On Closed Communion: Or “Eucharistic Discipline” if you prefer. This is a serious question, mainly for the Lutherans but also for anybody that feel like answering. Let’s grant that people not in fellowship with your group cannot participate in your communion. Now let’s turn it around. For whatever reason (you’re visiting family) you find yourself in a non-Lutheran (or non-whatever) communion service. Do you partake, or not?

If not, why not?

I read somewhere recently that at least some Lutherans would refuse to participate because they were “just plain symbols,” and so then I ask, “Why?” What is it that makes those “just plain symbols” instead of the very body and blood of Christ? What makes Christ’s presence real in one communion service and not another? Is it the faith of the recipient? If so, it seem you could partake of any communion service without problem. Is it the faith of the person administering the elements? Luther, at least, seemed to strongly indicate otherwise. Is it the method by which it is administered? Certain prayers or certain actions, perhaps? That’s pulling a bit much out of Scripture, I think. How is it that the “real presence” of Christ is subject to such conditions?

I’m trying to figure out why someone would deliberately skip communion in an environment where it is open to all believers. Unless, of course, the person doesn’t believe that the group with which he is sitting are Christians at all. But even then…