(ENS) ‘Water first, or table?’ Committee hears ‘open table’ testimony

Posted by Kendall Harmon

(Please note the headline is ENS' not mine, I intensely dislike the Open Table language and use Communion of the Unbaptized [or Communion without Baptism] instead--KSH).

Emma Grandhauser, from Minnesota, a member of convention’s official youth presence, testified that she didn’t attend church until she was six, and she was baptized at 13.
“I still remember my first Sunday in church at St. John the Evangelist in St. Paul,” she said. “It’s a church with their own open table policy.
“I was blown away by how welcoming the community was,” she said. “They didn’t just tell me about God’s love, they showed me that God’s love is for everyone....

But the Rev. Jason Wells, a deputy alternate from the Diocese of New Hampshire, said that to the unbaptized he offers a blessing at the altar rail “and prepares them for baptism, to make their first communion immediately after that. I don’t do that because there’s a canon on the books. I do it for the theological and biblical rationale. To remove this one line from our canons does not change what my practice would be in the church.”
He called the resolution’s language “confusing and somewhat self-defeating.”

Read it all.

Update: An Anglican Ink article on this may also be found there.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • General Convention • --Gen. Con. 2012 • * Theology • Anthropology • Sacramental Theology • Baptism • Eucharist

6 Comments
Posted July 6, 2012 at 4:59 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. tjmcmahon wrote:

“It’s a church with their own open table policy.”

That is to say, a church where the rector, and his bishop, should be immediately deposed for canonical violations, but of course, they are canonical violations in keeping with the leadership of TEC, so no action will ever be taken.

July 6, 7:40 pm | [comment link]
2. Sherri2 wrote:

With each new departure from the faith we inherited, TEC reveals itself to be less and less anything that looks like a Christian church. TEC wants to make Christianity “free” - which looks a lot like “worthless” as they present it. The cost has never been free - your heart, your soul, your all. Why balk at baptism (or confirmation)  if you’re prepared to give the rest? Do people really flee if they can’t come in the door unbaptised and unknowing and go right up to the altar and receive? I attended an Epsicopal church for a year without receiving, even though I had been baptised. What I found there then was so worth staying for, so worth confirmation classes and so worth confirmation itself.

July 6, 9:46 pm | [comment link]
3. Nikolaus wrote:

“Open Table” (CWOB) is deliberately intended to cause confusion with “Open Communion” (open to all baptised Christians).

July 7, 12:13 am | [comment link]
4. Nikolaus wrote:

...and we know what wishes to sew confusion in the Church…

July 7, 12:14 am | [comment link]
5. SC blu cat lady wrote:

I rather liked this reply over at Anglican Ink

Maybe we should look to Jesus himself for guidance…he was baptised before he took part in the Last Supper.  There you go, issue resolved.  Next?

Also, it has been discussed other places that this resolution in conjunction with the one that is says confirmation is no longer required for holding an elected office at the parish or diocesan levels means that leadership at these levels will not only be opened to those who are not Christian but also to those who could be openly opposed to it and try to destroy it thru the churches own procedures. 

Who thinks up these resolutions???

July 7, 7:11 am | [comment link]
6. lostdesert wrote:

..... will not only be opened to those who are not Christian but also to those who could be openly opposed to it and try to destroy it thru the churches own procedures. 

Who thinks up these resolutions???

These great ideas come from the same folks who force University Christian groups to allow non-Christians to join and even hold office, thereby assuring that the group can be destroyed from within.  Well, at least that couldn’t happen in the US Congress and Senate ..... wait ......

July 7, 7:45 am | [comment link]
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