# paedocommunion & excommunication ronald reagan



## RamistThomist (Jul 21, 2007)

I was discussing paedocommunion with a friend of mine (he holds to it; I do not). He brought up this objection. The following is a (fictional) dialogue between Ronald Reagan's legal guardian and a Presbyterian Pastor
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PASTOR: I have invited you to my office to discuss the matter of Mr. Reagan’s membership in this congregation.

GUARDIAN: Is there something wrong?

PASTOR: Well, frankly, there is. Mr. Reagan has Alzheimer’s disease.

GUARDIAN: Yes. He has had it for some time.

PASTOR: I suppose the elders should not have waited so long to deal with this.

GUARDIAN: Deal with what?

PASTOR: The fact that Mr. Reagan no longer understands theology.

GUARDIAN: What has his understanding of theology got to do with his membership?

PASTOR: He is a communicant member. Or, I should say, he was a communicant member. He is no longer.

GUARDIAN: What do you mean?

PASTOR: The elders voted him a non-communing member at last week’s meeting.

GUARDIAN: On what authority?

PASTOR: On the authority of Book of Order.

GUARDIAN: Where does it say that you can refuse to offer the Lord’s Supper to him without a trial?

PASTOR: Well, it doesn’t actually say this, but we posses this authority.

GUARDIAN: On what basis?

PASTOR: Because we are authorized to determine at what age a child is eligible for communing membership. The Book of Order is quite clear about this: G-5.0100, “The Meaning of Membership, Section c.”

http://www.pcusa.org/oga/publications/01_FOG.pdf

GUARDIAN: He is not a child.

PASTOR: On the contrary, he is a child. He has the mentality of a toddler.

GUARDIAN: But he is 91 years old.

PASTOR: In years, yes. In mental ability, he is about three years old.

GUARDIAN: But baptized adults are entitled to the Lord’s Supper.

PASTOR: Mental adults are entitled to the Lord’s Supper. Mental children are not.

GUARDIAN: I have never heard such an interpretation before.

PASTOR: That’s because the elders of this congregation have just discovered this principle.

GUARDIAN: But it’s not part of Presbyterian law.

PASTOR: It’s part of a well-established traditional interpretation of Presbyterian theology. The basis of the prohibition against toddlers’ taking communion has always been this: the toddlers’ inability to understand theology. Toddlers don’t understand what communion means. Neither does Mr. Reagan.

GUARDIAN: You’re saying that access to the Lord’s Supper is based on a person’s IQ.

PASTOR: Well, we wouldn’t want to put it that way.

GUARDIAN: But that’s the implication of what you’re saying. “No brains, no communion.”

PASTOR: Well, yes, I suppose that is our position.

GUARDIAN: He understood communion before he got Alzheimer’s.

PASTOR: But he doesn’t understand any longer.

GUARDIAN: But doesn’t his intelligence carry over legally?

PASTOR: How? He doesn’t understand the meaning of communion. So, he cannot search his heart before he takes communion, as Paul requires in I Corinthians 11.

GUARDIAN: Well, I can do this for him, now that I’m his legal guardian and trustee. So can the elders, if I fail in my duty.

PASTOR: I’m afraid your argument doesn’t apply. If we accepted its logic in your case, we would have to accept it for toddlers and infants.

GUARDIAN: Why?

PASTOR: Because it’s the same argument, judicially speaking. You’re saying that a legal guardian who is a member of this congregation and is mentally competent can judge the moral state of his or her mentally incompetent ward. If we were to accept your argument regarding Mr. Reagan, we would have to accept it for the parents of every toddler. The parents would say that the child has not done anything so evil since the date of the last communion that the child should be denied access to the Lord’s Supper.

GUARDIAN: But he hasn’t done anything deserving of excommunication.

PASTOR: But he has.

GUARDIAN: What has he done?

PASTOR: He got Alzheimer’s.

GUARDIAN: Are you saying that a disease is grounds for excommunication?

PASTOR: This disease is grounds for exclusion from the Lord’s Table. Also any other disease or head injury that lowers a person’s IQ to the level of a toddler.

GUARDIAN: Then contracting such a disease is the same, judicially speaking, as committing adultery.

PASTOR: No, I’m not saying that.

GUARDIAN: No, I guess you aren’t. That’s because someone can repent from committing adultery. A person can’t raise his IQ. You’re saying that Alzheimer’s is a legal basis for permanently excommunicating a person, but adultery isn’t.

