Hilary Bogert-Winkler 4 May 2023

Communion without Bap<sm: State of the Debate

In May of last year, during the lead up to the 80th General Conven;on of the Episcopal

Church, the Diocese of Northern California submiBed resolu;on C028, ;tled “All Are Welcome

at the Table.” The resolu;on proposed that the “80th General Conven;on repeal CANON 1.17.7

of the Cons;tu;on and Canons of the Episcopal Church…which states: ‘No unbap;zed person

shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.’” The archives for the church include

several related resolu;ons from previous General Conven;ons. In 2015, General Conven;on

rejected a resolu;on to form a task force inves;ga;ng “Open Communion” as well as another

resolu;on to amend the canon in ques;on. In 2012, the church reaffirmed bap;sm as “the

ancient and norma;ve entry point to receiving Holy Communion.” And in 1979, General

Conven;on adopted as part of its standards for non-Episcopalians receiving communion in the

Episcopal Church the requirement that they be bap;zed with water in the name of the Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit.1

Clearly, this is not a new issue in The Episcopal Church, nor is it new for many Anglicans

worldwide. The resolu;on of 2022 didn’t make it out of commiBee, and thus was never

considered by the General Conven;on. Nevertheless, it touched off a fairly-public churchwide

debate about the prac;ce of “Open Communion” (defined here as communion of the

unbap;zed) and its place in the Episcopal Church. The debate could be broadly summarized as

one between those focusing on the radical hospitality of Jesus, as evidenced in the eight

suppor;ng points for Resolu;on C028 which I’ll discuss more below, and those focusing on the

place of bap;sm in the church’s life and its founda;on for par;cipa;on in the Eucharist.

1
h#ps://www.episcopalarchives.org/sites/default/files/gc_resolu9ons/2022-C028.pdf

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Communion without Bap<sm: State of the Debate

What is at stake for each of these groups, and how does this debate highlight broader

issues about Anglican sacramental theology and liturgical forma;on in the church today? What

I’d like to do here is to provide a kind of broad overview of the current conversa;on around

communion of the unbap;zed in the Episcopal Church, no;ng the major ques;ons that are

being brought to the fore, at least here in the United States, and what I see are some important

issues this discussion raises. Indeed, I could spend thirty minutes discussing the relevant

debates of the last 20 years, but given that I have a ten minute limit, I will confine myself to

what was revealed last summer about the state of things. And while I recognize the issue may

not yet be pressing in other parts of the communion, I do think this debate raises larger

ques;ons for Anglicans worldwide about sacramental theology and liturgical forma;on—

ques;ons that are at the heart of our witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ.

To return to last summer, the Northern California resolu;on presented eight points of

explana;on for their proposal “1. The Episcopal Church is known for welcoming all to aBend

services. 2 According to the Gospels, during the last supper Jesus made no men;on of the

requirement for recipients of bread and wine, taken in remembrance of Him, to be bap;zed. 3 It

is uncomfortable to visualize Jesus turning anybody away who desires to remember Him. 4. The

Holy Eucharist described in the Catechism sec;on of the Book of Common Prayer (1979) makes

no men;on of bap;sm being a prerequisite for receiving communion (page 859). 5. Bap;sm is a

vital part of being a Chris;an, but not, according to the Gospels, a prerequisite for partaking in

the Holy Meal. 6. The Episcopal Church has removed many barriers that were not consistent

with the teachings of Jesus. 7. This removes the presumed requirement for the person

delivering the Holy Meal to assure the recipient has been bap;zed. 8. This could help grow

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Communion without Bap<sm: State of the Debate

congrega;ons by reducing the number of visitors who do not return because they felt excluded

during communion.”2 In other words, The Episcopal Church is known for its hospitality, Jesus

never required bap;sm for ‘partaking in the Holy Meal,’ such a barrier is inconsistent with

scripture, and more people will join the church if they are able to receive communion.” 3

At the heart of those arguing in favor of “Open Communion” is the issue of hospitality.

Aker twenty-two theologians and seminary faculty signed a leBer opposing C028 (which I’ll

discuss more in a moment), another group signed a leBer in support of it. While they asked that

C028 be referred to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, they also asked for the

development of an ‘invita;onal’ rubric to Communion in the Prayer Book, as well as changing

the canon in ques;on to be posi;ve, as opposed to nega;ve (again, the canon currently reads

“No unbap;zed person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church”).4 What the

signers of this leBer want the church to recognize officially is that, while as the 2012 resolu;on

from General Conven;on states, bap;sm may be the “norma;ve” entry point to Holy

Communion, “there are other entry points as well,” ci;ng examples of when Holy Communion

served as some people’s entreé into the church, and no;ng that “the Holy Spirit does not

always work in linear ways or respect the ‘good order’ of the Church.” The concern, they say, is

that the tone of the current canon is one of “control and gate-keeping” and that it reduces

bap;sm to being a “dinner ;cket to…Communion,” while also limi;ng “the people of God” to

the bap;zed.5 Intriguingly, this leBer largely ignores the emphasis on mission you can find in the

2
h#ps://www.episcopalarchives.org/sites/default/files/gc_resolu9ons/2022-C028.pdf
3
Ibid.
4
“Statement on Bap9sm and Eucharist in the Episcopal Church,” h#ps://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/wp-
content/uploads/2022/06/Pentecost_Le#er_06.05.2022-3_C028.pdf.
5
Ibid.

