- A rocky road to the enthronement of the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
- Further turmoil and scandal in the Anglican Episcopates of the United Kingdom.
- No progress for those hoping for Equal Marriage in the Church of England.
- More talk about the Quiet Revival which will continue not to show up in denominational statistics.
- Success for BBC Farage TV as Reform make great gains in the May elections
- Despite its record in government, the SNP get about 60 seats in the new Scottish Parliament.
- Because of its record in government, the Labour party gets terrible results and there is an attempt to remove Keir Starmer as leader.
- Despite its record both in and out of government the Democratic Party does well in the November elections in the USA.
- Stock market has another volatile year but ends up on this year, but not by much. FTSE is 9,931 at the start of the year.
- 2026 is the hottest year ever recorded.
53 responses to “Fencing the Table”
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“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.”
The Revd Tobias Stanislas Haller, BSGTobias said it better than I can, but this is what I believe. An understanding of the theology of baptism lends to then understanding the theology of the eucharist. To offer eucharist prior to baptism is to enter into the celebration of what has not yet occurred, mainly, having become the body of Christ.
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On the one hand I agree with Brother David, that is a norm which has its roots in Christian tradition. But life is messy and God is generous. I would rather people came to the Table because they felt drawn, than stayed away because they weren’t sure whether they belonged. Having come from a situation where the question of Holy Communion before confirmation wasn’t able to be resolved I nearly wept on my first Sunday here when two youngsters held out their hands for the host. We are about to start using a new service booklet and I have borrowed a phrase from our diocesan cathedral: “Wherever you have come from you are welcome at the Lord’s Table.”
None of us might deserve grace, but we all need it. -
I assume there’s just one Eucharist in which we all participate across time and space. That means there are all sorts of people having rreceived / receiving / will receive Christ, many of whom would never believe that we today are even Christians. Goodness knows who’ll be receiving Him and where in a thousand year’s time. It means that any concept of unity can’t be defined in culturally specific terms but solely in Him.
On those grounds, we welcome all. Many of us would have been excluded 500 years ago. I don’t want to exclude someone today from a category who 500 years from now will be looking back in despair at our exclusivity in 2012. Substitute whatever length of time you want and it remains salutary.
If the Church is still celebrating Eucharist in 5 million years who knows what evolution will have brought to sentience and communion. But that’s another issue altogether. -
I am interested in Andrew’s comment that because there is nothing inherently different in the bread and wine, understanding is needed to transform it. It does make sense from that perspective, though I guess I then ask myself what harm can be done by those who have no belief taking Wharburtons and Madeira. But you see, I believe that there is something special, very special, about the bread and wine, and I trust the Lord who graciously got himself in there, to exercise good sense and good discretion in the ways he most appropriately leaves – though given the prodigal way he lived, there is always the fear he may be just as reckless today.
The concerns I have are over the importance of somehow and somewhere communicating to people that actually following that Lord will take all you can offer – but then I turn round and think that none of us knows that at the start, and it takes us a lifetime to grow into the knowledge, and that if I do not really know it after – oh, 45 years – how the heck do I expect any baptismal candidate to know it either. All we can do is model the call.
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I went over to the Iona with my school to the youth camp for a week. At the service on the Sunday, we all took Communion. The wine was given first, then we were all given a piece of bread and told to go and find someone we didn’t know and to break that bread with them.
From what I’ve been studying, the early Orthodox Christians were not baptised until just before they died. So they would have taken Communion without Baptism.
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Could anyone who supports the ‘open table’ view please explain what meaning they attach to Baptism.
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Sure thing, Robert.
How about this prayer that we use in Scotland over the water of baptism. I think it sums it up rather well. (Though it was once dismissed by “more of that Scotch mist liturgy” by and English priest that I was very fond of.
Holy God, well-spring of life,
in your love and justice,
you use the gift of water to declare your saving power.
In the beginning your Spirit moved over the face of the waters.
By the gentle dew, the steady rain,
you nourish and give increase to all that grows;
you make the desert a watered garden.
You command the wildness of the waves;
when the storm rages you calm our fear;
in the stillness you lead us to a deeper faith.
In the life-giving rivers and the rainbow
Israel discerned your mercy.
You divided the Red Sea
to let them pass from slavery in Egypt
to freedom in the Promised Land.
In the waters of Jordan
penitents found forgiveness in the baptism of John.
There, Jesus your beloved child
was anointed with the Holy Spirit,
that he might bring us
to the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Send upon this water and upon your people [or upon N.)
your holy, life-giving Spirit.
All Bring those who are baptised in this water
with Christ through the waters of death,
to be one with him in his resurrection.
