Children’s freedom to participate in key aspects of civic and religious life is significantly limited. Children are citizens of countries, but denied key democratic rights, most notably the right to vote. “Universal” suffrage excludes, depending on the country, 20–50% of the population. Likewise, children are made in the image of God and part of the body of Christ, but they are often denied access to the eucharist. Adults overlook the ways in which children already participate in civic and religious institutions, excluding them from places of “adult business” and sequestering them into “child-friendly spaces.” The exclusion of children from these places has consequences for children in the here and now—in the harms perpetrated against children, and the flawed civic and church environments we have created—and effects that extend far beyond childhood—such as apathy among adult voters and declining church membership. We should ask ourselves: Is this exclusion merited? In what ways do children at the communion rail and the voting booth expand, challenge, and renew our understandings of these places? How do they call us to new responsibilities and engagement across generations?
In this paper, I will explore these questions through comparing proposals for ageless voting—the right to vote from birth—with arguments in favour of Christian paedocommunion—reception of the eucharist (or denominational equivalent) from (infant) baptism. These debates have many similarities. Both appeal to authoritative sources and original practices: the Bible does not include stories of children receiving the Lord’s supper, and children are not enfranchised in original theories of democracy. Both recognise necessary preconditions: for voting, citizenship; for the eucharist, baptism. Yet these issues also differ. Voting shapes the future of a country and is a public activity. The eucharist is often seen as a more personal activity, hence with lower stakes. For believers, however, communion is related to salvation; the stakes could not be higher. Arguments about the eucharist appeal to God’s grace working in children’s lives; not so in arguments for ageless voting. The concern about voter misinformation does not apply to paedocommunion. Notably, there are many churches and denominations that practice paedocommunion, but no countries with ageless voting.
Despite these differences, for both, the main category for exclusion is on the basis of rational capacity. In other words, the concern is that children lack the ability to understand what is going on, and to make meaningful decisions. Arguments against paedocommunion are often predicated on the necessity of a rational, informed profession of faith. Opponents of children’s suffrage appeal to the democratic responsibility of voters to be informed, and to concerns about the consequences of children’s “irrational” choices. In both debates, knowledge and intent are key themes. Related to this, there is concern that children are unable to make decisions for themselves, but will simply do what their parents tell them to. Many initiatives, like communion after confirmation or lowering the voting age to 16, are predicated on the idea that older youths have sufficient (adult) rational capacity to participate. In contrast, proponents of ageless voting and paedocommunion are interested in children’s ability to vote or receive the eucharist as children.
After establishing capacity as the primary argument against inclusion, I will trace and evaluate arguments in favour of ageless voting and paedocommunion. In both debates, these can be divided into arguments of insufficiency and abundance. The former focus on the insufficiency of the objections. For example, proponents of ageless voting point to the fact that adults who fail to meet the capacity requirements used to exclude children are not disenfranchised. In response to the concern that children cannot decide for themselves, proponents of ageless voting point out that external influence does not end when people turn 18: studies show that many adults vote along family and community lines. Supporters of paedocommunion recast this familial influence as a positive thing, arguing the practice helps raise and form children in the faith.
Arguments of abundance focus on the capacities children already demonstrate, and on the goods that they bring qua children to church and civic life. As John Wall points out, children already organize, protest, access political information, and bring about political change. In churches, children already encounter scripture, learn about the faith, pray, worship, and express their beliefs. Children bring new ways of thinking, new priorities, and new considerations of the types of societies we want to create. Proposals for both practices also suggest one cause of the disengagement of (young) adults from religious and civic life is the dismissal of democratic and faith agency in childhood.
I will finish the paper by stating my own constructive proposal for paedocommunion and ageless voting. Specifically, I hold that Christians should support ageless voting on account of their theological beliefs about children. Children’s participation at the communion rail and in the voting booths challenges our individualistic, narrowly rationalist ways of thinking. Educating children in religious and civic engagement renews our own understanding of these practices. And if children do not vote how we want, maybe that is a good thing. Their participation can refresh an adult democracy in desperate need of change. Further, considering these two topics together raises new and helpful questions. For example, varied interpretations of the eucharist invite an often-overlooked question: what is voting? Do we all think of voting in the same way? Most churches require preparation for the Lord’s supper, whereas most young adults have no preparation for voting beyond whatever overview of politics they received in school. Models of first communion can help us think about how to initiate children into voting, as can catechetical models that emphasise learning by doing.
In both cases, an understanding of what we owe children—participation, formation, inclusion—and a better understanding of what goods children bring to the communion rail and the voting booth, can support the liberation of children from the narrowness of adult ways of thinking. Perhaps including them can liberate us all from the flawed world we have created.
Children’s freedom to participate in key aspects of civic and religious life is significantly limited. Children are citizens of countries, but denied the right to vote. Children are made in the image of God and part of the body of Christ, but they are often denied access to the body of Christ at the communion rail. In this paper, I will compare arguments in favour of ageless voting—the right to vote from birth—with those of paedocommunion—communion from (infant) baptism. For both, the main justification for exclusion is on the basis of rational capacity, and the concern that children cannot make decisions for themselves. In response, I argue that the presence and agency of children at the communion rail and in the voting booth expand, challenge, and renew our understandings of these places, and call us to new responsibilities and engagement across generations.