Closed Communion is Brotherly Unity and Walking Together
A long time ago, I heard a smug old LCMS liberal pastor (sympathetic to Seminex) denigrate closed communion with the quip: “It’s the Lord’s Supper, not the LCMS’s Supper.” Of course, he had that arrogant smirk as he said it. He thought he was so clever.
A pretty good likeness…
Responding to this malcontent would require a neologism: a portmanteau combining the words "stupid” and “ironic.” What he seems to have forgotten is why there is an LCMS in the first place: closed communion. For the Saxons who emigrated and would go on to become the LCMS left their German homeland because they were forbidden from practicing closed communion. By means of the Prussian Union, the state compelled Lutherans to be in communion fellowship with the Reformed.
And the faithful practice of closed communion was so important to these so-called Old Lutherans that they were willing to leave everything behind: village and town, extended family, home, farm, business, culture, and country, emigrate across the ocean by ship, and move to a country where they didn’t yet own anything or even speak the language - all so that they could faithfully practice closed communion.
In this podcast below, two advocates of church growth and open communion (a pastor and a layman) team up against one pastor who holds to the traditional Missouri Synod view of fellowship. The former argue that closed communion is a lack of “hospitality.” At their congregation in Arizona, Christ Greenfield (I don’t know whether whether they ever had “Lutheran” in their name) - which is by LCMS standards, a megachurch (about whose worship practices Dr. Eckardt writes here), one’s synod or church body affiliation is not a consideration at all as to whether or not a visitor can commune.
But before we get into their rationale and their communion practice, why do we practice closed communion? Why was this so important to the Old Lutherans that they were willing to emigrate to America?
Closed communion is the practice of the ancient church. In the early centuries of the church, Arians (those who denied the full divinity of Jesus) and Catholics (who held to the christological orthodoxy of the Nicene Creed (and articulated in more detail at the Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon) were obviously not in communion with one another. And in those days, church fellowship was bishop-to-bishop, and a particular bishopric (and the churches in that diocese) could shift from Catholic to Arian and back again - depending on the bishop, and depending on politics. This made for a patchwork of churches in fellowship with each other.
So a traveler might have shown up at a church with a letter from his bishop to be presented to the bishop of the congregation he was visiting. Knowing that the person’s bishop was Catholic was a confession that the person held to orthodoxy, and was in good standing per his pastor. Arians were not communed at Catholic altars. Closed communion was, in former centuries, a literal matter, as non-communicant visitors and catechumens were removed from the Mass when the Liturgy of the Sacrament began (with the deacons shuttering the doors to the church at the command: “The doors, the doors”).
In time, Arianism died off. But, of course, there were other heresies. After the Great Schism of 1054 divided the Latin West from communion with the Greek East, Western churches generally understood communion fellowship as being in communion with Rome. In the East, the bishops of the larger cities recognized one another. So communion was still closed, and practiced bishop-to-bishop - though generally along East-West lines.
After the Lutherans became a separate communion following the Diet of Augsburg (1530) and its aftermath, Lutherans would not commune Roman Catholics, the Eastern Christians, the Reformed, or Anabaptists at their altars. Nor were they communed by Rome and the East. And at various times, Lutherans (as well as the other communions) found themselves in competing communions within their own confessions (such as when Rome had two, then three, competing claimant and rival popes, or when various jurisdictions in the East refused communion fellowship with one another).
The Prussian Union made closed communion among German Lutherans mainly a matter of denying fellowship to the Reformed that were forced into their congregations.
When the Saxons came to America, they went into dialogue with other Lutherans that they discovered. They went into fellowship with some (and thus shared the Sacrament of the Altar), but not with others - based on their confessions of Scripture and the Book of Concord. In 1847, the LCMS was established, which - similar to the Roman Catholic Church or members of Eastern Orthodoxy - became a shorthand for saying that congregation A is in full fellowship with congregation B. For us Lutherans, it was not by virtue of the bureaucracy per se, as it is in Rome and Constantinople, but rather by confession. Do our congregations hold the same confession as the Bible being the Word of God? Do our congregations subscribe to the Book of Concord in a quia subscription? Do our congregations have sufficient unity with one another in doctrine (and practice in accordance and in confession of that doctrine)? Or do some crucial matters of confession divide us?
So synod is, strictly speaking, a closed communion fellowship between pastors and congregations (and by extension, to schools): an association of trust extended to one another based on our walking together in the faith. Synod affiliation functions like a letter from one’s bishop in the ancient church. Pastors of synod trust one another as brothers, because they believe the same things, confess the same things, and teach the same things. We have unity in doctrine and practice, including the formation of our pastors (should, anyway). And if pastors or congregations wander away from that unity, they should be removed (or they should remove themselves) from our communion fellowship.