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Communion without Bap<sm: State of the Debate

resolu;on itself (the idea being that we will get more people in church if we open communion

to all). One can find a hint towards it in the claim that “as followers of Jesus, we resist all

barriers to those seeking the grace and mercy of the sacraments from whatever doors they

enter.”6 Hospitality is, for this group, the driving factor behind our Eucharis;c prac;ce. And I

should note that this does not mean we should immediately dismiss any arguments around the

hospitality of Christ and the Eucharist. As James Farwell has helpfully pointed out, arguments

about hospitality “deserve aBen;on, both because of the human propensity to for;fy our own

egos and privileges by excluding others and because, by any reading of the gospels, Jesus' vision

of the kingdom was one which renders problema;c any hard boundaries between insiders and

outsiders.”7 Farwell’s key rejoinder, though, is that open communion is fundamentally

inhospitable because it “represents confusion about the very nature of the gik that the church

has to offer the culture in which it is situated.”8

For those on the opposite side of the debate, the ques;on of Open Communion is, at its

heart, a ques;on about the rela;onship between bap;sm and Eucharist, in par;cular the role of

bap;sm as an entry point into the Chris;an life and into par;cipa;on in the Eucharist. The

statement released in 2022 soon aker the Northern California resolu;on was presented starts

by sta;ng that “Holy Bap;sm is the sacramental founda;on of our common life with God and

one another. Freely offered to all humanity, Bap;sm is the fountain from which the other

sacraments flow.”9 For this group, then, the emphasis is on bap;sm as the founda;onal

6
“Statement on Bap9sm and Eucharist in the Episcopal Church”
7
James Farwell, “Bap9sm, Eucharist, and the Hospitality of Jesus: On the Prac9ce of ‘Open Communion,’” Anglican
Theological Review 86n.2 (Spring 2004), 216.
8
Ibid., 217.
9
h#ps://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2022/06/01/episcopal-theologians-release-statement-expressing-
concern-about-open-communion/

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sacrament for the Chris;an life, and the place of Eucharist as “a special offering of thanksgiving

by those who are united by a common faith, responsive to the Word proclaimed in their midst

and recalling in Eucharis;c liturgy the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, their common Lord.”10 The

Eucharist, then, is not a sacrament for all comers, but rather something specifically for those

who are members of the body of Christ. And I think this is where we start to get to the crux of

the maBer and the larger ques;ons this debate presents for liturgists and theologians today. I’d

like to zero in on three issues that I believe open up the discussion and point to the need for a

greater awareness, at least in the Episcopal Church, of what our sacramental theology is, how it

is expressed in our liturgy, and why any of this maBers in a world facing so many crises. These

ques;ons are: where do we find common ground for having this discussion, what is the

Eucharist for, and what is the state of our liturgical forma;on in the church?

Turning to the first ques;on: The statement released in favor of resolu;on C028 noted

“It feels as though there are two opposing camps on the topic of “open communion,” choosing

up [sic] sides and talking past each other.”11 This is, I think, an important insight (though

somewhat ironic given that taking up sides is what the statement itself, and many of those

suppor;ng it on social media, went on to do). One group is talking about hospitality. The other

is talking about bap;sm, some;mes couched in the language of tradi;on. What is the meeting

point between these conversations? It is almost as though we are having two completely

different conversations, and so long as this reality persists, we will continue to talk past one

another rather than engage in meaningful dialogue. Those arguing for Open Communion bring

10
Ibid., quo9ng the “Commentary on Eucharis9c Sharing”
11
“Statement on Bap9sm and Eucharist in the Episcopal Church”

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Communion without Bap<sm: State of the Debate

with them a focus on the radical hospitality of the Gospel, and the need of the world to hear

the Good News of Christ. Those arguing for Communion of the Baptized bring with them a focus

on the foundational and transformational realities of baptism, and how the grace bestowed in

baptism draws us into new life in Christ–a life that requires us to serve the needs of the world.

