Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Condition for Eucharist: follower of Christ?

Bouncing off Brannon's comment, I figured this should be it's own post.

I remember visiting to a friend's Church of Christ (southern 'We're the true church' style as opposed to northern Episcopal-like style) when I was a kid and being told I couldn't have communion in their church since I hadn't been baptized. My little mind wondered: I had been allowed to take communion in my church - why not this church?

I would value requiring baptism before participating in the eucharist (and before becoming a member), but unless the practice of infant baptism also increased, I don't see value in not allowing people to come to the table.

Maybe throughout church tradition the sacrament of baptism was a step towards the sacrament of eucharist and maybe today that path reversed due to the logistics of baptizing (many wanting only full immersion baptism, but not having a baptistry).

Or maybe I need to keep trying to increase my value of baptism as I have in recent years with my value of the eucharist.

The last two months when we've had Communion at church, I've wanted to go get my son out of nursery and allow him to participate. Now, he's only two, but was "dedicated" and has recently been learning to pray and learning who Jesus is. Besides all that, I'm not sure whether it would be right in praxis or in theology. Thoughts on that?

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