Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: mls@cbnewsm.att.com Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: open communion Message-ID: Date: 7 Feb 90 08:22:47 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 27 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , christm@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (Mark C. Christianson) writes: > Most, but not all, Lutheran churches and the Catholic church > discourages members of other denominations from receiving Communion in > their church. They also discourage their members from taking Communion > in the churches of other denominations. While I can more easily see > this in the Catholic Church, I don't understand this among the Protestant > denominations. All Episcopalian parishes I have attented have explicitly encouraged all baptized Christians who wish to communicate to do so. The consistency here suggests to me that this is established national policy, but I don't know that. Catholic theology considers communicants to be affirming certain central dogmas, so that an open communion would be "wrong" from that perspective. Why theology should dictate to liturgy is less clear to me, but the Roman church indeed insists on this. I was not aware that "most Lutheran churches" operate as you say; is this in any degree correlated with the conservative vs. liberal orientation of the different synods? -- Michael L. Siemon We must know the truth, and we must ...!cucard!dasys1!mls love the truth we know, and we must ...!att!sfbat!mls act according to the measure of our love. standard disclaimer -- Thomas Merton