A question to Steve and the other brothers here --
11 years ago we joined a small, conservative plain Mennonite church. They practice closed communion, meaning you have to be a member or known to them, or a member at a similar church doctrine wise.
I asked about why they practice it this way. One of the leaders said he used to take communion at his daughter in law's family's church when they went there to visit, until he learned that there were people there who were divorced and remarried (which they consider adultery). I got the feeling they felt that somehow you would be contaminated by the other person's being in a 'sinful' state. He mentioned "not discerning the Lord's body." It seems to have something to do with their view of what it means being joined to the church body.
Having come from a protestant background, I always saw communion as something you do in obedience and spiritually speaking with the Lord, and you are just one of many people there who are individually communing with the Lord while being in the public meeting of the church.
Do you have an understanding of what is meant? And do you consider this approach Biblical?
Thanks
Paula in PA.
Communion Doctrine Question
Re: Communion Doctrine Question
Hi Paula,
Good to see you posting here! I think the Mennonites are thinking of 1 Corinthians 5:9ff, where Paul forbids Christians to have table fellowship with professing Christians who live immorally. The table fellowship that Paul had in mind may very well have been that of the love feast, where the early Christians took "communion" together. This would mean that the church was not to permit people to take communion who were known to be living in unrepentant sin. The Mennonites (in agreement with most of the church fathers, but not necessarily with Scripture) see remarriage after divorce as adultery in every case. Thus, they feel justified in limiting their communion to those who agree with them on this issue. This is reasonable, coming from their point of view.
On the other hand, Paul is not suggesting that we need to examine everyone else's lives in a congregation before having communion with them. The only people that Paul commands us to examine is ourselves (1 Cor.11:28). The case in view in 1 Corinthians 5 was a notorious and indisputable case of adultery/incest. Paul is advocating that the whole church expel the unrepentant offender—not that individual members abstain from participation from the communal act as long as the person is present. Paul was saying that obvious and notorious sin should not be tolerated by the church as a whole.
Divorce and remarriage can be a much more ambiguous issue than is open incest and adultery. The latter is universally condemned by all moral people (Paul says that even the heathen condemn such behavior—1 Cor.5:1). By contrast, divorce may occur for a wide range of reasons—some more and some less blameworthy. Clearly, a man or woman who ditches their spouse in order to marry another is guilty of adultery. It is less universally condemned among Christians when the ground of one person seeking a divorce is the adultery of the spouse. The same ambiguity exists in the matter of remarriage following such a "legitimate" divorce. A good case can be made scripturally for the legitimacy of such divorce and remarriage—even if the Mennonites remain unconvinced.
It is clear that there are Christians who go through with a divorce having a clear conscience and the conviction that they are obeying the scriptures. If they are mistaken, they are not mistaken in the same sense that an outright adulterer is mistaken. The matter is probably as disputable in the modern church as was the matter of eating meat sacrificed to idols in the early church. Whatever one cannot do in faith is sin, but if one is, with good cause, convinced that he/she is guided by scripture, and walking in obedience to Christ, then there is no willful sin involved.
I believe that a group of Christians has every right to agree among themselves as to the rightness or wrongness of divorce (when "fornication" is the grounds), and about remarriage. If they are in agreement that this is a moral violation, they may meet separately from people who violate this standard—but they are in no position to condemn such folks as willful adulterers. The matter is too much open to interpretation to justify such condemnation. If they wish to keep people out of their meetings whom they regard as adulterers, that is one thing. They must follow their consciences on this.
However, this is not the same as justifying "closed communion"—which goes further and denies fellowship to non-offenders, who do not happen to belong to their group. Certainly there are many non-Mennonite Christians who are not divorced and remarried, and in whose case no argument can be made for denying them table fellowship. To exclude other Christians than those of a certain group from participating in communion is to act as if only those in that group are redeemed by the blood and participate in the body of Jesus. Such an assumption is cult-like in the extreme.
Good to see you posting here! I think the Mennonites are thinking of 1 Corinthians 5:9ff, where Paul forbids Christians to have table fellowship with professing Christians who live immorally. The table fellowship that Paul had in mind may very well have been that of the love feast, where the early Christians took "communion" together. This would mean that the church was not to permit people to take communion who were known to be living in unrepentant sin. The Mennonites (in agreement with most of the church fathers, but not necessarily with Scripture) see remarriage after divorce as adultery in every case. Thus, they feel justified in limiting their communion to those who agree with them on this issue. This is reasonable, coming from their point of view.
