The issue of Credenda I mentioned a little while back is released on the web. Great stuff, check it out.

I have a few comments about some of what’s been said about this issue of Credenda, and this issue of paedocommunion.

First off, let me make clear where I stand. I consider myself fully paedocommunion compliant®. When Peter Leithart, in the Colloquium book, writes,

First, what is the question of paedocommunion? It is not in essence a question about the age of admission to the Lord’s table. Some who do not adopt the paedocommunion position would admit very young children, and the difference from advocates of paedocommunion would be a matter of a few months. If, hypothetically, some means were invented to gauge the level of “discernment” in infants and infants who registered a score of “6” were admitted to the table, that practice still would not constitute paedocommunion. Nor is it a question about force-feeding bread and wine to newborns. Though some traditions give the elements to newly baptized infants, no Reformed advocate of paedocommunion, to my knowledge, has argued for this practice. Most Reformed theologians are content to wait until the child is able to eat solid food before he begins to participate in the Supper.

The real question before us is this: Does baptism initiate the baptized to the Lord’s table, so that all who are baptized have a right to the meal? Paedocommunion advocates, for all their differences, will answer in the affirmative. Nothing more than the rite of water baptism is required for access to the Lord’s table. Opponents of paedocommunion will answer in the negative. Something more is required–some level of understanding, some degree of spiritual discernment, some sort of conversion experience, and some means for the church to assess these attainments. Paedocommunion teaches that baptism ingrafts a child into the body of Christ, and that all members of the body of Christ are welcome at the Lord’s table.

I thoroughly agree with him, and believe I fall on the paedocommunion side, as he has defined it.

A lot is being said of late about the massive and deep sectarianism in the Presbyterian and Reformed wing of the Church. I don’t disagree… it is an ugly blemish that we need to be cleansed of. But the important thing to note here, is that it is a blemish that we need to be cleansed of. It isn’t a sin that someone else has to deal with. We are Reformed, and we want to split. It’s like our mantra.

We take an issue, and we draw a line in the sand and demand the taking of sides. Sadly, this issue of Credenda has been central to yet another one of these silly lines.
“What?”, it is said, “this man pastors a church that admits children to the Table of the Lord at 2 years, 18 months, 12 months, when the child shows an interest in partaking? Incredulous! How dare they bar children from the Table!”

Come on, folks! This isn’t barring children from the Table. It is exactly what Tim Gallant, in basically the only pro-paedocommunion book in print argues as paedocommunion. This is what Robert Rayburn, in his debate with Ken Gentry, argues as paedocommunion. It is what Peter Leithart describes in the quote above, as paedocommunion.

Let’s not further divide ourselves on this point. We’ve already got an uphill battle to admit even five and six year olds (or 12 and 15 year olds) to the Table, why further divide ourselves on the question of whether or not newborn infants should be given the Supper, over and against waiting until they’re one, and recognize the sacrament as a unifying event? Do we really want to split into even smaller factions? Such a pointless division reveals how deep-seated our lust for sectarianism really is.