What the conversation all too often devolves into, however, are claims by one side that the

others are exclusionary and have no concern for the needs of the world (perhaps best summed

up in the "with everything going wrong–climate emergency, gun violence, anti LTBGQ

legislation, threats to democracy, etc–this is what they choose to argue about? We have more

important things to do!") and claims from the other side that those who are for Open

Communion have no respect for tradition, the claims of baptism, or the doctrine and discipline

of the Church. These are extreme views that help no one. We must learn how to have

conversations about this together.

Which leads to the second question: what is the Eucharist for? This is question which, in

itself, can bring us to the fundamental issue of who the Eucharist is for as well. It is here, in the

conversation about the meaning of the Eucharist, that perhaps we can find the common ground

on which to have a conversation. Those in favor of communion without baptism seem mostly

concerned with who the Eucharist is meant for (everyone) and what the Eucharist can do for

the church (evanglism) but there is less robust discussion about what, exactly, the Eucharist is.

The 1995 Dublin Statement on “Renewing the Anglican Eucharist” provides a helpful and

succinct statement about Anglican Eucharistic theology that should, I think, guide our

conversations about open communion. As the statement notes from the very beginning, the

Eucharist is “the great sign of our common identity as people of God, the body of Christ, and

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the community of the Holy Spirit,” and in the Eucharist we encounter the model of how “God as

redeemer comes into the world in the Word made flesh.” Further, those who participate in the

Eucharist “respond by offering themselves—broken individuals—to be made one body in Christ’s

risen life. This continual process of transformation is enacted in each celebration”.12 Noteworthy

here is that this is a self-offering and a continual process. That initial self-offering in baptism,

then, leads us to continual transformation in each celebration of the Eucharist.

What I found in the conversations last summer is that those who stand by the

traditional position of the church (that communion is for the baptized), a strong eucharistic

theology flows out of a strong baptismal ecclesiology and theology. When baptism is removed

from the equation, or is seen as a secondary sacrament in that it is no longer considered the

“fountain from which all other sacraments flow,” there is an absence of a strong Eucharistic

theology. The Eucharist is less about the Church, and instead becomes about the experience of

the individual, or about some kind of missional strategy. What is lost, then, is the very

communal nature of the Eucharist. In seeking to open the sacrament to all, paradoxically the

sacrament becomes tied to the individual experience and not to the body of Christ. The

Eucharist, after all, is not celebrated by the priest. It is celebrated by the body of Christ, which is

made up of all of the baptized. As Lizette Larsen Miller wrote last summer, “it is the church,

with its head Jesus the Christ, which makes Eucharist. The church is formed of Christ and the

12
IALC Dublin Statement, 1.

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baptized—the non-baptized do not ‘celebrate’ the eucharist. They may be present in the room,

but there is not a participatory reality there.”13

The anamenetic nature of the Eucharist becomes lost when those who participate have

not been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection—what we remember and make present

in the Eucharist is not just a statement of faith to which we assent, it is a reality to which the

baptized have committed themselves with their whole being. It is a reality that demands

significant commitments from us, commitments we take on in baptism. Can those who have

not offered themselves to be part of Christ’s Body take part in that anamnesis? If not, what

does the ritual become? At the end of the day, is it only the individual experience that matters?

As the 2012 Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission Huron statement about communion of

the unbaptized notes, “We need to go deeper and ask whether we are drawn to the eucharist

primarily because we (unlike the first disciples) have such a natural affinity for Jesus’

progressive social outlook, or whether we (like the first disciples) have found ourselves

transformed by the spectacle of his rejection and the mystery of his vindication.”14 The

centrality of the cross—and our implication in Christ’s crucifixion and participation in his

resurrection—is fundamental to our understanding of both baptism and Eucharist, and was

largely absent from the conversation last summer.

Discussions of what the Eucharist is lead us into a discussion of who the Eucharist is for,

though it’s worth noting the entire conversation has often started with the question of who. If

13
Lize#e Larsen-Miller, “‘Bap9smal Ecclesiology without Bap9sm?’ What is the Episcopal Church Doing?,”
h#ps://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2022/05/12/bap9smal-ecclesiology-without-bap9sm-what-is-the-
episcopal-church-doing/.
14
"The Huron Statement: From Font to Table," Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission (June 2012), 3.

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we have an agreed-upon understanding of what Eucharist is, then perhaps we can arrive at an

agreement on who it is for. That sounds simple, and yet part of what I think is happening is that

for the Open Communion side, the essential starting point for this conversation is who, while

for the communion of the baptized group, the starting point is what. And for each, that starting

point cannot (at least so far as I understand the arguments) be changed. I’m not entirely sure of

what the solution is here, but I find it a helpful perspective when trying to get a deeper

understanding of the debate. As I’ve noted already, however, there’s a curious and troubling

individualism at work in the arguments for communion without baptism that is explicitly tied to

this question of ‘who,’ that I think must be reckoned with in further conversations.15 Further,

this kind of move negates many important developments from the liturgical movement that

emerged in the 1960s and 70s, and would in some ways be turning the clock back on our

ecclesiology.

