Uncharitable readers might call this piece a rant rather than a polemic. I would reply that there is much to rant about. But I chose the word 'polemic' deliberately. What I really want to do is to set a hare running and would be delighted to see this issue widely discussed in the Fulcrum forums: if, that is, we can set our current preoccupations aside for a moment.
Mike Booker, in 'Evangelism - which way now?' (CHP 2003), writes these startling words, 'the Church's failure to evangelize children may be seen as one of the most scandalous examples of child abuse in our contemporary society' (p110). Strong words. My contention is that our current attitude to children and communion is of a similar order - and something for which I fear we stand under the judgement not only of the future but of the Lord.
What is the current situation? In March 1997 the House of Bishops agreed a set of guidelines for admitting 'baptized persons to Holy Communion before confirmation'. It marked a significant change in practice in that it formally recognised for the first time the possibility of admitting unconfirmed children to communion. However the guidelines do so at best begrudgingly: they start like this: 'Since communion before confirmation is a departure from our inherited norm, it requires special permission.' The key features of the guidelines are that permission has to be given by the Bishop, that continuing Christian nurture must be provided, and that candidates must have sufficient 'appreciation of the significance of the sacrament.' In other words intellectual understanding is seen as key.
In 2006 the guidelines were revised and republished as the 'Admission of baptised children to Holy Communion Regulations.' It's worth noting that the document now specifically deals with the situation of children. Note too that what were once 'guidelines' are now 'regulations'. That's not just semantics. The pastoral feel of the earlier document is largely gone (though the requirement for adequate nurture remains). This one is concerned much more with the granting of episcopal permission for receiving communion, and (and this is wholly new) the withdrawing of such permission, both in individual parishes and across the diocese. Thus 'Every diocesan bishop may at any time make a direction to the effect that applications from parishes under these Regulations may be made in his diocese. The bishop's discretion in this respect shall be absolute, and he may at any time revoke such a direction
(without prejudice to the validity of any permissions already granted thereunder)'. So if you get a new Diocesan Bishop who doesn't like the idea of children receiving communion they won't (unless they're lucky enough to be in a church that already has permission from his predecessor). Thus the begrudging tone of the 1997 guidelines is significantly enhanced in the 2006 regulations. It's perhaps not surprising in the light of the tone, and the hurdles parishes have to jump over, that currently only around 10% of Church of England parishes have applied for and been allowed to admit children to communion before confirmation. So the practice of non-admission still, very largely, holds sway.
I think this is a situation that needs seriously challenging. I want to ask four critical questions, that we need to answer positively. I think the current regulations and our current practice prevent us from doing so - so, quite frankly, they need to change.
What do we believe about baptism?
Both sets of regulations make it clear that baptism is the necessary precursor to Communion. I wouldn't want to argue with that. But apparently it isn't enough simply to be baptised. It seems you (and your church) have to prove your worth in order to receive communion. To me that seems significantly to downgrade baptism. Into what exactly are we initiated at baptism? Into the Christian faith and into the Christian church surely. That's not to say that there won't be growth into each over time - but that is as true of an adult convert as it is of a child. So why then do we treat children as if they don't belong when in baptism we say they do, when we very specifically and intentionally welcome them in? Do we take baptism seriously as a sacrament, as a sign - do we believe in fact that it signifies anything at all? The current regulations seem to throw that into some doubt.
In the General Synod debate prior to the issuing of the 2006 Regulations there were fascinating contributions both from Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali and the wonderfully named Very Revd Archimandrite Ephrem Lash, the Ecumenical Representative of the Orthodox Churches. Bishop Michael, as well as wanting to beef up Episcopal control over the whole process, questioned the relationship of baptism and initiation:
'I think there is a growing awareness that Christian initiation is a process... So we must get beyond the fundamentalism of regarding baptism as a complete right of initiation, especially where children are concerned. Synod... must consider the case of children receiving Holy Communion as being part of a process of Christian initiation, which begins with baptism and continues through to confirmation and beyond.'
