PC offers a different view of the Lord’s Supper than that which is found in the Westminster Standards and other confessional documents. A question that reveals the theology that supports PC is precisely this: what benefit does an infant derive from taking in the Supper? If you say that Christ is communicated with all His benefits to those who partake of the Supper, even among those who have not yet professed faith, then you have departed significantly from those within the Reformed tradition and may have unwittingly adopted a view that is superstitious and sacerdotal (ex opere operato).

I feel somewhat like a “Johnny-come-lately” when it comes to the debate surrounding the doctrine of paedocommunion (PC from here on). I was, as they say, “knee high to a grasshopper” when Reformed denominations were at work discussing and even debating the matter at the height of the Federal Vision controversy. I won’t tell you how old I was when PC was discussed as a standalone topic long before the Federal Vision was on the map.
While things have certainly shifted over the years, and the conversation around Federal Vision has generally fallen to the background, one of the remnants of the “old days” is confusion concerning the proper recipients of the Lord’s Supper. I currently minister in a place that is no stranger to the practice of admitting infants to the table (North Idaho), but this issue is not limited to a geographical corner of the United States or bound to any one Reformed denomination – it seems that there isn’t a minister that I have talked to in recent months who hasn’t had a congregant who is on the fence with PC.
My purpose in revisiting this issue is to encourage church members who are either on the fence regarding PC (or may even desire to push their churches in the direction of allowing the practice) to pause for a moment and consider the ramifications of holding such a view. My caution to those who are already on the other side of the fence is that PC might not be all that it professes to be: a biblical, historical, and beneficial practice – and that there may be some wisdom from those within the confessionally Reformed tradition that is being overlooked.
No, We Aren’t Baptists
A few months ago, I was sitting across the table from friends who recently started attending a church that practices PC. The wife was raised in a congregation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), but she found the arguments for PC to be quite convincing. I did my best to explain biblically and historically why the view had significant issues, but it was met with the rejoinder: “You sound a lot like a Baptist right now.” That wasn’t the first time I had heard such an accusation, and so it’s worth addressing.
The argument goes something like this: those who admit infants to the Font but not the Table are inconsistent in their admission of persons to the sacraments. How can a child belong to the covenant but not have the right to all the benefits of the covenant?  Essentially, those of us who hold to a view that allows for only one sacrament to be applied to infants are adopting a Baptist framework of evaluating someone’s worthiness to partake in a sacrament by their visible faith.
While the argument of consistency may be appealing to some, it’s worth asking: why is it so appealing? I would contend that it’s far more of a Baptist framework to insist upon infants receiving both sacraments than to bifurcate them as different sacraments with different principles of inclusion (which is how the Westminster Divines treated the issue). To prove my point, watch this PC debate between a credobaptist and a paedocommunionist. You will notice that the discussion inevitably reverts to debating infant baptism. Why? They do not differ on whether a person who receives baptism can receive communion; they only differ on whether the child can receive baptism in the first place.
Returning to the original claim that those of us who do not hold to PC “still have some Baptist” left in us, consider a simple question: why are there two sacraments anyway? My concern is that the “consistency” approach invariably flattens the differences between baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Yes, they are both signs and seals of the covenant of grace, and their value is found sacramentally in their connection to Christ and all his benefits. Yet, their function is different.
Baptism is that sign of inclusion into the covenant people of God, and the Lord’s Supper is that sign of strengthening, nourishing, and feeding upon Christ by faith. There is a different experience of enjoying this sacrament: we do it as a body and in perpetuity. There are even sanctions through discipline that can bar someone from the Lord’s Table, whereas baptism is only administered once and cannot be “undone.”
Now, at the time of writing this, I admit that I was a Baptist just eight years ago, so perhaps someone can legitimately claim that I am still thinking ‘baptistically.’ However, the same can’t be said of the men who wrote the Westminster Standards. Note how they see a pertinent difference between the sacraments, which ties into their views of the proper recipients of the sacraments:

 Wherein do the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper differ?

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I know that God will give me the strength to keep going until he calls me home. I am learning not to worry about tomorrow, but to be thankful and trust him for each day. He knows what is coming and he will help me when it comes. Let me encourage you, in whatever situation you find yourself, to keep going. Remember that you are precious to the Lord and he will never leave you nor forsake you.