Another feature of fellowship is not only at the altar for the communicant, but also in the pulpit for the pastor. Ministers of different church bodies can be called to serve one another’s altars and pulpits if they are in communion with each other. And as missionaries went abroad, and as church bodies around the world discovered one another, fellowship was extended to international partner church bodies. Today, the LCMS is a part of the International Lutheran Council (ILC), and so we share altars and pulpits - and thus pastors and sacraments - with dozens of faithful church bodies around the world.
So a member of an Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya congregation is welcome to commune at an LCMS altar. A pastor in the Siberian Evangelical Lutheran Church can be invited to preach at one of our LCMS congregations. Members of LCMS congregations can find church fellowship all over the world. But we don’t have church fellowship with the Wisconsin Synod or the Evangelical Lutheran (sic) Church (sic) of America - though for very different reasons. We don’t have fellowship with the local Baptist, Roman Catholic, or non-denominational congregation or pastor.
So when we in the LCMS practice closed communion, it is an act of unity, solidarity, trust, collegiality, and fraternity with our brother pastors in the LCMS, and with our sister church bodies around the world. It is an act of unity and love, of confidence, and of common confession. Communion outside of that unity is a betrayal of that mutual trust.
But closed communion is no fun. I certainly don’t like to have to refuse someone the body and blood of Jesus. If I were to base my pastoral practice on my feelings and my own lazy sinful nature, I would just commune everyone. But I can’t do it. We are stewards of the mysteries, and as we confess in the Book of Concord, quoting St. John Chrysostom, “But of the common Mass [the Communion] they speak very much. Chrysostom says that the priest stands daily at the altar, inviting some to the Communion and keeping back others.” Why?
Because we actually believe what the Word of God teaches about the Lord’s Supper.
Neo-Evangelicals don’t generally practice closed communion since they believe it is only a symbol anyway. But we Lutherans ascribe supernatural power to the Eucharist. We take Jesus at His literal Word: “is.” And we read in 1 Cor 11 about how people became sick and even died because their pastors practiced open communion. We agree with the apostolic father St. Ignatius of Antioch, who called the Sacrament of the Altar “the medicine of immortality.” This is the most potent substance on earth. Not even all the nuclear arsenals of all of the world’s countries put together are as powerful as the body and blood of Christ. One drop of His blood has the power to save the world. And so we are cautious with it in the same way that a doctor is careful about prescribing certain drugs. For even a simple and common medication like penicillin can be deadly if the doctor gives it to the wrong person.
Knowing all of this doesn’t make practicing closed communion any more comfortable to carry out on a Sunday morning. It is like being a father. Every dad loves to toss his toddler into the air shrieking, catching him or her laughing and pleading, “Do it again!” Every dad loves to give his children ice cream and toys. No father - aside from a psychopath - enjoys disciplining his sons or daughters. But we have to do it.
Closed communion is like that.
And deviations from it - in opening up communion to those outside of our communion - is a betrayal: of our brother pastors and of our sister churches. It ruins that sense of mutual trust that we have in striving together to steward our communion rails together. Practicing open communion is a form of adultery, violating the intimate commitment that we have to one another. Indeed, open communion is like open marriage - which is no marriage at all. If a couple invites others into their bed, it isn’t “marital hospitality,” but rather “promiscuity.” Former LCMS president Jerry Kieschnick uses the term “sacramental hospitality” as a euphemism for Eucharistic promiscuity. It is a betrayal of the synod, both of her founding principles, and in the ongoing brotherhood of trust between pastors. And I have yet to find even one “church growth” congregation or one “contemporary worship” congregation that actually practices closed communion. Maybe there are. Hopefully there are. But can you just imagine what the data would look like? That said, there are also far too many liturgical churches that are also promiscuous and unfaithful by practicing open communion.
It hasn’t been an issue for me, but I know of plenty of brother pastors whose congregations have been harmed by “brother” pastors practicing open communion, causing members to leave the pastor and congregation that are striving to be faithful because Pastor Billy Bob at BigNewThing Church down the road in close proximity (often “planted” by the district) will commune Uncle Bob and Aunt Sally, while mean old Pastor Gottesdienst won’t. Well, “nice” and “welcoming” Pastor Billy Bob is a Judas goat who will feign hurt when Pastor Gottesdienst calls him out on it. And let’s just guess whom the DP will typically side with, and whom will usually get castigated. This is a three-act play that we’ve all seen before.