The problem with that it seems to me is that it singles children out ('especially where children are concerned') as needing some greater process of initiation than the rest of us. That seems hard to sustain theologically. It also raises questions about what we mean by 'initiation'. Bishop Michael seems to be talking about growing into some specific level of maturity. But surely all of the Christian life is about growth? Why pick an arbitrary point at which we can pin on a badge that says 'Initiation process now finished'? We shouldn't confuse initiation and nurture. I'm certainly not arguing against good quality provision of the latter: I am arguing that receiving Communion should form of part of that nurture, and not be deliberately excluded from it. Initiation must surely have to do with something being initiated, not completed. And that initiation happens at baptism.
That (I'm glad to say!) was largely the point that the Archimandrite made.
'Christian initiation is a once-for-all into which you grow, not something that takes part bit by bit'. The logic of that is clear: 'If you are going to baptize infants, then they must be admitted to communion straightaway... St John Chrysostom says that you come out of the womb of the font and you are taken straight to your mother's breast to suckle. In other words, you come from the font into the Church to receive Holy Communion.' And that surely is logical for a church that practices infant baptism. Not admitting children to communion is wholly and perfectly understandable in a Baptist Church practicing 'believers' baptism', but hardly seems logical in ours.
Evangelical Anglicans ought to be particularly open to such an argument, because of the whole tradition of seeing baptism as a covenant sign, in the OT tradition of such signs. We treat those who have received the covenant sign - logically enough - as belonging to the covenant. But you don't 'grow into' the covenant (any more than you can 'grow into' circumcision!). You are either in it or outside it. And baptism firmly marks us as 'in'. So it's about time we started to treat those who have been baptised as if they belong.
What do we believe about children?
Both the 1996 Guidelines and the 2006 Regulations seem to reveal a certain Anglo-Saxon equivocation about children. As I said before, both have a strangely begrudging tone. Both treat children as some kind of special case, as strange, alien and a little suspect: to be handled with care in a negative as well as a positive sense. The possibility of children having Communion withdrawn from them, clearly envisaged in the 2006 Guidelines (see section 7), is appalling. What possible circumstances were the drafters envisaging that could justify action such as that? If we suggested that adults should be excommunicated in such a manner there would be outrage - and rightly so. Why then is this acceptable for children? Indeed the fundamental question I want to ask is, why have guidelines for children at all? Why not just have guidelines for admitting people to communion? Or are children a separate species? Given the status scripture - and Jesus above all - gives to children, it's impossible to justify such a begrudging attitude.
The 1997 Guidelines, as I mention above, place a lot of emphasis on being able to grasp intellectually what Communion is about - and this is probably implicit in the 2006 regulations. The problem with that is that it seems to raise the issue of cognition to an unacceptably high level - and therefore immediately puts children at a disadvantage. But we receive by faith, not simply by understanding. And if a full intellectual grasp of Communion was necessary before we receive, which of us would dare to? The 1997 guidelines specifically deal with the issue of those with learning difficulties, emphasising the responsibility of the incumbent to raise 'questions of their discernment of the sacrament'. So we have the grotesque prospect of someone with learning difficulties being refused communion because he or she does not come up to the incumbent's idea of what the required level of discernment is. How exactly does that reflect the compassionate heart of Jesus Christ? And using an intellectual test is surely no more acceptable in the case of children than it is in the case of those with learning difficulties. All of this smacks of a typically Western, post-Enlightenment elevation of cognition above all other mental faculties: 'I think, therefore I receive communion'. We should know better.
Of course the passage of scripture usually cited in support of the non-admission of children is 1 Corinthians 11:29 'For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.' But frankly these words will not serve that cause. Paul is addressing the issue of greedy people (adults probably) treating Communion, and one another, with contempt. To use the verse in support of not admitting a five year old to Communion at his or her parish church seems hermeneutically dodgy, to say the least. And who says that a five year cannot recognize the body of the Lord?
All this raises fundamental questions about how we view our children, and how we nurture them. Are they aliens on the outside to be welcomed in begrudgingly? Or do we use the traditional Anglican 'charitable assumption' (that we seem perfectly happy to use for everyone else) and count them as 'in' - recognising that they might be much more 'in' with the Lord than we are - and nurture them as such?