PASTOR: Well, now you put it that way, I agree with you. I hadn’t thought of that.

GUARDIAN: There is a whole lot that you haven’t thought of.

PASTOR: Like what?

GUARDIAN: Like the fact that anyone can get Alzheimer’s. Like the fact that you are condemning in advance millions of old people to excommunication. Like the fact that you are bringing despair to millions of spouses who are married to people with Alzheimer’s. You are also raising a specter of separation from the Lord’s Table to every Presbyterian, who must now fear the day that he will be treated the way you are treating Mr. Reagan, should they contract this terrible disease.

PASTOR: Well, that’s what we tell parents of toddlers.

GUARDIAN: Parents of toddlers have hope that their children will get smarter as they grow older. Their pain is bearable, especially because your interpretation is backed up by tradition.

PASTOR: Parents of low IQ children have to live with this despair, and it’s permanent. They don’t complain. They know that Presbyterians have always accepted this risk as a cost of being Presbyterians.

GUARDIAN: But why should this be? Why should you treat Down’s Syndrome victims as sinners who are forever cut off from the communion table?

PASTOR: Because they are stupid.

GUARDIAN: You mean intelligence is a matter of saving grace?

PASTOR: Oh, no. We wouldn’t say that.

GUARDIAN: You already have. You are saying a lot worse. You are saying that having a low IQ is worse than committing adultery, because repentance is possible for adulterers.

PASTOR: Being excluded from the communion table isn’t the same as excommunication.

GUARDIAN: Really? How is it different?

PASTOR: Because you have to be convicted of a sin in order to be officially excommunicated.

GUARDIAN: But what’s the difference in the objective result? In both cases, the person is cut off from the Lord’s Table. Excommunication is considered the supreme negative sanction that the church can impose. Why isn’t it a negative sanction for a Down’s Syndrome child to be cut off from the Lord’s Supper?

PASTOR: Because there has been no trial.

GUARDIAN: What kind of view of the Lord’s Supper are you teaching here? Are you people Baptists?

PASTOR: That is a terrible thing to accuse anyone of being, unless he’s a Baptist.

GUARDIAN: Well, that’s the view of the Lord’s Supper that you’re defending. You’re saying that the Lord’s Supper is one thing for one person, and another thing for someone else. It’s whatever a person thinks it is. It has no judicially valid authority in its own right.

PASTOR: I don’t follow you.

GUARDIAN: If being denied access to the Lord’s Supper is a negative sanction for an adulterer, then it’s also a negative sanction for a Down’s Syndrome victim.

PASTOR: But this isn’t a negative sanction for the Down’s Syndrome victim.

GUARDIAN: Why not?

PASTOR: Because there has been no trial.

GUARDIAN: There doesn’t need to be a trial. My point is that the same negative sanction applies to both the Down’s Syndrome victim and the adulterer. If the sanction is the same for one, it’s the same for the other. It’s not just what the participants think it is. The Westminster Confession of Faith is clear about this. It’s right here in Chapter XXI. Let me read it to you.

These sacraments, both of the Old Testament and
of the New, were instituted by God not only to
make a visible distinction between his people and
those who were without the Covenant, but also to
exercise the faith of his children and, by
participation of these sacraments, to seal in
their hearts the assurance of his promise, and of
that most blessed conjunction, union, and
society, which the chosen have with their Head,
Christ Jesus. And so we utterly condemn the
vanity of those who affirm the sacraments to be
nothing else than naked and bare signs. No, we
assuredly believe that by Baptism we are
engrafted into Christ Jesus, to be made partakers
of his righteousness, by which our sins are
covered and remitted, and also that in the Supper
rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us
that he becomes the very nourishment and food of
our souls. . . .

Therefore, if anyone slanders us by saying that
we affirm or believe the sacraments to be symbols
and nothing more, they are libelous and speak
against the plain facts.

PASTOR: I’m not saying that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper has no independent power on its own authority. I’m not a “memorial only” theologian.

GUARDIAN: Then why do you deny access to the Lord’s table for a member in good standing?

PASTOR: Because a member in good standing has to have an IQ over 80.

GUARDIAN: Why?

PASTOR: So he can understand what’s going on.

GUARDIAN: You think a Down’s Syndrome person doesn’t understand that he is not being allowed to participate, when everyone else in the church is taking the elements except those people nobody talks to — adulterers, thieves, and child molesters?

PASTOR: Yes, that’s what I’m saying, at least the victims of extreme Down’s Syndrome.

