Parson Brown

I appreciate the encouraging feedback I’ve received since my last post on this subject. Here are a few more thoughts.

First of all, I was genuinely surprised that Dr. Spear used the occasion of the international conference to criticize weekly communion. When I first saw the schedule for the conference and saw the title of his lecture, I was excited. Because of his recent involvement on the synod’s worship study committee and his current involvement on the committee to revise the worship directory, I was hoping that Dr. Spear would present a robust Calvinian view of the Lord’s Supper–which is certainly the kind of view that you find in our Confession and in our synod-approved theology of worship position paper. In fact, I was even hoping that Dr. Spear might throw in a good word for weekly communion. But when just the opposite occurred, I was obviously disappointed.

Mind you, this was no ordinary lecture. This was a lecture to an international gathering of 1600 RPs. Anyone who knows Dr. Spear will be able to testify to the fact that he is a most gracious and judicious theologian. He is about as charitable and as careful as they come. So, when someone of his reputation and stature speaks against weekly communion in the church, I can’t help but think that “the cause” has suffered a serious setback. The already skeptical and wary eye upon us weekly communers will be fortified now by Spear’s lecture.

Don’t misunderstand, though. If you have not heard the lecture, I don’t want you to think that Dr. Spear spent the whole hour bashing weekly communion. It wasn’t like that at all. But he did make three associations which troubled me.

1. He associated weekly communion with paedo-communion. I understand why he did this, but it is unfortunate. As far as I can tell, the RP pastors/elders who have shown an interest in weekly communion are not interested much in paedo-communion. Most of us keep these two practices completely distinct and separate. However, Dr. Spear used Keith Mathison’s book as his conversation partner, and Mathison does advocate both practices. John Calvin, though, was able to argue vehemently for at-least-weekly communion while also stridently criticizing paedo-communion. For me, Calvin is the conversation partner, not Mathison. (Dr. Spear did say during the lecture that he could not find biblical support for some of Calvin’s teaching on the Supper. But that assertion would need to be fleshed out and debated.)

2. An association was made between weekly communion and the “substance-efficacy” view of the Supper. I have been practicing weekly communion for the past 3.5 years, and I have never believed anything remotely approaching “substance-efficacy”. When I commune, I acknowledge full well that the physical body of Christ is in heaven. Yet, I also believe 1 Corinthians 10:16. Paul could have easily said that the cup and the bread are participation in Christ, but he specified that the Lord’s Supper is participation in “the body” and “the blood” of Christ. So, the real issue here seems to be the relationship between the sign and the thing signified. I happen to think that the Scriptures allow for greater mystery in this area than Dr. Spear is willing to concede. Of course, Calvin readily confessed the mysterious nature of the Supper.

3. Finally, a link was suggested between weekly communion and the teachings of John Williamson Nevin, whom Dr. Spear labeled a “heretic”. I wish that I had access to D.G. Hart’s biography of Nevin, but my entire library is in boxes right now. I don’t remember Hart calling Nevin a heretic. In fact, Hart seemed to like Nevin quite a bit. Most people in the audience at the internation conference probably knew very little about Nevin; he’s a pretty obscure figure. So, when 1600 RPs hear the terms “heretic” and “weekly communion” brought close together by the most respected theologian in the church, that can’t be good for the future of the practice of weekly communion in the RPCNA.