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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Anti-sacramentalism is a denial of the God-bearing character of Creation
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
The thesis statement presupposes that God is somehow confined to those elements of creation which comprise the sacraments.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Except that 'sacramentalism' is a wider term than simply referring to the formal 'sacraments' which in any case are variously counted as two, seven or however many fancy takes one.
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Canucklehead
Shipmate
# 1595
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Posted
I had to look that one up to see what you were talking about. Webster said that sacramentalism is a quote:
belief that the sacraments are inherently efficacious and necessary for salvation
. If that is what you meant then I would have to say that anti-sacramentalism is simply stating a belief that the sacraments are not necessary for salvation, which is not the same as saying that creation doesn't somehow reflect the character of God.
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
So might it be said then that:
- Extreme anti-sacramentalism is a denial of the God-bearing character of Creation because it fails to recognise how God can work through aspects of creation.
- Extreme sacramentalism is also a denial of the God-bearing character of Creation because it confines God to too limited range of vehicles of grace.
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
I would agree with the first half of canucklehead's quote from Websters. I believe that the sacraments are inherantly efficacious, but I can't see them as necessary to salvation. Salvation comes from faith in its fullest meaning of trust in God and His self-revelation to mankind in Jesus Christ.
But when Christ commanded His followers, "do this in memory of me" He made it efficacious for all future generations of followers who consecrate in His name. There may be people who by reason of geography or illness are unable to receive sacraments. They are no further from salvation for it, but to make our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to God, in memory of Christ's sacrifice for us, in which He is made present for us is a necessary part of the Christian life.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
As angloid was suggesting, people have too narrow a definition of sacramental, and hence have problems with necessity. Let's say that God can use anything in creation to communicate with us. We can use elements of creation to respond to God. At the point when God is using creation to communicate himself to us, and we are using the same to respond, that is a sacramental encounter. I think we would all agree that some kind of encounter with God is NECESSARY for salvation.
Anti-sacramentalism includes (but is not limited to) the suggestion that either God or us cannot use some element of creation for such an encounter OR the suggestion that such an encounter might involve something that doesn't exist.
Personally, the latter, while more subtle, is far more pernicious. Here's an example: THE Church, the imaginary united body of people who are not really united, DOES NOT EXIST. To say we can encounter God there denies the God-bearing character of church. Christian unity is very very important, but that is probably a tangent for another thread...
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Janine
The Endless Simmer
# 3337
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Posted
The little-c "catholic" or "universal" church, the little-c church of God, church of Christ, church of the Firstborn, church of the Messiah, THAT church... yes, that exists outside of congregational bodies and man-made allegiances to religious groups.
What would make you think it did not exist, or was 100% synonymous with whoever shows up in particular church buildings on Sunday morning?
Is a man righteous/saved/right with God/washed in the blood of the Lamb, whatever, as an individual, based upon his Abraham-like obedient faith in God? Or are people sanctified/saved in groups?
Jesus took common food items, special since they were part of a Passover celebration, but common food nonetheless, to initiate the Communion. Peter said baptism saves because of the pledge of a good conscience. Few particular words or ceremonial actions used in a modern-day Western wedding come from Scripture. As for burial - what I see concerning particular actions at funeral time in the New Testament still had to do with Jewish culture, & I'm not Jewish.
What other things are considered sacraments? What things, found in the history of the first Christians, which we see in the Bible?
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Ley Druid has my vote. I was talking about sacramentalISM, not sacraments per se in the technical and specific sense. Anti-sacramentalism denies that materiality can be a vehicle of divine encounter and grace, (the burning bush might be a good example of the contrary argument). Anti-sacramentalism has no room for a doctrine of creation within the salvation schema. We are paying for that narrowness today with our privatised world-injurious rapaciousness.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
But the whole of creation is contained in God, is constantly being made live and sustained by God.
And God is in the whole of creation, because it could not exist or survive otherwise.
So the whole of creation is a sacrament.
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London
Flickr fotos
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
'The whole of creation is a sacrament': way to go, Daisymay! ![[Sunny]](graemlins/flowerface.gif)
BTW, if you do not look exactly like your avatar in real life, I shall be really disappointed.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
I was under the impression that you were offering a proposition, not a definition.
quote:
Anti-sacramentalism has no room for a doctrine of creation within the salvation schema. We are paying for that narrowness today with our privatised world-injurious rapaciousness.