GUARDIAN: His parents understand, and they act on his behalf. They can decide that he has not committed an excommunicable sin. You should support their decision.

PASTOR: They don’t have the authority to act on his behalf. He has to be responsible. He has to act on his own authority.

GUARDIAN: I was right. You’re a Baptist.

PASTOR: I deeply resent that accusation.

GUARDIAN: I apologize. You’re only half-Baptist. If a parent who is a member in good standing can act on behalf of the child when it comes time to baptize the child, then why not allow the parent to make the same representative decision in the case of the Lord’s Supper?

PASTOR: Because that’s what Presbyterianism has done for centuries.

GUARDIAN: So, you’re saying that Presbyterians are half- Baptists. Presbyterians draw a judicial line at the Lord’s Table, and say to parents, “Your authority ends here.” Then you treat their young children just as you treat excommunicated adults. Meanwhile, the Baptists stand on the sidelines and taunt you. “You don’t really believe in all that representation stuff. You hold the same view that we do regarding the Lord’s Supper. There has to be an age of accountability. The difference is, we take baptism as seriously as you take the Lord’s Supper. We close access to baptism to toddlers and morons and people with Alzheimer’s.”

PASTOR: But the child isn’t missing out. Not really.

GUARDIAN: Of course he is missing out. The Confession says that “in the Supper rightly used, Christ Jesus is so joined with us that he becomes the very nourishment and food of our souls.” I ask you: Is it a positive sanction to be able to take the Lord’s Supper?

PASTOR: I think I see where you’re going with this.

GUARDIAN: Good. Then you have not yet developed Alzheimer’s.

PASTOR: You’re trying to get me to say that the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace or something like that.

GUARDIAN: Well, isn’t that what answer 96 of the Shorter Catechism says? “The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ’s appointment, his death is shewed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace.”

PASTOR: Yes, but answers 96 and 97 say that these benefits are limited to worthy receivers. “It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper, that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience; lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves.” Toddlers, morons, and Alzheimer’s victims are not worthy.

GUARDIAN: Nobody is worthy except Jesus Christ.

PASTOR: Of course, of course. But there are worthy members and unworthy members.

GUARDIAN: Is an infant worthy?

PASTOR: That’s a trick question.

GUARDIAN: Only for Presbyterians with tricky answers.

PASTOR: An infant is worthy to be baptized, but not to take the Lord’s Supper.

GUARDIAN: What is the difference?

PASTOR: The judicial authority of his parents. In the sacrament of baptism, the parents are worthy on his behalf, but not in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

GUARDIAN: Where does it say that in the Confession or the Catechisms?

PASTOR: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

GUARDIAN: Where does it say that in the Bible?

PASTOR: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

PASTOR: Where does it say that Alzheimer’s victims are unworthy?

PASTOR: It doesn’t. It’s implied.

GUARDIAN: So, the elders of this congregation added together a series of implications, and they concluded that Mr. Reagan just had to be excommunicated.

PASTOR: I wish you wouldn’t use that word.

GUARDIAN: Then what word would you use? If being officially denied access to the Lord’s Supper isn’t excommunication, what is it?

PASTOR: We like to think of it as “safety-first righteousness.”

GUARDIAN: It’s more like “righteousness, emeritus.”

PASTOR: Mr. Reagan is still righteous, in a childish sort of way.

GUARDIAN: Toddlers are righteous in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

PASTOR: That’s it, exactly.

GUARDIAN: Infants are baptized in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

PASTOR: No, that’s completely different. Infants are baptized in a judicially representative way. Their parents speak on their behalf.

GUARDIAN: Then the sacramental issue is the competence and judicial standing of the parents.

PASTOR: Yes, but only with respect to infant baptism, not young child communion.

GUARDIAN: Then toddlers are denied access to the Lord’s Table in an Alzheimer’s sort of way.

PASTOR: Very well put.

GUARDIAN: What about an Alzheimer’s victim who commits adultery?

PASTOR: What about him?

GUARDIAN: Is this an excommunicable sin?

PASTOR: Yes.

GUARDIAN: But what if he didn’t know that the other person was not his spouse? After all, he has Alzheimer’s.

PASTOR: Well, in that case, it wouldn’t be an excommunicable sin.

GUARDIAN: But it would be for the woman who deceived him.

PASTOR: Yes, but not for him.

GUARDIAN: Then the only difference between the adulterer and the Alzheimer’s victim is that the adulterer knew what she was doing.

