid upside down. I think the church still has a lot of learning to do about the place of children in our gatherings, especially at the Lord's Supper.

Passover & Paedocommunion

STUDIES IN EXODUS No. 13
Exodus 12:1-4, 14-16, 24-28, 37, 47-49
June 19, 2005
Sermon by Dr. Robert S. Rayburn

We considered the burden of this text last time: both the Passover history itself and the commemoration of that history in an annual feast. But there is an issue hidden here in this text that has recently surfaced in Reformed and Presbyterian churches and, insofar as we have not considered this question in some time and insofar as it bears quite profoundly on our practice here at Faith Presbyterian Church, and insofar as other PCA congregations do not approve of our practice, I thought I should not pass by this text without taking note of this issue. As you may know, Exodus 12 is one of the key texts in the current debate concerning the participation of covenant children in the Lord’s Supper, the practice known as paedocommunion after its counterpart, paedobaptism. Circumcision was given to covenant infants and so baptism ought to be given to them today. Such is the position called paedobaptism – that is the baptism of children, paedo coming from the Greek word for child – and that is the conviction and practice of our church. We baptize the infant children of believers. Paedobaptism.

But for centuries now, indeed from the origin of the Reformed church during the Protestant Reformation, although paedobaptism was practiced and defended as a part of the Bible’s teaching and the church’s practice that has crucial implications for the spiritual welfare of the church’s children, it has been our custom to withhold the Lord’s Supper from covenant children. The thought has been that they should be old enough and intellectually mature enough meaningfully to participate in the sacrament. It is this practice that has led to our dividing the membership of the church – that is the baptized people in our congregations into two groups: the communicants – those who participate in the Lord’s Supper – and the non-communicants – those who do not. In Reformed churches traditionally, including those in which I was born and raised, and, indeed, in this congregation earlier in his history, one did not “join the church,” which is to say, one did not become a communicant member and begin participating in the Lord’s Supper until he or she was 14 years of age or so. It was never a rule that one had to be at least that old, but it was common practice and had been for centuries.

Several considerations have recently led a number of men in Reformed and Presbyterian churches to call that longstanding practice of withholding the Lord’s Supper from covenant children into question. I was, some years ago, the chairman of the study committee appointed to consider the new arguments for paedocommunion being offered by Presbyterian Church in America men and I wrote the minority report for that study committee, the report defending paedocommunion. That was some 15 years ago now and at that time the church voted by a large majority to maintain its practice. Through the years since many more men have changed their minds on the question and, I suspect, the vote, if taken today, would be much closer than it was in the late 1980s. In any case, those arguing for paedocommunion, that covenant children should be brought to the Lord’s Table as soon as they are weaned took note of these facts.

First, the early church practiced paedocommunion and, so far as the evidence goes, practiced it from the earliest times. Reformed and other paedobaptists have always argued that the evidence for paedobaptism in the early church is a strong argument that paedobaptism was the teaching of the apostles and the practice of the apostolic church. But the early church also practiced paedocommunion. I confess that I didn’t know that – that the early church practiced paedocommunion – until years into my ministry. When I discovered that this was true, it set me to thinking new thoughts. Surely the evidence that the church’s children received the Lord’s Supper in early Christianity serves as a powerful argument that paedocommunion was the teaching of the apostles and the practice of the apostolic church. Indeed, paedocommunion was the general practice of the church until the 12th century, when superstitious ideas about the sacrament – the wine actually becoming the blood of Christ and so on – began to work against the full participation of anybody but priests in the sacrament. The children lost the Supper when everyone else lost it; they just didn’t get it back at the Reformation. Now, in the interests of fairness, I should tell you that some have tried to argue that the evidence for paedocommunion as a widespread practice in early Christianity is inconclusive, but it is important to point out that almost all opponents of the practice both during the Reformation era and in our own day have admitted that it was the practice of the early church. That, obviously, is something to consider.

Second, the argument against paedocommunion at the time of the Reformation was very superficial. In fact, if you go looking to see why the Reformers did not restore the Table to covenant children, you will be disappointed at how little effort was made to defend this decision. Almost no one was clamoring for children to participate in the Lord’s Supper and the Reformers had any number of other pressing issues to deal with. It is not surprising, really, that you can’t find more than a page here or there devoted to the question. To my knowledge, and I and others have looked hard for it, there is not a single book devoted to the question pro or con until our own day. In many great works of Christian theology, even in many books on the Lord’s Supper, there is no mention of the question and no defense of the practice of excluding covenant children. It was a custom so completely accepted that hardly anyone ever gave it a thought. I don’t remember the matter ever coming up in a seminary class or ever coming across an argument in favor of paedocommunion until I was well into my ministry. It was a custom carried over from the medieval church with little or no reflection and became a habit in the Reformed churches, so much a habit that it was not thought necessary to provide a justification for it.

Third, when an argument was provided, it was almost always solely a reference to 1 Cor. 11:28 and to Paul’s requirement that people examine themselves before partaking of the Lord’s Supper. In the mind of the church the argument reduced to this simple syllogism: people should examine themselves before coming to the Supper; little children cannot examine themselves; therefore little children should not take the Lord’s Supper. If you find an argument against paedocommunion in a work of Reformed theology – you usually don’t, but if you do – it will be this argument and almost never anything else. I confess that I knew that that was the argument for our practice and it satisfied me, until I thought about it for the first time. The only time we ever had to haul that argument out and deploy it, in any event, was when Baptists accused us of inconsistency. Baptists have always argued that if we baptized babies we should give them the Supper too and we replied – very weakly I now think – that the reason we didn’t do this was that there was this additional requirement that Paul laid down for participation in the Lord’s Supper.

The problem with the appeal to 1 Cor. 11:28 is three-fold and, in my judgment, each of these three objections by itself is enough to render Paul’s statement about self-examination irrelevant to the question of paedocommunion.

Read the rest of the sermon