Since I cannot make heads nor tails of the first statement, I cannot respond properly to your remarkably succinct rant. Perhaps you could elaborate?
scot
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
I suggested quote:
THE Church, the imaginary united body of people who are not really united, DOES NOT EXIST.
and Janine asked quote:
What would make you think it did not exist?
Because it is "imaginary". Do "imaginary" things exist for you? If you think this is an unfair definition of "THE Church" or that nobody else advances it, Check out Baptist Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, in his A New Directory for Baptist Churches where he says quote:
There is, then, the visible, local Church, and the invisible, universal Church. In the latter case the word represents a conception of the mind, having no real existence in time or place, and not a historical fact, being only an ideal multitude without organization, without action, and without corporate being.
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Scot
Certain Christian traditions (let the reader understand) are uncomfortable with the idea that material things, (bread, wine, oil, water, flesh, matter etc. etc.), can be vehicles of the presence of God.
According to this understanding (anti-sacramentalism) God is only present APART from the material realm. In consequence the doctrines of creation and salvation are separated. By so doing only humans can be saved and transformed. Creation can "go hang" and we can pollute it, abuse it and manipulate it to our own selfish ends with impunity.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Dear Father Gregory
There is a difference between an atheist and an agnostic. I would say that many who are non-sacramentalist are agnostics rather than atheists. We choose to say less rather than more as we do not wish to speak wrongly of the workings of God.
Very few traditions will have complete none efficaous for salvation of baptism and eucharist. They can be none essential. Quakerism takes what it sees as the essentials of eucharist and places that in the family meal. So in some sense every meal is a sacrament to them.
From my own tradition we choose to speak mimimally. For instance it is obvious that in a service containing eucharist an act of memorial is taking place. We are equally unwilling to assign any definite way that it works beyond that. Not because it does not but because the mechanics of salvation are not open to us. It stikes us as complete audaciousness, the way other traditions are willing to say "This is how God works through Eucharist".
The theology I grow up with is very routed in the act of salvation working through creation. In fact that is one of our major objections to what appear to us to be the more 'magic' understandings of eucharist. It seems to us that bread needing to have a prayer said over it by a specific person to be more than bread is ludicrous.
What is sacramental is our meeting of salvation in the created world. We do not deny that these are particularly potent within the acts of Eucharist and Baptism but these are only by sense of order special not by type.
Jengie
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Jengie
I agree with your analysis Jengie but you are describing the problematics of western eucharistic theology which do not feature at all in Orthodox thought. May I suggest you read "For the Life of the World" by Fr. Alexander Schmemann which has a wonderful critique of the false dichotomy between sacred and secular, between spiritual and material ... all in an Orthodox eucharistic context .... which has much more to do with the Jewish idea of consecration than any western one, either Catholic or Protestant.
BTW ... on the grounds of your argument you could say that since I always love my wife I have no need to kiss her at any particular point in time or place.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ley Druid:
I suggested quote:
THE Church, the imaginary united body of people who are not really united, DOES NOT EXIST.
and Janine asked quote:
What would make you think it did not exist?
Because it is "imaginary". Do "imaginary" things exist for you? If you think this is an unfair definition of "THE Church" or that nobody else advances it, Check out Baptist Dr. Edward T. Hiscox, in his A New Directory for Baptist Churches where he says quote:
There is, then, the visible, local Church, and the invisible, universal Church. In the latter case the word represents a conception of the mind, having no real existence in time or place, and not a historical fact, being only an ideal multitude without organization, without action, and without corporate being.
That is certainly what an atheist would believe. As a Christian I am confident that the universal Church does exist though, the communion of saints.
From a Christian point of view your quote is as silly as me saying that Australia doesn't exist because I have never seen it - living in Europe I only see individual Australians or small groups of them.
Living in the world we only see individual Christians or small groups of them, or particular organised churches - that in itself is no reason to believe that the Church as such does not exist.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Dear Scot
Certain Christian traditions (let the reader understand) are uncomfortable with the idea that material things, (bread, wine, oil, water, flesh, matter etc. etc.), can be vehicles of the presence of God.
According to this understanding (anti-sacramentalism) God is only present APART from the material realm. In consequence the doctrines of creation and salvation are separated. By so doing only humans can be saved and transformed. Creation can "go hang" and we can pollute it, abuse it and manipulate it to our own selfish ends with impunity.
Certainly. I agree 100%
But you had better tell me which traditions you think are polluted with this Gnostic heresy. From where I'm standing in the evangelical Protestant tratiditionit seems most rife in those that hold to compulsorary clerical celibacy, and top an all-lmale priesthood, which combine into a stark symbol of an un-Christian fear of women, sex, and biological life in general.
