NR #1995-039: For Immediate Release Presbytery Rejects Paedocommunion Views of Ruling Elders by Darrell Todd Maurina, Press Officer United Reformed News Service (May 12, 1995) URNS - Ascension Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America has unanimously rejected a decision by one of its congregations to allow ruling elders to believe that the Lord's Supper should be served to young children. At its stated meeting in Butler, Pennsylvania on April 28 and 29, the presbytery declared with respect to Niagara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, New York, that "the allowance of the exceptions of ruling elders to the constitutional standards regarding their belief that communion should be offered to baptized children of the church as young as 2 or 3 years old is not an allowable exception for church officers." A complicating factor in the declaration is that the entire Buffalo session had taken exception to the relevant sections of the Westminster Larger Catechism, Westminster Shorter Catechism, and the PCA Book of Church Order. Although the vote had been postponed at the presbytery's previous meeting in January, Dr. Carl Bogue of Faith Presbyterian Church in Akron, Ohio, said there was little discussion at either the January or the April meeting. "The concern in postponing it until this month was that it is certainly a significant thing to tell someone this is not an acceptable exception," said Bogue. "Most of the men have some real questions about this kind of thing, I've heard no one really defending it in our presbytery." The Presbyterian Church in America and most other Presbyterian denominations differ from Dutch Reformed practice by allowing officebearers to take "exceptions" to the doctrinal standards of their denomination. If a pastor takes an exception, he must present the exception to his presbytery which must then decide whether to allow it. Ruling elders and deacons must follow the same procedure but present exceptions to their local church session. While session minutes are reviewed by the presbytery to which a church belongs and the general assembly reviews the records of each presbytery, exceptions allowed by a session or presbytery are rarely overturned. The result in the PCA has been significant differences between presbyteries and local churches on what exceptions are allowed. Paedocommunion has been a particularly difficult issue in the PCA because those who advocate admitting very young children and infants to the Lord's Table include some of most conservative men in the denomination. While most PCA conservatives hold the traditional Reformed position that children may not come to the Lord's Table prior to making a public profession of faith before their elders, other prominent conservatives such as Rev. Steve Wilkins and Rev. Mark Duncan hold the position that baptized covenant children may partake of the Lord's Supper from very early years. Both are members of Louisiana Presbytery which has allowed their exceptions. Wilkins expressed surprise that the Ascension Presbytery voted against allowing the exceptions. "Ascension would be the first presbytery to do this sort of thing, so far as I know," said Wilkins. "The only people I've heard of who embraced the paedocommunion position have been highly Reformed men who have the deepest respect for the confession and catechisms of the church. This is not being lightly embraced, we are not doing so out of sentimentalism, but with a high regard for the confessions of the church." "It seems to me there is an inconsistence in the historic Presbyterian view, in which we acknowledge the covenant and say children can be admitted to baptism on that basis, and then turn around and take a baptistic view that you have to be converted to come to the other sacrament," said Wilkins. According to Wilkins, very young children but not infants should come to the Lord's Table. "We're not talking about force-feeding infants, this would be a young child able to eat on his own, drink on his own," said Wilkins. "We're talking about baptized children, not any children, and this is not based on any sort of presumption about his regeneration. Children are members of the church and should receive all of the means of grace, and the Lord's Supper is one of the means by which people come to a more full and complete understanding of the gospel." "It's based on trying to take the covenant very seriously and give the session an objective basis on whether to admit them to the table rather than a subjective basis, whether their heart has been changed," said Wilkins. "Very often people make admittance to the Lord's Supper harder than it is to get into heaven and I'm not sure that's the intention of the Lord's Supper." Wilkins said that although he preaches and teaches in favor of paedocommunion his church does not practice paedocommunion. However, the church has admitted children as young as four to the Lord's Table based upon their profession of faith before the session. "We're trying to make an effort at lawful reform rather than revolutionary action to overturn the creed and confessions which we don't want to do," said Wilkins. "We cannot practice this until the standards are amended. This is not a confessional position, so this is not something any church should practice at this time unless they want to leave the PCA." Even teaching in favor of paedocommunion is unacceptable to Bogue, however. "I've read a number of things on the subject and have seen nothing to convince me that Jonathan Edwards was wrong on the qualifications for communion," said Bogue, alluding to the New England Congregationalist of the 1700's who was dismissed from his pulpit for insisting no one should come to the Lord's Table without being able to give a testimony of his conversion. "I think my main concern is it's a question of discerning the Lord's body and examining oneself, and infants and young children can't do that." Cross-References to Related RBPS Articles: [No previous articles on file] Contact List: Dr. Carl Bogue, Pastor, Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA) 2540 S. Main St., Akron, OH 44319 * O: (216) 644-9654 * H: (216) 882-6020 Elder Frederick "Jay" Neikirk, Stated Clerk, Ascension Presbytery (PCA) P. O. Box 12, Volant, PA 16156 * O: (412) 946-3557* H: (412) 946-3240 Pastor J. Steven Wilkins, Pastor, Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church 109 Auburn Ave., Monroe, LA 71201 * O: (318) 323-3061 * H: (318) 323-4910 ------------------------------------------------ file: /pub/resources/text/reformed: nr95-039.txt .