PASTOR: Yes.

GUARDIAN: Then the moral and judicial difference between the two kinds of sexual contact outside of marriage is that the deceiver, who lures the Alzheimer’s victim into adultery, is legally responsible.

PASTOR: I don’t like where this line of reasoning is headed.

GUARDIAN: I’ll bet you don’t.

PASTOR: You’re trying to get me to say that the person with legal authority in the case of adultery is the mentally competent decision-maker, not the mentally incompetent person who obeys the words of the person he believes is in authority.

GUARDIAN: You have got it, exactly.

PASTOR: And then you’re going to go from the representative authority of the decision-making adulterer to the representative authority of a decision-making parent.

GUARDIAN: You have got it, exactly.

PASTOR: You’re trying to make access to the Lord’s Table as much a matter of representative parental authority as baptism is.

GUARDIAN: You have got it, exactly.

PASTOR: Well, I’m not going to say that.

GUARDIAN: Why not?

PASTOR: Because it doesn’t sound Presbyterian to me.

GUARDIAN: Neither does excommunicating a person with Alzheimer’s.

PASTOR: But that is the logical implication of Presbyterianism.

GUARDIAN: It is the logical implication of a particular Presbyterian tradition. But it is not the logical implication of the doctrine of parental representation in the Presbyterian doctrine of baptism.

PASTOR: You’re trying to confuse me.

GUARDIAN: Not too difficult a task.

PASTOR: You’re implying that Presbyterianism is theologically schizophrenic: that its doctrine of representation regarding parental authority in baptism is in conflict with the Presbyterian tradition of denying parental authority in the Lord’s Supper.

GUARDIAN: I’m not implying it. I’m inferring it. They are in conflict.

PASTOR: You want me to believe that Mr. Reagan should not be excluded from the Lord’s Table even though he has the mind of a toddler or a Down’s Syndrome child.

GUARDIAN: Correct.

PASTOR: But if I drew that conclusion, I would have to open the Lord’s Table to toddlers and Down’s Syndrome victims.

GUARDIAN: Correct.

PASTOR: And all this is based on the theology of judicial representation.

GUARDIAN: Yes. That’s an important Presbyterian doctrine. Let’s begin with Adam.

PASTOR: Let’s not.

GUARDIAN: Then let’s begin with the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ.

PASTOR: Let’s not.

GUARDIAN: Then where should we begin?

PASTOR: With Presbyterian tradition.

GUARDIAN: You want to substitute ecclesiastical tradition for the Bible and covenant theology?

PASTOR: I didn’t say that.

GUARDIAN: But that’s what is implied by what you did say. You are saying that an ecclesiastical tradition that is inconsistent at this point with the doctrine of judicial representation — covenant theology, in other words — carries more authority than covenant theology.

PASTOR: Tradition is important.

GUARDIAN: It isn’t that important. Or was Luther wrong in 1517? Was Calvin wrong in 1536? Was the Reformation a mistake?

PASTOR: You’re making this more complicated than it is.

GUARDIAN: No, you’re making it more complicated than it is. The doctrine of representation is not all that complicated. Adam sinned on our behalf. Jesus Christ died on our behalf. Parents speak on behalf of their infants. If the concept of “on behalf” is abandoned, then Christianity loses its judicial character. And Presbyterianism is nothing if not judicial.

PASTOR: You’re trying to persuade me to begin with the doctrine of judicial representation.

GUARDIAN: No, I’m trying to persuade you to end up with the doctrine of judicial representation that you officially begin with as a Presbyterian. You keep ending up a Baptist. If Mr. Reagan had wanted to be a Baptist, he would have joined a Baptist church. There are surely a lot more voters who are Baptists than there are Presbyterians.
He took Presbyterianism seriously. I’m asking you to take Presbyterianism seriously.

PASTOR: I’ll have to think about this.

GUARDIAN: Good. I would suggest that you and the elders put his excommunication on hold until you make up your mind.

PASTOR: This will have to go to a committee.

GUARDIAN: Somehow, that does not come as a surprise.


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## Nse007 (Jul 21, 2007)

Long but informative...


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## Contra_Mundum (Jul 21, 2007)

I'm not serving communion (should it happen!) to my father, a communicant member, not under discipline, who develops Alzheimers/dementia.

And I'm taking away his car keys. Not because he's committed a felony DUI, or is under state-sponsored sanctions--but because I love him, I have respect for the laws of the state, and because I care about others.