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Well Ken on your "hit list" Orthodoxy only fails on the all male priesthood. However, since we venerate strong women as well, including say St. Nina, Equal-to-the-Apostles who evangelised Georgia into the first Christian nation, I guess we are not comparing like with like.
On sexuality, the East has a theology of eros, a consecration of our passions / beauty / sensuality to God which is unmatched (but not absent)in the "west."
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Dear Father Gregory
It is not necessary to communicating your love for your wife that you kiss her. It is usual, normal and an appropriate part of marriage. It is a helpful technique to do so. I believe it is special and rightly used precious. It just is not essential to the task. You can communicate your love without doing that precise action.
I am not married and can not say what would happen then. However because of circumstances it is rarely appropriate for anyone use touch to communicate care (my mind normally dual reads it as an act of deceit as well as the intention). In such circumstances one learns that there are hundreds of ways of communicating love which do not involve touch.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
... and that Jengie is where we differ. You appear to marginalise the particular for the universal; you accord to intimacy and encounter a non-essential rank. Even a celibate will not remain a celibate for long unless he or she finds an appropriate expression for intimacy .... given and received. So it is with the sacraments. They are our moments of TANGIBLE communal intimacy with God. They make real and material what we already know to be both universal and personal.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Dear Scot
Certain Christian traditions (let the reader understand) are uncomfortable with the idea that material things, (bread, wine, oil, water, flesh, matter etc. etc.), can be vehicles of the presence of God.
That's a caricature at best of a healthy protestant viewpoint, which instead believes that the sacramental material things are no more able to be vehicles of God's presence than anything else. It's a very fine distinction, but a distinction nonetheless.
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Narcissism.
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Fr Gregory
You do not know where I stand. You associate intimacy only with touch. That says something of your ease with touch for which you should thank the Lord. For those to whom it is denied you should not be so quick to condemn. We have not all had your fortunate experience. Intimate touch for me has been profaned in ways you do not know for I have not told you. I therefore find you judgementalism hard to take. I value intimacy very highly but I can not follow your pattern.
Intimacy for me is expressed in the getting the gift right, in a listening/observing that is very very deep. It is about being able to understand what someone is thinking and respond in a way that is affirming of them. Like a blind people who develop very skilled hearing I am at times uncanny at this, or so my friends tell me. Perhaps I should say I have enjoyed the ease of personal reading in the company of friends.
I will also say though I can not at present concieve of being anything but celibate I did not choose celibacy. I therefore do not see myself as being specially holy by that it is just the way I am. Just as you seem to be a happily married man. It may be beyond your comprehension but I do not struggle to be celibate, I would struggle to cope with anything else. Thus before I do that I want to know the person well.
You see for me touch is not silent but usually a babel of emotional noise. With most people I have not reached the level of intimacy where I can trust there touch intention so they set off the babel of voices which I find distressing.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Janine
The Endless Simmer
# 3337
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Posted
The only way I'm going to see God (until I die and see Him face-to-face) is in material things and human organization. I can dedude His existence & power from experiencing the Creation (see Romans Chapter 1, for example).
But I cannot SEE God right now. Therefore, He is imaginary. Yes? ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
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I'm a Fundagelical Evangimentalist. What are you?
Take Me Home * My Heart * An hour with Rich Mullins *
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Og: Thread Killer
Ship's token CN Mennonite
# 3200
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Posted
As an evangelical, I can say Fr. Gregory has it right on the tendancy of some evangelicals to not give a darn about the environment.
However, much of evangelicalism celebrates creation. The hymns of much of evangelicalism are laced with discussions of creation worshiping God; the walls of nurseries are filled with pictures of cute bunnies. Harvest services abound. But, if your mutual fund can make some money on it, then the love of creation often get conveniently forgotten.
I see this lack of concern for God's creation more as an incomplete and chequered understanding of the role of theology in life then a systemic theology.
![[Happy]](graemlins/happy2.gif)
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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Jengie
Of course I respect your own personal position and experience but we can no more build a coherent eucharistic theology out of that than you could out of mine. I was merely saying that contact with God cannot merely be intentional it must be expressed and for embodied beings that must involve the material realm. Human intimacy was an analogy I was making. I had absolutely no knowledge of your own situation nor was I referring to it.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
Certain Christian traditions (let the reader understand) are uncomfortable with the idea that material things, (bread, wine, oil, water, flesh, matter etc. etc.), can be vehicles of the presence of God.
