Reddit reviews Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper

It varies from denomination to denomination and even from congregation to congregation, but generally speaking, it's either solely grape juice or juice and wine served separately.

The reasons aren't so much theological as practical. Some US Protestant denominations began with a strong emphasis on holiness, which expressed itself as an opposition to drinking, dancing, smoking, etc. Others were leaders in the abstinence movement, which means (to overgeneralize a bit) that they were opposed to drinking on not just moral grounds, but on class and sectarian lines.

These days, there's some cultural residue: it's just become tradition to use juice rather than wine. And many places worry about alcoholics taking wine accidentally or feeling like they can't take communion without breaking their sobriety pledges.

Source: I'm a pastor. Whose congregants drank shitty shitty communion wine.

Edit: This is interesting. Wondered when Baptists (and others) turned from wine to juice. Turns out it wasn't until the 19th century, in response to the temperance movement. Source 1, Source 2. Even more interesting: Thomas Welch was a Wesleyan minister who was so opposed to serving wine in church that he invented a method of pasteurizing grape juice to offer in its place.

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Here are your smile-ified links:

Christ, Baptism and the Lord's Supper: Recovering the Sacraments for Evangelical Worship

Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper

The Lord's Supper as a Means of Grace: More Than a Memory

The Lord's Supper in the Reformed Tradition

What is The Lord's Supper?

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Given for You seems pretty good, but I haven't read it yet.

Richard Muller should have a book that deals with the Reformed view of the Eucharist, I believe it is Calvin and the Reformed Tradition but I could be wrong.

Some recommendations, as promised.

• I highly recommend Christ, Baptism and the Lord's Supper: Recovering the Sacraments for Evangelical Worship by Leonard J. Vander Zee. It's more pastoral than heavy duty theological, but definitely worth reading.
  
  
• Read the treatments of the Lord's Supper in Reformed Systematic Theologies. Calvin's Institutes is a must, I think, but also Bavinck. The part on communion is in volume 4, I believe. If you don't have access in Bavinck (a situation you should resolve) then Berkhoff would do.
  
  
• Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper by Keith A. Mathison is supposed to be very good.
  
  
• If you want a non-Zwinglian perspective from a Baptist, check out Richard C. Barcellos' The Lord's Supper as a Means of Grace: More Than a Memory
  
  
• If you are up for technical theology, I'd recommend The Lord's Supper in the Reformed Tradition by John Riggs.
  
  
• RC Sproul's What is The Lord's Supper? in his Critical Questions theory is currently free on Kindle. It won't answer all of your questions, but the price is right.