Fresh Hell: Episcopal Church to Consider Communion without Baptism
Today’s episode brought to you by the Diocese of Eastern Oregon:
So calling this “Open Table” is either ignorance or chicanery on the part of the Diocese of Eastern Oregon. Both are common traits of theological liberals, so I suppose we’ll have to wait for more explanation from DEO before we know which it is.
What we’re talking about here, though, is completely different. This is a resolution to delete from the church’s canons1 the requirement that “No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.” In other words, if this resolution passes, then the official position of the Episcopal Church regarding the Holy Eucharist is that one need not be baptized into the faith to partake of its most holy sacrament.
On the one hand, this seems like so much inside baseball compared to everything else we’re dealing with as liberals assault the faith and conservatives roll over: Once you call homosexual behavior a holy thing, and lock arms with abortionists and call what they do “a blessing,” then giving communion to the unbaptized is small potatoes, right? After all, we know that dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Episcopal churches do this all the time, so it’s not as if passing this resolution will actually change anything in the church, right?
Well… no.
I’ll leave it to The Collared Ones to expound on the theological implications of Communion without Baptism (CWOB), but as a lay strategist I’ll offer this:
In the Episcopal Church, as in all organizations overtaken by secular leftists, the trend in matters like these always moves from descriptive to prescriptive: What begins as “living into” some “facts on the ground,” sooner or later becomes That Which Must Be Done Or Else. Matt Kennedy explains how resolutions like this one make their way from germinated seed to full-fledged spawn, but it’s important to add that the way these folks work is that what today is described as something you may do, tomorrow becomes something you must do. So today it may be scandalous to know that the Episcopal Church may give its official approval to CWOB, but tomorrow the scandal becomes those who refuse to do so. And if you think the same lobby that doesn’t think twice about going full-Hoffa when it comes to communion isn’t thinking ahead to “prescriptive” when most everyone else is focused on “descriptive,” then either you haven’t been reading Stand Firm for very long, or you haven’t learned any lessons lo these many years.
While the introduction of this resolution is utterly predictable, there is one curious twist: There are some notable liberal voices in Episco-land who are foursquare against it, and not shy about saying so. Tobias Haller cuts to the chase:
1 Allan Haley notes that the phrase DEO wants deleted is in the canons, but not in the Constitution.
When Diocesan Council and Standing Committee met online March 10, members ratified EDEO’s Open Table resolution, to be presented at General Convention 2012. “Be in resolved…that The Episcopal Church ratify the rubrics and practice of The Book of Common Prayer to invite all, regardless of age, denomination or baptism to the altar for Holy Communion.” The resolution also calls for deleting from the Church’s Constitution and canons the line saying that “No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.”Now, I’ve generally understood “open table” to mean that baptized Christians, across certain denominations, are welcome to take communion in each other’s churches (with Roman Catholics famously not participating). For example, a baptized Lutheran is welcome at the Episcopal table, and so on.
So calling this “Open Table” is either ignorance or chicanery on the part of the Diocese of Eastern Oregon. Both are common traits of theological liberals, so I suppose we’ll have to wait for more explanation from DEO before we know which it is.
What we’re talking about here, though, is completely different. This is a resolution to delete from the church’s canons1 the requirement that “No unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.” In other words, if this resolution passes, then the official position of the Episcopal Church regarding the Holy Eucharist is that one need not be baptized into the faith to partake of its most holy sacrament.
On the one hand, this seems like so much inside baseball compared to everything else we’re dealing with as liberals assault the faith and conservatives roll over: Once you call homosexual behavior a holy thing, and lock arms with abortionists and call what they do “a blessing,” then giving communion to the unbaptized is small potatoes, right? After all, we know that dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Episcopal churches do this all the time, so it’s not as if passing this resolution will actually change anything in the church, right?
Well… no.
I’ll leave it to The Collared Ones to expound on the theological implications of Communion without Baptism (CWOB), but as a lay strategist I’ll offer this:
In the Episcopal Church, as in all organizations overtaken by secular leftists, the trend in matters like these always moves from descriptive to prescriptive: What begins as “living into” some “facts on the ground,” sooner or later becomes That Which Must Be Done Or Else. Matt Kennedy explains how resolutions like this one make their way from germinated seed to full-fledged spawn, but it’s important to add that the way these folks work is that what today is described as something you may do, tomorrow becomes something you must do. So today it may be scandalous to know that the Episcopal Church may give its official approval to CWOB, but tomorrow the scandal becomes those who refuse to do so. And if you think the same lobby that doesn’t think twice about going full-Hoffa when it comes to communion isn’t thinking ahead to “prescriptive” when most everyone else is focused on “descriptive,” then either you haven’t been reading Stand Firm for very long, or you haven’t learned any lessons lo these many years.
While the introduction of this resolution is utterly predictable, there is one curious twist: There are some notable liberal voices in Episco-land who are foursquare against it, and not shy about saying so. Tobias Haller cuts to the chase:
The church is radically inclusive and baptism is the means by which people are included. Communion is the celebration of that inclusion, not its means.
It is supremely ironic that a church that spends so much energy (rightly) celebrating the baptismal covenant could then turn its back on its significance in what seems a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of these two sacraments, and their interrelationship.It’s sad that Tobias can’t see the same irony when it comes to the sacrament of marriage and his own advocacy of same-sex blessings, but he speaks for no small faction of Episcopal liberals, and that’s exactly why his and others’ sharp criticism of this resolution portends some interesting debates in Indianapolis this summer.
1 Allan Haley notes that the phrase DEO wants deleted is in the canons, but not in the Constitution.
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