I was sitting at the piano on a big stage in a large concert venue, something I had done many times before, but this time my hands were heavy. My fingers weren’t able to play the notes that they should have been playing and I knew that something wasn’t right. Some months later, I was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, an incurable condition in which all my muscles would stop working and eventually lead to my death.
I quickly progressed to using a wheelchair and had to give up the job I loved, teaching kids to play music. Within a few months, I was totally dependent on my wife to feed me, get me dressed and take me places. Within a year, I had lost the ability to eat and now I am losing my ability to speak. I use a ventilator to breathe, am fed by a tube in my stomach and spend my days in a specially adapted chair. I am very thankful that I have an eye-tracking device so that I can still use a computer and turn on the TV. When my voice gives up, I can use my eyes to slowly type a few phrases which my mechanical voice speaks out loud. It would be easy to look at me and feel that there was no purpose to my life, but that’s not what God says.
Here are four things that God is teaching me. I need to remind myself of them constantly and though I sometimes forget, I know that he never forgets me.
I Am Precious
Isaiah 43 verse 4 says, ‘You are precious and honoured in my sight, and … I love you.’
I need to remind myself continually that God loves me for who I am not what I can do. The Lord has chosen me to be his treasured possession (Deut. 14:2) and I am still precious to him despite my illness. He knows what he is doing and he is good.
If you are feeling that you have no purpose, the Lord wants to tell you differently. He wants you to know that your purpose is being his child, not what you are able to do.
I Am Blessed
When I first received the diagnosis, there was a time of real sorrow and sadness as I mourned the things that I knew would soon be taken away from me. Still some days are hard and I feel helpless and upset that I am a burden on others. Yet, God promises that if I lean on him and trust him, he will give me the strength that I need.
I need to ask God daily to help me remember my blessings. I have so much to be thankful for. Each day is a gift to enjoy being with my family, watching the birds and the garden grow.
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A measure of how much more difficult it is to plant and maintain a church in Russia, as opposed to Ukraine can be seen in what happened to existing evangelical churches in Crimea after Russia seized that area from Ukraine in 2014. Pentecostal, Baptist, and other Protestant churches that had not previously been subjected to persecution from the state suddenly found themselves the targets of government raids, fines, and intimidation. Conditions in the Donbas pro-Russian separatist region which is under defacto Russian control were even worse.

Recently I shared a request from ARP NEWS for prayer and donations to help the refugees who are fleeing the war in Ukraine. Earlier I had shared a prayer request asking for prayer for the people of Ukraine and had added my own request for people to please also pray for the Evangelical Reformed Seminary of Ukraine and their teachers, families, and students.
Apparently, these two requests were too much for one of my Reformed Christian Facebook friends who sent me a message demanding to know why the ARP and I were praying for and supporting the Ukrainians who are, according to him, abortion loving, “Globohomos” instead of the Russians whom he characterized as a Christian nation under a Christian leader who had outlawed abortion and homosexuality.
I wrote the following answer to him but was unable to send it as he blocked me soon after sending his message. Since I’m finding that there are many other Reformed Christians on Facebook who have similar views, I’ve decided to publish my reply publicly.
“Thank you for writing to me, I have tried to answer the concerns about Russia and Ukraine that you raised in your message, I have also tried to include links backing up everything I’ve stated here.
To call Russia “a Christian nation” is extremely problematic, to say the least. It is true that the Putin regime has extremely close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Russian Orthodox Church is almost the established church of Russia but like many established churches, the ROC uses its strong ties to the state to try to eliminate other religious groups within their country.
In recent years the Russian government has imposed laws that make it illegal to evangelize outside of an officially recognized church and attempts to get outsiders to join your church is considered illegal missionary activity. As a result, attempting to plant a new Reformed church in Russia is very difficult as the process of persuading non-members to join it is technically illegal.
The Russian laws restricting non-ROC religious activity got much worse in 2021 when Putin signed an amendment to Russia’s religion law aimed at “protecting the spiritual sovereignty of Russia.” The law requires that if a missionary or pastor received their religious training outside of Russia, say at a Reformed seminary in America or Europe, they have to go through a process of mandatory state re-education, and then be certified by local authorities.
Other laws make it illegal for religious organizations to use their own religious identifiers in their names unless they are permitted to do so by the government. Churches and church members frequently find themselves under surveillance by the state and Protestant churches and seminaries have been closed by the government and their congregations banned from using them. Because of the increasingly hostile attitude of the Russian government to any non-ROC religious activity in Russia, it was added to the Open Doors World Watch list of the top 50 countries where it is most dangerous to be a Christian in 2019 and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s tier 1 list of religious freedom violators in 2017 (please note this was when USCIRF was still working under the Trump administration).
True Freedom of Religion exists in a country when:
1) The government does not give preference to any one religion or anti-religious group above the others.
2)  Clergy may perform all of their religious duties without violence or danger.
3) The laws of that country do not interfere with or hinder the free exercise of the religion of ordinary people and all citizens are free to conduct their lives according to their own profession of faith.
4) The civil magistrate takes care to actively protect the free exercise of religion and as a result, religious assemblies may occur without molestation, violence, or disturbance.
All four of the principles above are actively violated in Russia, and therefore we can safely say that Freedom of Religion does not exist in Russia.
It is also important to note that the Russian Orthodox Church, which is virtually the Russian State church, formally denies all of the Solas of the Reformation including Justification by Faith Alone, and just about every tenet of the Reformed faith including all five points of Calvinism. The Russian Orthodox Church also has seven sacraments, not the two given by Christ in the Bible. As Reformed Christians, we can therefore affirm that the Russian Orthodox church does not have the marks of a true church and that we do not believe that people can be saved by believing what they teach.
By contrast, there is far greater religious freedom in Ukraine and setting up churches and seminaries and evangelizing is much, much easier than it is in Russia. And while the Ukrainian Orthodox church is also not happy about new non-Orthodox churches being planted they do not have the same hand-in-glove relationship with the Ukrainian state that the ROC has with the Russian state. For this reason, many Reformed organizations have established their church plants and seminaries in Ukraine where it was also possible to train Russian pastors even though they would be subjected to restrictions when they returned to Russia. Many other North American Presbyterian and Reformed Churches (NAPARC) have strong ties to Ukraine and were a vital part of helping to establish the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ukraine in 2008.
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