I’m not on FB and haven’t seen the debate, but thought I would chime in. The following is based somewhat on a conversation I had today with men in my church, which is part of Evangel presbytery.
My opposition to paedocommunion really started in observing the manner of life and faith among the elementary age covenant children of a Reformed church where paedocommunion was embraced. A culture of strong presumptive regeneration has consequences. One of them, ironically, is that the importance of the Lord’s Supper itself is not too well understood or properly catechized, and this among children who, elsewhere, would be accustomed to high academic standards. They can conjugate Latin verbs, but they lack ready answers about what the Lord’s Supper is or what it means. Paedocommunion leads to a lack of reverence and a muddying of waters about sacred things. Clarity is lacking because age appropriate boundaries are being blurred.
An error in one thing tends to pop up elsewhere. Children who are ushered into privileges appropriate to those of an older age, or given a privilege without having to earn it as part of a process of normal growth, tend to cross other lines they ought not cross, lacking a proper respect for age, believing themselves to be wiser or more experienced or more worthy than they truly are. They don’t cross these lines knowingly, rather their parents drive them into it, likely their mothers leading the charge.
It’s a sad thing but real.
Besides the developmental concerns, I think it is safe to say that paedocommunion does not lead to children who love Jesus more, desire greater personal holiness, or who strive against sin. Rather, trusting in sacraments tends to blunt personal piety.
I reflected on the subtle differences in upbringing a paedocommunion church would form in my own children contrasted with what I had been raised with in a plain vanilla evangelical home. I then took steps to place my family in a church where heart religion would be taught.
Second, conerning sacramentalism…
I am a repenting sacramentalist. I’m geared to love aesthetics and ritual. Even though I am a member of a non-sacramentalist church in a non-sacramentalist presbytery, self awareness leads me to say that I am still inclined to it, and would return to it if I could. Short circuiting salvation through sacraments lowers my blood pressure. It’s living on Easy Street. If I could prove from Scripture that sacramental grace and participation were all I needed to reach heaven, I would be there in a heartbeat. No fuss no muss.
In confessing this, I’m nothing special, and neither is sacramentalism, as a sin, anything special. Ho hum really. Yawn inducing. It’s warned against in Scripture because all of God’s people across time fall into it. How can we say we are immune to it? Are we so much smarter, or further along in our sanctification, than the people in the Bible, or the people who lived in the 16th century?
Firm denials that we are sacramentalists, and a denial that we are tempted by it, or exhibit even a hint of it, strike me as suspicious. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Naysayers will say I’m focusing on negatives, or that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ll put my ritualist credentials up against anybody’s.
Finally, fruit matters. Always has. Always will. About paedocommunion, the wise observe, heed, reflect and avoid.