Much of the LCMS’s disunity stems from a diversity of practice, which betrays a diversity of confession. Why do I chant the Words of Institution (the 500-year old practice that is in the hymnal) with gravity? Why do I genuflect and elevate? Why do I ring bells during the consecration? Because I actually believe this stuff. Yes, I believe that when I hold the Lord’s body and the chalice of His blood aloft, and I chant “The peace of the Lord be with you always,” I believe that I hold in my hands the very body and blood of God, and that it is far more potent than if I were holding a loaded machine gun. Neither scenario calls for anything less than my total attention and care, and yes, reverence. A non-denominational visitor may well disagree with us, but there will be no doubt in his mind what we believe. There is no “pig in a poke” evangelism fakery happening in my congregation. What you see is what you get.
It is not because I’m a “Romanizer” - and shame on you President Kieschnick for saying something so vile, and untrue. Satan is the father of lies.
And if we actually believe 1 Cor 11, we will be very careful about whom we commune. We will implore our brother pastors and sister congregations to be trustworthy, lest we have to start questioning our communion agreements with them. In the real post-fall world, this is simply going to happen. When the Japan Lutheran (sic) Church began to “ordain “ women, communion was impaired with the LCMS right then and there - even before the votes were taken and the ink was dry on the statement of the president. Interestingly, the secondary reason for recognizing broken fellowship was that the JLC “consistently taught and practiced open Communion.”
Synod governance doesn’t create or remove fellowship, but rather recognizes a state of fellowship that already does (or does not) exist. So if a church deviates from our communion, they are leaving our communion - even if the bureaucratic process of separation might take months or even years. And it seems that our processes for correcting domestic issues takes even longer than with a wayward international sister church body.
Moreover, open vs. closed communion is a spectrum.
Nobody practices completely open communion, unless he communes non-Christians and animals, as an Episcopalian priestess (of course) did a few years back - and interestingly, she “did so as a ‘simple church act of reaching out’ to a new congregation member and his pet.” At least the actual body and blood of Christ weren’t present in that coven to be desecrated. And nobody practices completely closed communion, which might be only to commune oneself. But for my purposes in this article, closed communion is the standard practice of communing only those from churches with whom one shares altar and pulpit fellowship. And this is not to say that there aren’t extraordinary circumstances over which pastors can, and do, exercise pastoral discretion. There are. But by definition, exceptions are exceptions. Open communion is routinely practicing communion with members of churches who are not in fellowship with our churches. And while this kind of ecclesiastical raunchiness used to go on behind closed doors, it now happens shamelessly on YouTube for all the world to see.
The Roman Catholic Church practices closed communion (with, of course, some pastors being renegades). They don’t wring their hands about whether or not someone will feel unwelcome. Even at funerals, they instruct those not in fellowship with the pope to cross their arms and receive a blessing instead of the Sacrament. And instruction for conversion itself usually takes a couple of years (oh, how unwelcoming!). That said, Roman Catholics are in fellowship with certain non-Roman church bodies - like the Byzantine Catholic Church, the Greek Catholic Church, and the Maronite Catholic Church, not to mention the Anglican Ordinariate - who are all in fellowship with the pope. Moreover, Roman Catholics under certain pastoral emergencies will commune Eastern Orthodox Christians (who are normally outside of their fellowship), and will allow Roman Catholics to commune in Eastern Orthodox Churches, such as in a deathbed situation. So their historic practice of closed communion (as well as that of Eastern Orthodoxy) closely mirrors the historic closed communion practice of the LCMS.
Back to the podcast. Pastor Ahlman and Mr. Kalleberg (the latter of whom, for some reason, preaches and absolves at his congregation’s contemporary services) practice a strange kind of open communion. Children are required to undergo catechesis before communing. By contrast, an adult visitor may commune based on completely subjective criteria that he applies to himself based on his own subjective morality apart from any pastoral care, or catechesis, at all. For example, a lady ELCA “pastor” who is in a committed same-sex “marriage” is welcome to commune at Christ Greenfield if she answers yes to the “Four Questions” that she asks herself. There are some in liberal “churches” who are “baptized” in the name of the “Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier” who would hold themselves out to be baptized, not to mention Mormons - who actually “baptize” using the same words as Christians. The practical reality is that any adult visitor showing up - even a Unitarian who denies the Trinity (a modern-day Arian) can commune at Christ Greenfield if he so desires - based on a different definition of “Trinity.” So can a Reformed Christian. It might make us wonder why the Saxons bothered to leave home in the first place, or why travelers in the early church went to the trouble to get a letter from their faithful bishops. I guess we know better today. It is especially ironic that many of these “open communion” types like to boast of their extensive LCMS pedigrees.
