Review: As Often As You Eat This Bread: Communion Frequency In English, Scottish, And Early American Churches By Gregory David Soderberg

by on May 7, 2026 | Comment

Jesus Christ instructed his church to observe the Lord’s Supper until he returns. The church has not always agreed about how often we should observe it. Within the Reformed tradition, debates about the frequency of Communion remained a feature of sacramental discussions throughout the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

As Often as You Eat This Bread examines discussions about the frequency of Communion, focusing on England, Scotland, and early America from roughly 1500 to 1800. This book is a fascinating look at how Reformed theologians have taken various positions on this matter. It catalogs a great number of sources and looks at how they argue their position for either weekly or less frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

This work is a great handbook of sources that dive into this topic. Its opening chapter about the frequency of Communion in earlier Reformed Continental thought is rich for its examination of important Reformed voices. The focal discussion concerning England, Scotland, and early America is rightly set against the backdrop of the wider Reformed community. This chapter contains good work in primary and secondary literature that also contextualizes the frequency issue within other ecclesiastical concerns.

The following chapters curate many figures from each country who entered into the debate of Communion frequency. As a resource that provides a roadmap to the primary sources, this book is an amazing contribution. It points to a plethora of writings from multiple chronological and geographical contexts and summarizes their position on the issue. It also gives quick access to what a lot of voices have said about this. As a one-stop shop to get a sense of different positions, this book is highly useful.

From the perspective of historical method, this work does have some significant weaknesses. First, it is highly descriptive rather than analytical. As a guide to a large number of primary sources, this book is useful. It struggles, however, in terms of analyzing why these figures held their positions and why these findings are historically significant. The basic historiographical payoff proves the diversity of views about Communion frequency among these Reformed communities. In this respect, the author indicates that no position can claim to have the one truly Reformed approach. Outside this basic point, this book’s contribution to our historical understanding of the Reformed tradition or even its sacramentology is not immediately clear. It seems to serve more as a survey of sources than as true analysis.

Second, parts of this study are heavily dependent on secondary literature. To be clear, the book does contain discussion of many primary sources. At the same time, there are whole sections that do not deal with any primary source literature but rather depend on other surveys in secondary literature. With this approach, its seems that it would have been better to narrow the focus of investigation and not even to attempt to deal with certain geographical or chronological samples.

Third, this book frames its investigation about frequency largely in terms of the author’s personal dogmatic concerns. This observation is not an inference but comes from the direct statements in the book’s opening. It does shape the investigation of the sources.

The outlook is a preference for weekly Communion. Accordingly, weekly celebration of the Supper becomes the baseline for investigation. The question asked of the sources is not why a particular theologian argued in favor of his view of frequency. Rather, the question seems to be why a particular theologian practiced or rejected weekly Communion. This approach fails to analyze the sources on their own terms. Instead, it assesses each discussion in light of the author’s terms.

This book makes an interesting contribution by gathering lots of sources on the topic of weekly Communion. It leaves avenues open for others to reflect further and to analyze those sources more fully.

©Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

Gregory David Soderberg, As Often as You Eat This Bread: Communion Frequency In English, Scottish, And Early American Churches (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2023).

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