According to this understanding (anti-sacramentalism) God is only present APART from the material realm. In consequence the doctrines of creation and salvation are separated. By so doing only humans can be saved and transformed. Creation can "go hang" and we can pollute it, abuse it and manipulate it to our own selfish ends with impunity.
Which Christian traditions hold that God is only present apart from the material realm?
And do you think you'll ever start a thread on a matter of doctrine in which you don't quickly find the opportunity to bash western Christian traditions?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Ruth
I am making a sustainable case for a connnection between anti-sacramentalism (which is undeniably present in the west so we need have no "naming and shaming") and an impoverished Christian doctrine of creation ... nothing more.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Okay, why are you doing this? Because honestly it just looks like another "let's slam the west" thread from you.
You don't have any compunction about naming the west in general, so I don't see why you won't be specific. In not being specific, you paint with too broad a brush. So I ask again, which Christian traditions hold that God is only present apart from the material realm?
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
Let Father bash unabashedly! If he's wrong, what does it matter? If he's right, he'll keep us humble.
I quoted a self-avowed baptist belief above only to be told by someone else this person must have been an atheist. You
quote:
ask again, which Christian traditions hold that God is only present apart from the material realm?
We'll this sounds pretty close:
quote:
Every external worship ritual silences our spirit seeking Christ the Spirit.
From Worship God in the spirit
Feel free to tell me that this is not "a Christian tradition", but it does seem much more prevalent in the protestant West than the Orhtodox East.
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
I will respond if it advances the case of the question Ruth. I will not be drawn into contentiousness. If participants here don't know that the Reformers moved away from sacramental worship then their sense of Church history is seriously deficient. I know that is not the case. I do not therefore need to unfurl "red rags."
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
Father Gregory,
Though I hardly am one for anti-sacramentalism, I would ask if some of these traits (in theology, not of my own) are indicative of what you mentioned.
- Spirit Christology - where Jesus differs from us only in a unique indwelling of the Holy Spirit - this seems to me a distorted view of the Incarnation.
- Views of the Resurrection, normally which "go along with" spirit Christology, wherein the physical resurrection is denied or minimised - perhaps reduced to the disciples' experience of forgiveness.
- Attitudes, such as John Calvin could express, of wanting to deny any physical presence in the Eucharist. (I do not mean that transubstantiation needs to be the definition!) It seems understandable from one who described a baby in its mother's womb as one trapped with filth and excrement.
- A relation of original sin (Augustinian definition) to the Incarnation where the latter is prompted by the sin, not a part of creation, and we are thought of more as being saved from hell than as being granted deification.
Please excuse me if I have phrased this poorly. It seems to me that some of the Reformers were comfortable only with words, not with the material.
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
Father Gregory
I have the utmost respect for the Orthodox faith. I think in terms of history, it can lay the best claim to be the original Christianity. I agree with you on the filioque and on the absence of original sin. I confess to being a heretic in the "spirit Christology" sense, but I have learned much from you over the two years we've been debating on Churchnet and here. So I say this as a friend.
You've been lampooned in Hell, where I came to your defence, for your apparent view that Orthodoxy knows all and the rest of Christondom is fallen, corrupt ignorant and devoid of any spiituality. This can't do other than get the backs up of say catholics who feel as strongly about their tradition as you do of yours. You are English, and you've decided to take on membership of a Palestinian church. That's great, I would hate to live in a land where that freedom was denied.
But everything western isn't lost, or corrupt or fallen anymore than is humanity itself. You were priested for many years in the C of E, and though you now fly the flag vigourously for your church, which is right, I think some members of the ship get offended by your anti western rhetoric. You've debated with NO for years.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ley Druid:
You
quote:
ask again, which Christian traditions hold that God is only present apart from the material realm?
We'll this sounds pretty close:
quote:
Every external worship ritual silences our spirit seeking Christ the Spirit.
From Worship God in the spirit
Feel free to tell me that this is not "a Christian tradition", but it does seem much more prevalent in the protestant West than the Orhtodox East.
That is the website for one Chinese Christian church in Davis, California, a church which appears to have no denominational ties. It may very well represent a Christian tradition, but is hardly enough evidence to convict all the western churches of anti-sacramentalism or a failure to recognize God's presence in the material realm.
Fr. Gregory, I find your repeated finding of fault in the western churches to be highly contentious.
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Ruth
The last time I believe I was less than unswerving in my praise for all things western was in July.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
Wood told us: quote:
a healthy protestant viewpoint, which instead believes that the sacramental material things are no more able to be vehicles of God's presence than anything else.
