By Steve Weatherbe

COMMUNION is the central act of communal worship in the Christian church. But historically, it has been a symbol of disunity as well as unity, with Protestants and Catholics dividing sharply on its meaning. Yet most denominations agree that sharing in the Lord’s Supper (the eucharist) is a matter solely for believers.

The so-called emerging church wants to change that, and open communion up to all church attendees – as a sign of welcome from Jesus and the congregation.

The debate was opened up recently in the Anglican church on Vancouver Island, when outgoing development officer Dr. Gary Nicolosi used the Diocesan Post to make ‘The Case for Open Communion.’

Arguing that the postmodern world devalues rationality and doctrine, and “places heart over head, feeling over thought, intuition over logic, the nonlinear over the linear, and emotion over persuasion,” he said the Christian church needed to reverse the time-honoured progress starting with “faith,” moving into “community” and finally reaching spiritual “experience.”

Experience should come first, he suggested – and what better experience for the unchurched and unbaptized who come to a communion service, than that of spiritual relationship in communion?

The Venerable Bruce Bryant-Scott, executive officer of the Anglican Diocese, said open communion is not the rule anywhere in the diocese – nor, in the wake of  Nicolosi’s column, is it being discussed by any diocesan committees.

“It would require the permission of our bishop (James Cowan),” said Bryant-Scott, and as far as he knows nobody has asked for it.

One congregation that has such permission from its bishop is Holy Trinity  in Mississauga, Ontario.

But there, longtime pastor Harold Percy incorporated it into an emerging church model that contributed to healthy growth, when other parishes and Anglicanism in general shrank.

Percy explained the practice to the Anglican Journal in 1999:

 “I can imagine Jesus saying, ‘Who among you, if you have strangers in your home and it’s time for supper, would say the family is just going to eat – [and] if the rest of you would like to remain here in the living room, we’ll be back in just a few minutes.’”

Such behavior would have seemed rude and inhospitable, said Percy.

Until the 1970s, said Bryant-Scott, the Anglican church restricted communion to those who had received “confirmation” in the faith. Closer connections with Eastern Orthodoxy, however, revealed the latter group gave communion to infants and didn’t consider confirmation a requirement at all.  

Since then, baptism according to the traditional formula has been the test for communion, said Bryant-Scott.

“Where it will go from here I couldn’t say,” he added, but he admitted that those who spend much time addressing the mainline Christian denominations’ shrinking memberships – and, at the same time, the church’s role in the world – often favour a more inclusive model.

They see open communion as a symbol of the church’s role to feed the hungry literally, and house the homeless.

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Dan Griffiths, associate pastor at Victoria’s New Life Community Church, said his church practices open communion, distributing unfermented grape juice and bread in trays to the congregation. “We leave it up to individuals to decide, and we make no comment . . . We see the grape juice and bread as symbols, as means of grace.”  When communion is being distributed, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is addressed through comments or recitation of scripture.

At Victoria’s Parkdale Evangelical Free Church, communion is also distributed, but not before pastor Tom Hilchie explains to the congregation: “You can celebrate with us, if you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Saviour.”

But many in the Anabaptist tradition practice an even tighter restriction – called, said Hilchie, the “closed table” – in which a church distributes communion only to those it knows “with certainty” hold orthodox beliefs.

“What we are doing is the ‘open table,’ because we let people make the decision for themselves.”

Communion means several things, added Hilchie. “It’s a metaphor for Jesus’ body and blood; it’s an opportunity for the congregation to say ‘thank you’ for his life, death and sacrifice; it’s a personal message from each of us; it’s a way to acknowledge Jesus’ presence in the church and in each one of us.”

But for communion to carry all these meanings, said Hilchie, “people need to believe.”

Those in the emerging church who want all comers to share communion – so that they might derive positive  psychological and family feeling, and disregard the meaning of it all – are ignoring Paul’s pointed instructions in 1 Corinthians 11: 28-29. And thus, Hilchie said, “I think they are ignoring the person who instituted communion, and what he told us it is.”

The Rev. Colin Liske, pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Nanaimo, agrees that sharing communion must follow a shared faith. “Romans 16:17 requires that fellowship, the closest of which is experienced in the Lord’s Supper, be held in conjunction with proper Christian teaching.”

Liske goes further, distinguishing between churches that believe communion is a metaphor, and those holding it is the literal body and blood of Christ – i.e. Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans and some Anglicans.

“Only those who hold to the ‘real bodily presence’ of our Lord in the eucharist, and who agree to solid Christian teaching, should come to the Lord’s table,” said Liske, adding: “The practice of closed communion was universal in the early church and pretty well throughout most of history, with only minor exceptions, until after the radical Reformation.”

The Catholic church routinely restricts reception of communion to baptized Catholics, said Fr. Dean Henderson, Catholic chaplain at the University of Victoria.

“It even restricts it further, to those Catholics who are in a state of grace,” meaning no significant or “mortal” sins have gone unconfessed to a priest.

“But under grave circumstances, members of an Eastern Orthodox church, and Protestants, can receive communion,” he added, “provided they share our understanding of it.”

Such restrictions, said Henderson, are necessary because   “the eucharist is the central sacramental reality of our faith.”

Henderson said he agrees with the emerging church’s emphasis on outreach, but with a caveat. “We have to make it easier for them to get in the door – but not necessarily easier for them to receive communion.”

Converts, he noted, have told him they appreciate communion all the more because it is treated so protectively.

August 2010