Bishop Colin Buchanan in the best simple argument I've ever heard to justify this approach once pointed out that we don't make children learn the Lord's Prayer but only let them say it when we're satisfied they fully understand it. Rather we encourage then to learn it and use it and grow in understanding of it (and love of it) as they do so. And if that applies to the Lord's Prayer then why not to Communion?
Certainly from the very earliest age my daughter has come up to communion with my wife, who has always passed on to her a small piece of the bread. But how I regret that I've not been allowed to place the bread in her hand myself. (However I'm happy to report that she doesn't seem to have eaten and drunk judgement on herself. Quite the contrary I should say.)
What do we believe about Communion?
The problem with the current situation is that it seems to make Communion so much less than it should be: a sacrament of love, a gift of grace, a family covenant meal.
I love inviting people to Communion with the following words - words which so often seem to strike a chord. Just this last Sunday two people came up to me and said they'd only received because I'd used them:
Come to this table not because you are strong, but because you are weak.
Come not because any goodness of your own gives you a right to come but because you need mercy and help.
Come because you love the lord a little and would like to love him more.
Come not because you are worthy to approach him, but because he died for sinners.
Come because he loves you and gave his life for you.
They are wonderful words of grace: grace for weak, sinful, vulnerable people - as long, it seems, as they are adults. The fact is that we have not made Communion a meal of grace for all the family of God. Instead where children are concerned we choose to put tests in place which deny the very nature of Communion as a meal of grace, and make it instead something for which we have to qualify.
What's more our current practice cuts Communion off from its Jewish roots as a covenant meal. Whoever heard of a Passover meal with the children absent - not least when the youngest child has such a crucial role? It's a meal for those who belong, who belong within the covenant. It wouldn't be a Passover meal if the children were absent. So why do we think we have licence to exclude children? Passover is a family covenant meal celebrating the whole family's gracious rescue from slavery. Our covenant meal should be no less than that.
And because Communion is a meal of grace, and a covenant meal, it has a particular power. There's a certain 'Heineken effect' to it (if that analogy doesn't date me too much): it reaches the parts others things can't. That's not surprising, because it involves the senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste - and even smell too. We're always told that we should make sure our teaching of children should be as multi-sensory as possible, and yet the most multi-sensory act of worship we have - and Jesus' gift to his church - we systematically deny to our children. In 90% of our churches they won't receive it.
I can't help feeling that somewhere lurking behind the various guidelines and regulations is a firm episcopal desire - and will - to hold on to Confirmation (an episcopal rite of course) as being of some significance. Confirmation (and the Guidelines and Regulations) make Bishops the gatekeepers to Communion, a state of affairs which would certainly change if baptism were the sole requirement. And yet there is of course no necessary link between Confirmation and Communion. Not for nothing has Confirmation been called 'a rite in search of a theology' and we need to recognise it as such. It may be a useful discipline, it may have pastoral value, but let's not pretend that Communion is somehow dependant on it theologically. It isn't. Let's recover it as a meal of grace for all the covenant family of God.
What do we believe about church?
I'll keep this brief, but in some ways it's the most important question. We need to ask, what does it mean to be the body of Christ, to be the place where Jesus Christ lives by his Spirit? Is that body just comprised of adults, or do people of every age, children included, have a part to play? And not just a begrudging part, tucked away in a corner, out of sight and out of mind, but a full, wholehearted and equal part?
Related to any question about the body of Christ is the issue of what we believe about the Kingdom of God. Do we really believe that children belong to it - or do we in fact doubt Jesus' words that 'the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these'?
Those are critical questions not just for our ecclesiology, but for our mission, for the task and calling of the Church to stand as an authentic sign of the kingdom. But our current practice does not allow us to answer them positively. We may say one thing with our mouths as a church, but our actions say something else. Through our begrudging, uncharitable attitude to children at the central act of Christian worship, we are impaired as the body of Christ, we are impaired as a sign of the Kingdom and therefore we are impaired in our mission. And frankly it won't do. We need to start pushing for change. And we need to start doing it now.
Philip Mounstephen is the Executive Leader of the Church Mission Society.