Which leads to my final point, which has to do with formation. That this is even an issue

speaks, to me, not only of the changing contexts of our ministry (at least in the post-

Christendom realities of places like the United States) but also of a fundamental failure to form

Christians in our congregations. A personal story for a moment: when the statement in support

of communion of the baptized was released last summer in response to C028, a long-time

15
Tangen9ally related to this is also what I perceive to be a certain clericalism inherent in the open communion
argument, which again is paradoxical to their stated aims. When we think about bap9sm and Eucharist, it is the
Eucharist which requires a priest (with excep9ons for Eucharist from the reserved sacrament, but as that’s not a
norma9ve prac9ce we’ll put that aside for a moment). The emphasis on receiving communion as a person’s
primary encounter with the body of Christ moves that encounter to a sacrament that requires a priest. Bap9sm,
however, while it is oeen done by a priest may be done by any bap9zed Chris9an, and further the emphasis in that
sacrament is on the ministry of all the bap9zed. By turning our a#en9on to the Eucharist as the entry point into the
Church, we lose the pivotal and central point that at the heart of the body of Christ is the ministry of the bap9zed,
not the priestly administra9on of the Eucharist. And again, if you think about turning the clock back to the pre-
liturgical movement, things get even more clerically-centered.

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friend of mine pronounced outrage at the whole idea of communion only being for the

baptized. This friend, a lifelong Episcopalian who has been active in the church for their entire

life, could not understand why The Episcopal Church was trying to change its doctrine. I gently

pointed out to them that, in fact, this statement was upholding the doctrine of the church that

has been in place since the earliest days of the church. Thankfully, instead of arguing with me,

they were thankful for learning something new. But the fact that they had no idea that

communion of the baptized is the standing position around Eucharist in our church was striking

to me. And I don’t think that this is a stand-alone example.

The IALC 2019 statement on formation notes several things about what we must do in

forming liturgical leaders in the church. Citing the Anglican Communion Theological Education

Group, the IALC report notes that “liturgical formation can…be described as a fundamental part

of Christian formation, which, in the Anglican Communion, is ‘formed by Scripture, shaped

through worship, ordered for communion and directed by God’s mission…[it] is a growing into

the full stature of Christ that comes from our participation in the liturgies of the church…we are

therefore talking about forming the people of God through liturgy and for liturgy.”16 The report

then goes on to lay out some fundamental questions regarding liturgical formation for the

baptized, which provide a helpful framework for thinking through what this process might look

like.

I am grateful to the IALC for this document, and for the way it highlights the centrality of

liturgical formation to the work of the entire Church, and points to how we in theological

education go about forming liturgical leaders. What is missing from the document, though, that

16
IALC 2019 report on Liturgical Forma9on of the Bap9zed, 2.

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I think was beyond the purview of the IALC’s remit, is a discussion of liturgical formation of the

laity—the largest body of ministers in the church. How do we form our fellow Anglicans in not

only what the doctrine of the church is, but why that doctrine matters? How do we help them

to see that these are not esoteric topics reserved for academics and intellectuals, but rather

vital aspects of everyone's faith? How do we help everyone to see that we focus on issues of

social justice precisely because we are changed in baptism and continually nourished and

challenged by our unity in the body of Christ in Eucharist?

The entirety of the debate about communion of the unbaptized in the Episcopal Church

last summer brought to the fore that we need to get really serious about the liturgical

formation of not only the clergy, but perhaps most especially the laity. There’s often an over-

reliance on the liturgy to do the work of formation for us. The problems inherent in that

method have been apparent since the Reformation in the sixteenth century, and perhaps this

debate is just the current iteration of those problems. But the idea that the liturgy will teach

people for us, combined with current trends in anti-intellectualism and suspicion of expertise,

mean that we have our work cut out for us.

Perhaps the most noteworthy part for me of IALC’s 2019 statement was the following:

“For humans, individually and communally, ritual is formative, and liturgy is ritual. To form

people well, liturgy should be well done and opportunities for reflection need to be

provided.”17 I, and imagine everyone here, has had the blessing and privilege of participating in

liturgies that are done well. It is the opportunity to reflect that is so often missing in our

churches. How do we build in those reflective practices, so that we have a chance as a

17
IALC Report on Liturgical Forma9on of the Bap9zed, 3.

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community not only to experience worship, but to reflect together on what has happened

when we worship and what that worship means for our witness to the Gospel? Many churches

are adept at forming their congregations in practices around scriptural reflection, but little work

is done on liturgical reflection. Perhaps that is the starting place for this debate, and perhaps

that is the work that can turn it from a debate into a meaningful dialogue.

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