Worthy Partaking in I Cor. 11
This is a follow up from my previous post. There is one more thing I’d like to address concerning the paedocommunion debate. It has to do with the meaning of worthily partaking. The Anglican tradition has understood this in a mental sense. The children are not to be confirmed until they are able to say the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, and “are sufficiently instructed in the matter contained in these Offices.” The rubric in the BCP does not specify age, only competency. It is apparent, then, that a child may be quite young and yet have come to sufficient maturity (through both nature and nurture) to be confirmed.
I can understand this interpretation of I Cor. 11 and appreciate the wisdom in the tradition. However, one day at Covenant Theological Seminary, Paul Kooistra pointed out an interpretation that has made better sense to me (and it fits some of Leithart’s concerns). In I Cor. 11, Paul rebukes the Corinthians for failing to treat one another in the Body with Christian love in the manner in which they observed the Love Feast. Kooistra noted that the discerning of the Body of Christ, mentioned in the Lord’s Supper passage, could very well mean the ability to treat the family of God in a loving and appropriate manner. Thus, the ceremonial qualification for partaking of the Supper would be a right attitude and behaviour toward one’s fellows in the Faith. The BCP mentions this qualification, by the way, when, in the invitation to the table, it says, “Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours….”
Now let’s apply this to the age of competency. With this understanding of I Cor. 11, the age of competency is not when a child is able to recite certain texts (which, children ought to be able to do pretty early anyway), but it is when a child is able to tell when they are treating their family members and the other people at church in a loving manner. Are they able to recognise when they are being selfish or disrespectful and do they show true remorse when they are confronted with their failure? I find this understanding of I Cor. 11 very thought provoking and meaningful. Let me know what you think.
I can understand this interpretation of I Cor. 11 and appreciate the wisdom in the tradition. However, one day at Covenant Theological Seminary, Paul Kooistra pointed out an interpretation that has made better sense to me (and it fits some of Leithart’s concerns). In I Cor. 11, Paul rebukes the Corinthians for failing to treat one another in the Body with Christian love in the manner in which they observed the Love Feast. Kooistra noted that the discerning of the Body of Christ, mentioned in the Lord’s Supper passage, could very well mean the ability to treat the family of God in a loving and appropriate manner. Thus, the ceremonial qualification for partaking of the Supper would be a right attitude and behaviour toward one’s fellows in the Faith. The BCP mentions this qualification, by the way, when, in the invitation to the table, it says, “Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours….”
Now let’s apply this to the age of competency. With this understanding of I Cor. 11, the age of competency is not when a child is able to recite certain texts (which, children ought to be able to do pretty early anyway), but it is when a child is able to tell when they are treating their family members and the other people at church in a loving manner. Are they able to recognise when they are being selfish or disrespectful and do they show true remorse when they are confronted with their failure? I find this understanding of I Cor. 11 very thought provoking and meaningful. Let me know what you think.
5 Comments:
Certainly some thought provoking material. However, isn't it interesting that what is done to the least of these is nowhere attached to how the least of these are to behave. Forbid them not to come, after all, unless Jesus was just waiting for 1 Corinthians 11 to add a qualification to his words. Just some thoughts...
Jamey:
I think first we need to understand what Jesus was reacting to in his statement regarding children. According to the paedocommunionists, there was nothing from which the children were allowed to participate. So from what were they being forbidden?
As for his waiting for I Cor. 11, that's a possibility. The epistle is part of those things which he had to say which the Church was not ready for until later.
Ooops - in my last I should have written: "there was nothing in which they were not allowed to participate."
>>>With this understanding of I Cor. 11, the age of competency is not when a child is able to recite certain texts (which, children ought to be able to do pretty early anyway), but it is when a child is able to tell when they are treating their family members and the other people at church in a loving manner
An interesting view but if true, we must realize that in general this age is well before the first or second grade as many churches practice confirmation.
Kevin:
Indeed. If I recall correctly, the reason for adults having to qualify for baptism through a period of instruction was that it was a means of keeping the Christian faith pure. No one was admitted that did not understand the basics. If, as it seems, confirmation was a part of that process and then later separated from it and made a separate rite/sacrament/whatever, then it appears the instructional aspect of the baptism process went with it. With a more mental, or theological, view of discerning the Body of Christ, this requirement of instruction fits. The question is just how biblical all this is.
From reading Cross' Oxford Dict., there as been so much debate and there have been such a variety of practices, history is no help to us at all in deciding what we ought to believe about confirmation. It seems the one precedent we do have from history is: "let everyone be persuaded in his own mind!"
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