Somehow, that makes the betrayal sting all the more.
The self-administered “Four questions” that Dr. Ahlman and his parish use to determine whether a visitor will be a communicant are (and I am paraphrasing from Pastor Ahlman in the video above):
1) Are you baptized in the name of the Triune God?
2) Do you believe in the Real Presence?
3) Do you need God’s grace and mercy [i.e. the forgiveness of sins]?
4) Do you desire to walk in step with the Holy Spirit [i.e. sanctification, the new obedience]?
As far as pre-Communion catechesis goes, both Dr. Ahlman and Mr. Kalleberg appealed to the liturgy as their catechesis. I have to admit that this rings hollow in light of what Dr. Eckardt wrote about concerning the worship practice at their congregation. Of course, they have a “contemporary” service that is essentially non-liturgical (again, with Mr. Kalleberg doing a convoluted order of confession and offering an absolution “as a fellow baptized believer” instead of “as a called and ordained servant of the Word,” as well as preaching). But even the “traditional” service wasn’t really much of a liturgy at all, as Dr. Eckardt reports:
The service follows Divine Service 1 in Lutheran Service Book, but with several omissions. There is no Kyrie or Gloria, the Creed is also omitted because of a Baptism that is to follow the service. After the sermon there is no Preface nor Proper Preface, and no Sanctus. The Words of Institution are spoken but not precisely. The pastor speaks them while looking at the people, almost as though speaking his own words rather than repeating the sacred words of Scripture. Then follows the Pax (“The peace of the Lord be with you always”)…. And then, “Brothers and sisters, come and taste and see that the Lord is here, He is good, for you, and another note, ushers will be releasing you by rows . . .” Then comes the distribution, after which there is no Nunc Dimittis, but instead the people are invited to rise and hold hands to receive the communion blessing. So the entire ‘traditional’ service in fact departs from the traditional liturgy at virtually every point, and it seems the only traditional part of it is the fact that there is an ordained, vested pastor in it.
Dr. Ahlman admits that one of the disadvantages that he has as the celebrant of a megachurch is the sheer number of people attending. And this is a valid concern. How can a pastor give soul-care to 2,500 people? They get so many visitors on Sunday that it is simply impractical to do as Chrysostom and our confessions advise concerning proper stewardship and pastoral oversight over the Holy Sacrament. Christ Greenfield essentially has the visitor give himself self-serve soul-care, not unlike the convenient and efficient self-serve checkout scanners at Walmart. So he must decide for himself if he is a communicant. Each visitor must steward his own mysteries. Maybe this is what they mean by “equipping the saints for ministry,” a kind of “pastorate of all believers,” an “episcopate of the laity.”
And, as a sacramental side note, if a person desires to be baptized, he can hit a button on the website and schedule it himself. There is no mention of any adult catechesis before baptism. Maybe there is, but the website is mum about it.
And, of course, this approach to the sacraments means the sheep must shepherd themselves, because the pastor is too far removed to actually be a shepherd. And this is one of the dirty little secrets of the church-growth movement: the goal is apparently to expand to be too big to be a hands-on pastor giving pastoral care to individual people. Hence all the emphasis on hierarchical “leadership” and the use of the laity to be “worship leaders” - not to mention father-confessors and preachers. In the megachurch “context,” the pastor cannot help but to be a CEO figure, siloed above a staff of subordinates (which, at Christ Greenfield includes the Soviet-sounding name of the Central Administration), delegating rather than being a hands-on shepherd who lives and works and worships in the pasture. So much for “relationships.” But rest assured, they do have a “meet the pastor” event twice a month at one “campus” (between 10:15 and 10:45, and then from 1:00-2:00pm), and once a month (between 11:15 and noon) at the other “campus.”
We are clearly not walking together.
In contravention to our synod’s practice of recognizing one another in communion fellowship with each other, both within the LCMS and our partner churches, congregations like Christ Greenfield insist on going their own ecclesiologically polyamorous way, snubbing their fellow pastors and congregations both in the LCMS and in our sister church bodies around the world, betraying that mutual trust that we are supposed to have in one another.
Not only is open communion irresponsible pastoral practice - malpractice in fact - those who practice it have essentially broken fellowship with the rest of us, like an adulterous spouse. But they continue to gaslight and bully us into thinking that we are the problem. No, they are the problem, as well as their enabling district presidents who think like them. In one sense, these guys are right. We do have a leadership problem. We also have a fellowship problem. Closed communion is indeed brotherly unity and walking together
And the Christ Greenfield guys in the above video also assert the the “close, clos(ed), and closed” communion shell game - which President Harrison debunks here: