Some Christian churchs allow open communion- All who are present may receive this gift of God. Others do not. Which major faiths allow non-members to receive communion? What do the other faiths belive happens to non-members who receive communion in their church?
Mods-please move this to GD if it should enter into that territory.
I have been at Episcopalian services (small town, Pacific Northwest United States) that were inclusive by direct invitation to all present, but don’t know if that’s a local option or whether it is more widespread.
Disciples of Christ welcome all to participate in communion. Giving a metaphorical “up yours” to churches that had restricitive communion policies was a significant motive of one of the founders of the denomination.
Here is a table that shows which of several major denominations practice “open communion” and which are more restrictive.
Hometownboy, I’ve been to Episcopal churches in California and New York City that invite all those present to take communion; however, the table that I link to above claims “Communion is open to all baptized Christians”, which is quite a bit more restrictive. So I guess YMMV, and you and I have had more liberal experiences than the norm.
ELCA Lutheran and we invite all believers to share communion. No requirement for baptism I’ve seen as my stepson takes cocmmunion with us is well aware that he isn’t baptized.
I never thought about this until after it happened but I went to R.C. Easter mass a few years ago with a GF and took communion even though while I was baptized R.C. I never finished catechism or did my first confession & communion. She didn’t make a big deal out of it but I’m pretty sure that is a no-no in the R.C. Church.
When we were married, my husband was a semi-practicing but baptized, first communioned, etc. Roman Catholic; I was baptized in a Protestant church and was no longer attending. We were married in the church he was baptized/raised in. As a non-Roman Catholic, I was not allowed to have communion at my own wedding. 
I attend an Episcopal service at one of the oldest churches in the country, and you would think that if any congregation was going to be conservative in who could receive communion it would be us; however, communion is open to any baptized Christian, regardless of denomination.
The official standard of the Episcopal Church is that any baptized Christian is welcome to take communion. The idea there is that baptism is the “initiatory rite” into Christianity, to precede any other sacrament. But there’s nobody “inspecting your baptismal certificate” and some clergy will openly welcome anyone who wishes to receive, regardless of whether they’ve been baptized. The standard line, whether or not this is true, is that “this is the Lord’s table, and not ours; anyone who wishes to receive is welcome.”
The Christian Churches/Churches of Christ aren’t really a “denomination” in the sense that we don’t have a governing heirarchy or have written rules and creeds that apply to all congregations. However, we share pretty much the same belief systems, support the same benevolences, etc.
With that out of the way…
We allow communion to anyone present. If you’re a baptized Christian (whether a member of one of our congregations or not): thank you for sharing the Lord’s Supper with us! If you’re not a baptized Christian: hope you enjoyed the juice!
Growing up Southern Baptist, IIRC, the policy was any Christian could participate. If they chose not to, that was okay too. Whether this is the “official” position of the Southern Baptist Convention, I don’t know. It may have just been the policy of the church I grew up in.
A friend of mine grew up Southern Missionary Baptist* and her particular church restricted it to members of the congregation only.
I hung out with a LOT of Methodists as a teenager. All of their churches welcomed any Christian to share in communion.
I go to a typical independent charasmatic/pentecostal/full gospel (whatever you wanna call it) church now, and anyone is welcome. Since we’re not an “official” denomination it seems that most churches in this category set their own policies, and there’s apparently nothing in the Bible that encourages a “congregation only” policy.
*The only difference I could discern between the Southern Baptists and the Southern Missionary Baptists were skirts. Women simply did not go to church in the SMB church without a dress or a skirt.
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If you should run across any information on Missionary Baptists, Abbie, I’d appreciate your dropping me a note with a link or cite. There are quite a number of such churches designated that way around here. Most but not all of them are historically (and currently de facto) black churches, apparently affiliated with the NBC, not the SBC (or the ABC, which nobody in the South seems to be part of). It’s aroused my curiosity why this might be so. Thanks for anything you might uncover.
[/mini-hijack]
Once I was at my friend’s child’s baptism, in an Episcopalian church. The pastor invited all believing Christians to participate in Communion, if they so wished. Next to me was our friend Yitz, the local rabbi, who leaned over and asked me (the Mormon) if I was going to go up. If I was going to, he would too. (He’s the most liberal rabbi I know.) So, what do you all guess I did? 
My own church does not have open communion, the reasoning being that the sacrament is considered a renewal of baptismal covenants. Well, if you didn’t make the specific baptismal covenants that go along with being LDS, you probably won’t want to renew them, right?
I should probably explain that while my church does not have open communion, the setup is such that no one would notice or comment. The deacons pass trays around every pew, and it is very bad form to notice what another person does (someone who does not feel worthy may not wish to participate either). So anyone taking the sacrament unknowingly or out of contrainess would not be noticed or hindered. The policy isn’t announced beforehand, as I’ve seen at some churches–we just have a hymn and then the communion part.
Our pastor did a sermon on this once and said that policy varied by church, but ours was open communion. There’s very little that’s official position of the SBC in official word (whether or not there is in practice would be fodder for another thread in another forum).
Let’s say I were interested in becoming Episcopalian. I heard from someone who tried to get church records from the church I was baptized in that the records of that church that date from before about 1992/1993 or so were destroyed in a major church feud. Therefore, there would be no record of my baptism, which was pre-1992. Would this be a problem?
I bow before the queen of understatement.
Does the CoJCoLDS prohibit members from taking communion in other churches as does the R.C. church? The question never came up for one of my groomsmen, a Mormon, as TheLadyLion and I decided against communion at our wedding since two of the bridesmaids are jewish. Neither are super observant but I consider that to be a bit more serious than a shrimp cocktail at the reception.
Absolutely not. Your word that you were baptized is sufficient. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an instance of someone having to prove he was baptized, confirmed, etc. (Ordinarily if you move and therefore change churches within the Episcopal Church, your former church sends a Letter of Transfer to your new church, removing you from the membership list of the first and adding you to the second, but that’s merely ecclesiastical bookkeeping, not anything mandatory.)
To “become Episcopalian,” you merely start attending, and express interest in being listed as a member of the church. Ordinarily you will, in the course of things, decide you want to take a short class in how we view and do things – my parish tongue-in-cheek refers to it as “Episcopalianism 101.” At the end of that class, the Bishop will make a visitation to the parish, and, if you have not yet been confirmed, will lay hands on you with prayer for the Holy Spirit to sustain and empower you; if you have been confirmed already by a bishop in the apostolic succession, he will receive you formally into the Anglican Communion, recognizing you as already a member of the holy catholic and apostolic church by virtue of your baptism.
You know what, I don’t know. My utterly wild guess is that it doesn’t matter all that much. I did not, in fact, take communion with the liberal rabbi, but my feelings were that the Episcopalian church might not consider me a ‘believing Christian,’ though of course I do consider myself such (we’re just not Trinitarians, because we don’t accept the creeds and councils). Were the pastor to tell me beforehand that he hoped I would participate, I wouldn’t have any doctrinal problem with that. Unless the prayer said something I couldn’t agree with, I guess. At least, I’ve never been told that I can’t do it.
I’ll have to ask someone in the know and get back to you on that one…
friend lel,
i would like to echo what my brother polycarp said. we simply started attending our episcopal church. we were never asked for any proof of baptism, but welcomed as a part of the congregation with open arms
after a year or so, there was an inquirer’s class available. we took the class and were officially received as episcopalians by our bishop at his next visit.
As mentioned, that is not a problem at all. My wife and I decided to attend an Episcopalian church when moved moved to our current town. She was raised Catholic and I Methodist. We attended a few services and decided we liked it. We told our Priest (female) that we wanted to be members and just saying those words made us members and new Episcopalians. There are other things that you can do after you make the switch but they aren’t required.
Wow, I think I’m the first Roman Catholic to post here, sweet.
My church is pretty open-minded towards other sects (is that the right word?). In fact, father makes it a point to give his inclusion speech at least several times a year. It goes along the lines of something like, “this is not my church, it is the church of god …all are welcome here. Rich and poor, married or not so married, straight or gay, Catholic or not so Catholic, etc.”
Also, this is a pretty rural, conservative area (not that this should make a difference). There hasn’t been a democrat running for local office in at least 20 years, and our church used to be a missionary, not a church, in NJ…
I think it ultimately depends on whether the priest will give it to you. And that depends on his personal views. Yes certain rules are laid out by the religion, but hey, the only one “watching” is God.
Besides, anyone can go up to the altar and recieve communion and no one is going to ask if you are Catholic. Come to think of it, it’s almost a don’t ask, don’t tell kind of system. Granted, you may be denied communion at your wedding if you proclaim yourself non-catholic, but it seems to me that the solution to that would be to have a minister from your own church present to administer communion if you wanted badly enough. Are there any rules against that?