This merely attempts to conceal anti-sacramentalism.
To what can "anything else" refer? 1. Things which exist but are not material. They don't exist BECUASE we believe in them. An example might be a dream or an angel. And 2. Things that don't exist. Which likewise don't exist just because we have a lot of faith. An example might be a four-sided triangle or an ordinary human who is a supreme God.
It can be difficult to determine in which of these two categories something immaterial should be placed. The existance of something is not DEPENDENT on our belief; it doesn't depend on us, it exists.
The suggestion that THE Church (the one not defined by material things like people and buildings), a personal committment to Christ (the one not defined by material things like baptism and fellowship), worship in the spirit (the one not defined by any physical actions) are "as able to be vehicles of God's presence" clearly denies the God-bearing character of creation. Why go to a real church, with real people, and do real things when "anything else" will be just as just as good a vehicle of God's presence?
Worse still, this view denies the inherent difficulty humans have with immaterial things by suggesting that all we have to do is believe. Believing in something that doesn't exist is pathological.
I am not limiting God's power, but I am suggesting there are reasons why I choose to go to mass rather than listen for angels by myself.
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
Ley Druid, I might be wrong (and Wood will correct me if I am) but I think that Wood meant was that all material things are equally able to be vehicles of God's presence. The "anything else" refers to trees, rocks, unconsecrated wine and bread, you, and me.
You ask (rhetorically) why go to a real church, with real people, and do real things when "anything else" will be just as just as good a vehicle of God's presence? Simple. To eschew the church is to deny the God-bearing nature of other Christians. Any healthy Protestant understands the need for fellowship.
scot
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
Then why do they seem to break fellowship with each other so frequently?
IMHO it might have something to do with their theology or ecclesiology, but I could be wrong.
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ley Druid:
Then why do they seem to break fellowship with each other so frequently?
Because they are imperfect humans, just like the Orthodox and Roman Catholics.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
I cannot recall who mentioned sexuality on this thread (pardon me, I'm sleepy.) However, in Gnosticism, or any other heresy (down well through the Middle Ages), it seems that those who believed the material world was evil, or totally divorced it from God, fell into dualism and more often were libertine than ascetic. I know that was not the precise OP, but I feel much the same as Fr Gregory about anti-sacramentalism.
The questions I posted earlier were not challenges - they are areas I truly do wish to explore.
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
My question is, is the divisiveness in protestantism due to an imperfect ecclesiology or to an inability of imperfect people to practice a perfect ecclesiology? In either case doesn't this call for a re-evaluation of the ecclesiology? The Orthodox and Catholic churches have imperfections and imperfect members but they don't seem as fissiparous.
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Scot
Deck hand
# 2095
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Posted
So then, it is simply a matter of degree? That seems a slim basis for pointing fingers.
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“Here, we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” - Thomas Jefferson
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
My question is, is the increased divisiveness in non-Orthodox and non-Catholic churches due to an imperfect ecclesiology or to an inability of imperfect people to practice a perfect ecclesiology? In either case doesn't this call for a re-evaluation of the ecclesiology? The Orthodox and Catholic churches have imperfections and imperfect members but they don't seem as fissiparous.
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Ley Druid
Ship's chemist
# 3246
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Posted
Sorry I asked that last question. Forget it. Scratch. Good-bye. God Bless.
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John Donne
Renaissance Man
# 220
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Posted
I can't understand why Fr G. is being accused of being anti-West in this thread. The Catholic and Anglican Churches are both sacramental. Sacramentalism and Non-Sacramentalism is not a convenient East-West divide.
[Edit: Lutherans also are sacramental. It's about time someone called Mrs W. out of hiding ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ]
[ 28. September 2002, 06:16: Message edited by: The Coot ]
Posts: 13667 | From: Perth, W.A. | Registered: May 2001
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Father Gregory
Orthodoxy
# 310
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Posted
Dear Coot
I was not claiming that anti-sacramentalism was the defining feature of ALL western traditions; far from it. I was saying that it was a persistent weakness amongst those traditions that have inherited a certain "western" ecclesiology / sacramental theology. There is NO coreesponding tradition(s) in the east, Chalcedonian or even non-Chalcedonian which is anti-sacramental in approach.
Let's take the Quaker teaching that everything is sacramental as an example. This would be fine if it were exemplified in particular examples that focused such sacramentality ... baptism, eucharist etc. Otherwise it would be like saying "love is all there is" without actually loving SOMEONE in particular. The resistance in SOME traditions to particularity often goes hand in hand with a denial of the incarnation; the so called scandal of particularity.
