Friday, January 12, 2007

Should women receive Holy Communion? Should infants be baptized?

Quite often, we hear that because there are no examples of infants being baptized in the Scriptures we should not baptize infants. Whole households which are baptized don't matter, because we would be assuming infants are present. This is something which "decision baptizers" will hold to at all costs. We should not follow a custom of men without God's warrant.

Now, for communing women. A while back, I asked a friend who who follows the above principle whether, if we have no examples of women receiving Holy Communion, we should be communing women. After all, there are no explicit examples, and we are not allowed to assume anything or we are not following the reformation principle of "Sola Scriptura"--we may not substitute our judgment for that of the Scriptures.

I thought his head would explode, as he frantically tried to change the subject.

Anyway, my point is not to give debating points to my Lutheran brothers and sisters, but to question whether the "Regulative Principle" has any practical use. How does one decide if we should make Communion a Passover meal or not?. It seems to me that my friend above, if he really followed his principle consistently, should refuse Communion to women. I can't think of a single group who does this, and it makes me wonder of the arguments against infant baptism are not, on some level, really special pleading.

2 comments:

Orycteropus Afer said...

Thank you, Mr. Reiss, for an interesting new perspective from which to study and debate an old problem. Please claim your Golden Aardvark for outstanding theological short.

Jason Reed said...

your post is brilliant.

Thank you.

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