On the other hand, Paul is not suggesting that we need to examine everyone else's lives in a congregation before having communion with them. The only people that Paul commands us to examine is ourselves (1 Cor.11:28). The case in view in 1 Corinthians 5 was a notorious and indisputable case of adultery/incest. Paul is advocating that the whole church expel the unrepentant offender—not that individual members abstain from participation from the communal act as long as the person is present. Paul was saying that obvious and notorious sin should not be tolerated by the church as a whole.
Divorce and remarriage can be a much more ambiguous issue than is open incest and adultery. The latter is universally condemned by all moral people (Paul says that even the heathen condemn such behavior—1 Cor.5:1). By contrast, divorce may occur for a wide range of reasons—some more and some less blameworthy. Clearly, a man or woman who ditches their spouse in order to marry another is guilty of adultery. It is less universally condemned among Christians when the ground of one person seeking a divorce is the adultery of the spouse. The same ambiguity exists in the matter of remarriage following such a "legitimate" divorce. A good case can be made scripturally for the legitimacy of such divorce and remarriage—even if the Mennonites remain unconvinced.
It is clear that there are Christians who go through with a divorce having a clear conscience and the conviction that they are obeying the scriptures. If they are mistaken, they are not mistaken in the same sense that an outright adulterer is mistaken. The matter is probably as disputable in the modern church as was the matter of eating meat sacrificed to idols in the early church. Whatever one cannot do in faith is sin, but if one is, with good cause, convinced that he/she is guided by scripture, and walking in obedience to Christ, then there is no willful sin involved.
I believe that a group of Christians has every right to agree among themselves as to the rightness or wrongness of divorce (when "fornication" is the grounds), and about remarriage. If they are in agreement that this is a moral violation, they may meet separately from people who violate this standard—but they are in no position to condemn such folks as willful adulterers. The matter is too much open to interpretation to justify such condemnation. If they wish to keep people out of their meetings whom they regard as adulterers, that is one thing. They must follow their consciences on this.
However, this is not the same as justifying "closed communion"—which goes further and denies fellowship to non-offenders, who do not happen to belong to their group. Certainly there are many non-Mennonite Christians who are not divorced and remarried, and in whose case no argument can be made for denying them table fellowship. To exclude other Christians than those of a certain group from participating in communion is to act as if only those in that group are redeemed by the blood and participate in the body of Jesus. Such an assumption is cult-like in the extreme.
Re: Communion Doctrine Question
And not only is there overt exclusion of people from communion, but "fencing the table' is subtly practiced in some churches (perhaps many) by deliberately scheduling communion at a time when only the most diligent are likely to show up.
Re: Communion Doctrine Question
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your points. I guess I wasn't looking to stir up anything about divorce & remarriage because there are Godly people who don't agree on this one. I had not thought about the table fellowship issue you mentioned and that may be the basis for their decision.
I have really appreciated the mp3 files on the website and listened to many of them. We used the church history series as part of our homeschooling church history with our daughter. I listen to the question & answer program when I am doing work around the house and take some of the messages with me in an mp3 player when I am over at my mother's house during long hours caring for her (she is 85). I much prefer the teaching to the junk on the radio to which she would listen.
I agree that we are only commanded to examine ourselves. Do you see communion as a group event with the Lord, or individuals communing but doing it "together" if you get the distinction which I am finding hard to describe? I guess our churches stress the body as a group almost to the exclusion of the individual sometimes. They stress Christ died for the church, rather than he died for "me" as so much contemporary thought and music stresses.
1Cor 15:58
Paula
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your points. I guess I wasn't looking to stir up anything about divorce & remarriage because there are Godly people who don't agree on this one. I had not thought about the table fellowship issue you mentioned and that may be the basis for their decision.
I have really appreciated the mp3 files on the website and listened to many of them. We used the church history series as part of our homeschooling church history with our daughter. I listen to the question & answer program when I am doing work around the house and take some of the messages with me in an mp3 player when I am over at my mother's house during long hours caring for her (she is 85). I much prefer the teaching to the junk on the radio to which she would listen.
I agree that we are only commanded to examine ourselves. Do you see communion as a group event with the Lord, or individuals communing but doing it "together" if you get the distinction which I am finding hard to describe? I guess our churches stress the body as a group almost to the exclusion of the individual sometimes. They stress Christ died for the church, rather than he died for "me" as so much contemporary thought and music stresses.
1Cor 15:58
Paula