Sustain your people by your Spirit
to be hope and strength to the world.
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
to whom with you and the Holy Spirit
be honour and glory, now and for ever.
All Amen.[Note, no mention of communion].
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In the gospels, baptism is linked firmly to repentance – it is the washing away of sin. It is not an initiation ceremony and conferred no special status in the Jewish religion on those baptised. Those baptised would mostly have been life-long members of the Jewish religion before their baptism. It wasn’t until after Christ’s ascension that gentiles started to be baptised. Jesus did not mention the need to repent before remembering him let alone the need to be baptised.
If we restrict sharing the communion until after baptism or confirmation we restrict the power of the communion experience to lead people to repentance. So, perhaps we are putting the cart before the horse when we do so.
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No mention of communion noted, though in context of the SEC Canons someone mentioned earlier somewhere, it seems it isn’t necessary as Baptism then Communion is regarded as normal.
Very nice prayer, I reckon.
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The oldest writings that we have concerning both baptism and eucharist are from Paul, perhaps as soon as 25 years following Jesus’ ministry. Paul links both to the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul links baptism with repentance and as an initiation into the realm of God. Paul emphasizes only partaking of eucharist in a worthy manner and only after repentance, so as not to bring damnation upon oneself by partaking unworthily.
The earliest Christian writings regarding both after Paul are by the second century where it is clear that for the 2nd century church baptism precedes eucharist. I will remain part of the church that emphasizes this tradition that we have received from those earliest spiritual ancestors.
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But that’s a repeated repentance, not baptismal repentance. Unless you are saying that you haven’t sinned once since you were christened or that we should be rebaptised before every communion. You’re joining the dots in Paul to create the picture that fits best with your view of tradition. Best just to say such and such is what you like and leave God out of it. There’s nothing wrong with preferring a particular way of doing things but justifying your own preferences in such a didactic fashion is a bit dodgy.
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I don’t believe that its dodgy to point out that Paul emphasized repentance as a major part of both rituals. No, nowhere does a writing of Paul state emphatically that baptism precedes eucharist and I don’t believe that I have inferred that such a dictum exists. But from Paul one understands that for him and the communities that he ministered with, baptism was the gateway into the body of Christ and eucharist was the sustenance of the body of Christ. By baptism one participated in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and became reborn and a member of the spiritual body of Christ on the earth. That by partaking of the meal, for the body of Christ, one was still partaking of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. To me, its logical that one be a member of the body of Christ before one participates in the meal of that body and we find that that is exactly what the church is teaching in the 2nd century, in the oldest writings still available to us.
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I think those I baptise belong to Christ long before I get my hands on them.
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If that were truly the case, why baptize them?
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Because Jesus told us to.
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
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Jesus didn’t found the church. Therefore “the baptism of Christ” wasn’t originally intended as a gateway to the church, it was a rite of repentance. Like the eucharist is a visible sign of an idea. We can add stuff to that idea if we want to, but we can’t claim any authority to do so other than our own.
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Of what sins are infants cleansed at baptism? Original sin? Then tell me what original sin means. As a child (oh so very long ago!), I was taught it was the sin of Adam and Eve that we all inherit, but that story is no longer credible.
What Kelvin says.
“I think those I baptise belong to Christ long before I get my hands on them.”
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@MadPriest: Whilst it may be true that Brother David is “joining the dots in Paul to create the picture that fits best with [his] view of tradition”, isn’t it fair to say that this is what the Anglican Church has done – till now at least, and though it isn’t the only way to regard Baptism and its relationship to the Eucharist, it is the Anglican way to regard it.
To me it parallels the Anglican understanding of who may celebrate a Eucharist. Theologically I think it is fair to say that all Christians believe that none of us is worthy to celebrate the Eucharist, yet in obedience to Christ’s command we have come up with different understandings so that the Eucharist can be celebrated. For example, Anglicans believe that only those in priest’s orders can preside, whereas other denominations have found other answers to that. Though we all have the same theology we have different ideological solutions.
So I think that this is a matter of Church order. And, as it stands, isn’t it fair to say that the Anglican view is one of Baptism first?
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That’s what I’ve been saying all along. It is our choice.
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@MadPriest: If by ‘our choice’ you mean ‘our Church’s choice’ then I agree with you. As a loyal Anglican I feel I ought to support what the Church has decided. Otherwise I might as well be a Congregationalist. That’s why, despite being a catholicly-minded Anglican I have no time for the type of Anglo-catholic who carries on about the ordination of women to the priesthood or the episcopate. One cannot talk, as the catholics do, about the authority of the Church then ignore it and still claim to be Anglican, or indeed catholic, imho.
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