Amongst those Reformed traditions that take the material realm to furnish sacramental symbols rather than vehicles of God's Presence (both human and non-human) in the manner of Zwingli the creation can never be a place of theophany. How on earth (literally) this can be squared with the theophanies of both Old and New Testaments beats me. That's what I am getting at.
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Yours in Christ
Fr. Gregory
Find Your Way Around the Plot
TheOrthodoxPlot™
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Ley Druid, I might be wrong (and Wood will correct me if I am) but I think that Wood meant was that all material things are equally able to be vehicles of God's presence. The "anything else" refers to trees, rocks, unconsecrated wine and bread, you, and me.
You ask (rhetorically) why go to a real church, with real people, and do real things when "anything else" will be just as just as good a vehicle of God's presence? Simple. To eschew the church is to deny the God-bearing nature of other Christians. Any healthy Protestant understands the need for fellowship.
scot
Scot, that's exactly what I was trying to say. Thank you.
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
Wood and Scot - both I agree with.
The whole of creation absorbs and reflects God and God's glory.
The heliotrope looks towards the sun, absorbs the glory and reflects it back to the sun. So do we, in the midst of creation. It's when we wake up to that experience (and the thought that explains it) that we truly understand how creation embodies and exemplifies God.
Teilhard de Chardin (why didn't he choose a spellable name?) saw that the whole world around him was on fire, was luminous, filled with light. Ibn Arabi says that every part of creation has its own form of prayer, its own way of glorification.
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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ptarmigan
Shipmate
# 138
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Posted
Without getting in to a discussion of whether it's more prevalent in churches of the West or the East, I think different churches are at different points along the spectrum of sacramentalism.
In my past I have belonged to churches where the preachers had lots of certainty on many issues but were strangely silent about the meaning of the Breaking of Bread service which we occasionally observed, trying hard to make it as "unmagical" in feel as possible. They would teach us that there was no such thing as a holy place, because all places are holy. And no saints, because we are all saints. And no Holy days because all days were holy. (The way folk expected something special on Easter Day was always a bit of an embarrassment).
The problem was that saying that everything is holy ended up seeming to mean that nothing is holy. (Especially as holy means set apart).
There was also generally a negative feeling towards the world (which "is all going to burn up in the end anyway, and Paul says "love not the world or the things which are in the world"). And a negative vibe about flesh (e.g. St Paul's use of the word fleshly to mean sinful) which led to all sorts of sexual hangups for some.
I think this represents a significant strand of christianity, not just an isolated case.
Since then I've moved on to a slightly more sacaremental tradition and have experienced a huge relief that more of life could be affirmed.
And I've rediscovered that "the Word became Flesh", and that "God so loved the World". And found a christian world view which includes Creation, not just the Fall and the Atonement.
A wonderfully affirming prayer I've heard in other slightly higher churches is when the bread and wine are presented, and we describe the elements as created by God and work of human hands, and pray that they may become to us the bread of life and our spiritual drink.
Soemhow this affirms creation and affirms our working lives.
G.A. Studdert Kennedy, the famous First World War padre, went further. William Temple (later Archbishop of York) said about him:
quote:
Once more I recall his teaching of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. He held the full Catholic doctrine - Real Presence, Sacrifice, Communion. We take the Bread (so he taught us) and offer it, bless it, break it, that it may be to us the very Body of Love. But while most Catholic doctrine lays all its stress on what the Bread becomes to us, he laid equal stress on what it is to begin with, which enables it to become that other and greater thing.
Bread is the common food of humanity; but it is first the fruit of human labour upon God's gift. God gave the soil, and the properties of the seed, and the sun and the rain. Man ploughed the land and sowed the seed and reaped the harvest and ground the corn and baked the flour. Often too, for us at least, bread reaches us by the labour of shipbuilders, seamen, merchants. We purchase it by our products of coal and iron and all manner of other things sent to the great corn-growing countries.
Thus bread is not a mere symbol of the labour of mankind; it is itself that labour materialised in its product. What we lay on the altar, asking God to accept our oblations, is the toil whereby humankind wins its life from day to day.
...
So the Eucharist if the focus, the gathering into a single spiritual act, of all the meaning of human life.
As I see it, the Sacraments provide this focus, enabling us to see the whole of life as sacramental. If we are anti-sacramentalists, we lack that affirming focus, and it becomes easy to lapse into body / spirit dualisms.
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All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well. (Julian of Norwich)
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