The situations are analogous.

And the WCF chapter on Sacraments is 27, not 21.

And those words are not out of our Westminster Standards ANYPLACE, in any case.

Quick Google search brought up "The Scots Confession" Ch. 21, for the source of the confessional quote. (John Knox, 1560)

WLC would prohibit the giving of the LS to one unable to discern the body, I being permitted to administer "only to such as are of years *and ability to examine themselves*" (A. 177). He cannot perform the duties REQUIRED of them that receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, before, in the time of, and after receiving (A. 171, 174, 175).

Furthermore, it is a truncated quote, and the portions relevant to sensible exercise of FAITH for such benefits are conspicuously absent.


> this union and conjunction which we have with the body and blood of Christ Jesus _*in the right use of the sacraments*_ is wrought by means of the Holy Ghost, who _*by true faith*_ carries us above all things that are visible, carnal, and earthly, and makes us feed upon the body and blood of Christ Jesus


And further, from just above the second portion of the text quoted


> Yet all this, we say again, comes of that true faith which apprehends Christ Jesus, who alone makes the sacrament effective in us.


And this portion just after it


> we use them with great reverence, examining ourselves diligently before we participate, since we are assured by the mouth of the apostle that "whoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord."


Its outrageous to quote selectively, so as to bolster one's position, appealing to authority.

Look at this quote from the VERY NEXT chapter of the same Confession!


> Moreover, if the sacraments are to be rightly used it is essential that the end and purpose of their institution should be understood, not only by the minister but also by the recipients. For *if the recipient does not understand what is being done, the sacrament is not being rightly used, *as is seen in the case of the Old Testament sacrifices.


And the ENTIRETY of chapter 23!


> To Whom Sacraments Appertain
> 
> We hold that baptism applies as much to the children of the faithful as to those who are of age and discretion, and so we condemn the error of the Anabaptists, who deny that children should be baptized before they have faith and understanding. But *we hold that the Supper of the Lord is only for those who are of the household of faith and can try and examine themselves both in their faith and their duty to their neighbors.* Those who eat and drink at that holy table without faith, or without peace and goodwill to their brethren, eat unworthily. This is the reason why ministers in our Kirk make public and individual examination of those who are to be admitted to the table of the Lord Jesus.



I sincerely hope one does not buy into the above, LAME-O treatment (I'm sure its a fine pcusa example of an ignorant ministry without any binding standards anyway, beyond this year's Church Order), as if no one in church history ever thought about this since the Reformation days...


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## Contra_Mundum (Jul 21, 2007)

Continuing:


> PASTOR: How? He doesn’t understand the meaning of communion. So, _*he cannot search his heart*_ before he takes communion, as Paul requires in I Corinthians 11.
> 
> _*GUARDIAN: Well, I can do this for him,*_ now that I’m his legal guardian and trustee. So can the elders, if I fail in my duty.


REEEEALY?!? And yes, then why NOT for babies?

And the bit about treating the permanently disabled as though they were thereby *morally inferior* to able-minded sinners who can repent--so my grandpa, he was being treated worse than a DUI offender by my uncle! Taking away his Driver's License. The OUTRAGE! Serves him right, eh? For him doing the same thing to his Old Man (my great-grandpa).

Continuing:
Despair? Over the loved one not being able to take Communion? What?!? Why not, at the very least, take your mind off that, and think how much closer that dear one is to HEAVEN than they were when young, and HEAVENLY COMMUNION?!



> GUARDIAN: But why should this be? Why should you treat Down’s Syndrome victims as sinners who are forever cut off from the communion table?
> 
> PASTOR: Because they are stupid.
> 
> GUARDIAN: You mean intelligence is a matter of saving grace?


How convenient, make the poor pcusa pastor into an _insensitive_ ignoramus while you're at it.

And when did the Communion Table become a necessary means of SAVING GRACE? What happened to the Reformation?


> GUARDIAN: Well, that’s the view of the Lord’s Supper that you’re defending. You’re saying that the Lord’s Supper is one thing for one person, and another thing for someone else.


Who DOESN'T think this? If the supper is blessing for one person, and judgment for another person, based on _what they're thinking/believing_, how is that the BAPTIST position?


> GUARDIAN: If being denied access to the Lord’s Supper is a negative sanction for an adulterer, then it’s also a negative sanction for a Down’s Syndrome victim.


NOT. If it is BENEFICIAL to both my Grandpa and everyone else if I take away his Driver's License, then it's not a "negative sanction." There may be _consequences_ that for one reason or another I don't like, or wish were different, but a similar appearance does not equate two inherently UNEAQUAL circumstances.

Then comes all the confessional confusion from my first response.


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## Contra_Mundum (Jul 21, 2007)

The rest of that is just question-begging nonsense. The "guardian" wouldn't get to first base with a Presbyterian pastor who wasn't doctrinally, confessionally, biblically, and practically illiterate. Like the handsome foil presented above.


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## Puritan Sailor (Jul 21, 2007)

Great analysis Bruce. 

Why do these folks put so much more emphasis on the sacrament than on Christ? Communion with Christ is not limited to the Lords' Supper.


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## Arch2k (Jul 21, 2007)

Puritan Sailor said:


> Great analysis Bruce.
> 
> Why do these folks put so much more emphasis on the sacrament than on Christ? Communion with Christ is not limited to the Lords' Supper.


 
 on both counts.


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## fredtgreco (Jul 22, 2007)

This argument is a red herring. It is not the mental state of a person _per se_ that is the issue, but the person's ability to fulfill the requirements of the sacrament.

Denial of the Lord's Supper would be for failure to examine oneself, not for "having the mental state of a child." For example, what would happen to a 45 year old man who could no longer eat food? Would we put the bread and wine in an IV? Would the failure to do so be "excommunication"?

The "scenario" also (typical of paedocommunion arguments) fails to understand church discipline. Excommunication is much more than simply not being able to partake in the Lord's Supper. But that is typical of such argumentation.


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## turmeric (Jul 22, 2007)

My folks are and were Baptistic in their theology, but they got this right. One Sunday, Mom took the little cracker-thing for Dad and put it in his mouth. He was blind and had Alzheimer's. He spit it out and loudly announced that he didn't eat fingernails! That was the end of that! We've never doubted his salvation, but he was done with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in this life!


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## Pilgrim (Jul 22, 2007)

Contra_Mundum said:


> I'm not serving communion (should it happen!) to my father, a communicant member, not under discipline, who develops Alzheimers/dementia.
> 
> And I'm taking away his car keys. Not because he's committed a felony DUI, or is under state-sponsored sanctions--but because I love him, I have respect for the laws of the state, and because I care about others.
> 
> ...



The argument in the OP is from an article by Gary North.


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## Arch2k (Jul 22, 2007)

Out of curiosity, would some of you pastors administer communion to a long-time faithful member that down the road gained alzheimers? (Also I realize that there is probably some case by case basis for this).


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## Contra_Mundum (Jul 22, 2007)

quoting myself above:


> I'm *NOT* serving communion (should it happen!) _even_ to my father, a communicant member, not under discipline, who [happens to] develops Alzheimers/dementia.



Why would I violate the Standards?


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## Robert Truelove (Nov 4, 2007)

I have recently (this year) changed from the paedocomunion position back to credo so perhaps I am still working this out but here is my current position on this. 

1. First and foremost...the case of the mentally impaired as an arguement for paedcommunion holds little weight for me as it is the question of an exceptional case. We are never to make the exception the rule (i.e. in some of your credo churches you give the sacrament to those suffering with alzheimers so you might as well give it to the 2 year olds too).

2. I think we need to be careful in the case of the elderly who suffer with diseases like alzheimers not to be too quick to rush into judgment as to when they can no longer discern. My current practice...as long as an alzheimers patient is aware of the bread and wine being administered (meaning in most cases they can 'take and eat' without assistance), I trust to the Lord that they partake rightly. When it comes to the place that the tray is passed around and they stare off into space completely unaware, then I think it not right for them to partake (nor would they unless someone actually feeds it to them).

The reason I think it wrong to bar an alzheimers patient is because they tend to have 'good' days and 'bad' days. One Lord's Day they are aware, the next they are not. This is something I would rather deal with pastorally with the family involved rather than having the session make a ruling to 'bar' the individual from the supper.

Finally, any who will point out I am being inconsistent by holding to the above and also rejecting paedocommunion...if this is so, I am happy to be inconsistent in this matter.


I recently did a 2 part series called Credocommunion Defended for any interested (it's under the 'Sacraments' link).



Jeff_Bartel said:


> Out of curiosity, would some of you pastors administer communion to a long-time faithful member that down the road gained alzheimers? (Also I realize that there is probably some case by case basis for this).


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