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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Magazine - Online sacraments
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
That's exactly how it comes across to me, Orfeo. And Alan made the point that communion as we practice it is already an image of a meal as a result. So online sacraments are just taking that a little further.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Funnily enough, I've just read the Ship article on this topic for the first time.
I was rather chuffed when it got to the discussion about the ambiguity of "do this". I got there all on my own! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Esmeralda
Ship's token UK Mennonite
# 582
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Posted
Sorry, I'm at w*rk and don't have time to read all the thread but I just read the article and was amused/annoyed by the idea of all Christians uniting around hating Anabaptists! I am an Anabaptist and we try to unite around loving not hating people... Seriously though, as an Anabaptist I don't have any qualms about whether a sacrament is 'proper' if it's consecrated online and consumed at a computer. If people participating, as the Bible (Corinthians?) says, 'recognize the body', then what's the problem? And I personally think 'recognizing the body' doesn't mean anything about understanding communion, it means recognizing that they are part of Christ's body, his people. If all participate at roughly the same time, then they are in a real sense 'together' even if they are not together physically.
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I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.
http://reversedstandard.wordpress.com/
Posts: 17415 | From: A small island nobody pays any attention to | Registered: Jun 2001
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Melon
Ship's desserter
# 4038
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Esmeralda:
I just read the article and was amused/annoyed by the idea of all Christians uniting around hating Anabaptists! I am an Anabaptist and we try to unite around loving not hating people...
Sorry, I can't decide with what tone of voice you typed that...
<tangent>
It was of course invective, but it does seem to me to summarize a lot of "building bridges" approaches in mainstream churches.
Eg Calvin's Institutes, where he seems to be madder at anabaptists (who he more or less conflates with libertins) than with the Pope.
Eg the Vatican II Lutheran George Lindbeck who comes up with ways to make every theological statement mean the same thing really but says there's no hope where anabaptists are concerned. (Paraphrase from memory.)
Eg my reformed denomination's synod where we invite the local priest, rabbi and iman but not the local evangelical pastor... And, during that synod, the French national press published a study showing that the majority of protestants in France are now evangelicals...
</tangent>
I don't think it's tangential to this discussion to say that, in 2012, ecumenical approaches to the sacraments are only viable if we ignore the majority of Christians taking sacraments in many countries. Which is why, personally, I'm not going to lose any sleep about the risk of damaging that already-broken non-solution.
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French Whine
Posts: 4177 | From: Cavaillon, France | Registered: Feb 2003
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
No, what I said was not that memorialism was Alan’s invention, but that his insistence on the validity of a completely non-physical Eucharist is his invention, or at least completely foreign even to most ‘memorialists.’ I don't believe they believe that you could go up to the altar or table, look at a picture of bread and wine, and leave. They all eat bread and drink wine.* I haven’t argued for the metaphysics, only the discernable stuff.
Apologies, I got mixed up in my original post - I was referring to Mousethief's post where he said Alan had invented his definition, not yours. My bad!
quote:
I never said that. I said that the only thing Christ commanded us to do when he said ‘do this in remembrance of me’ was to do what Christ did: take bread and wine, bless it and give thanks over it. The command to eat and drink is separate, but he also commanded that. Which doesn’t actually lessen our case. You cannot eat or drink a pixelated picture on a computer screen.
Apologies again for not getting what you were referring to. I'd still read the "do this in remembrance of me" as referring to the whole action, including the eating and drinking; it just doesn't seem logical to separate the blessing and thanksgiving from the eating/drinking.
quote:
Which is our point. There aren’t any serious disagreement on whether or not the Eucharist is physical.
But, as was pointed out before, that's because there was never any way we could communicate/gather/whatever except in the same place and haven't been until the last 150-200 years with the advent of telecommunications and the internet. It would've sounded daft to the disciples to suggest they could communicate with someone in another place - in another country! - and hold a near-instantaneous conversation with them the same way they would with each other.
How that relates to this aspect of Eucharist, the bread and wine element, is not clear. Clearly people can eat and drink at the same time "on cue", assuming there's no problems with time delays on the line. The problem, for me, comes with the sharing one loaf and one cup (says he, who ministers in a church which uses wee cuppies! Though we do use one loaf of bread, not little cubes...) - how do you do that, or recreate that? I'd be interested to see how this experiment addresses that.
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
The problem, for me, comes with the sharing one loaf and one cup (says he, who ministers in a church which uses wee cuppies! Though we do use one loaf of bread, not little cubes...) - how do you do that, or recreate that? I'd be interested to see how this experiment addresses that.
It doesn't need the internet to address that. The same question already arises in large Communion services. For example, I used to attend Greenbelt every year where there was a Communion for 10,000+ people. The practice there was for people to sit in groups of about 20, one person from each group collected a cup of wine and a bread roll from tables distributed around the field and then the bread and wine distributed around the group at the same time as every other group shared. I know that would be unacceptable to some people, but for those of us who have no problem with that arrangement then spreading those groups out around the world connected by the internet doesn't present a fundamental difference.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
On one hand you have people that do not particularly care what the Bible says. For example, Baptists who do not care whether or not Jesus thought grape juice was wine
I was at a eucharist today in which what was distributed was bread (in the form of wafers). No wine. No grape juice. No sort of drink at all. I think the priest may have had his own private stash - but he wasn't sharing.
Who cares more about what the Bible says - the Baptists who know that Jesus drank and shared wine, but for pastoral reasons hand out grape juice, or Catholics who know that Jesus drank and shared wine, but for traditional reasons share no drink at all?
Which group's practice is closest to what Jesus did?
And what criteria are you using to judge this?
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Who cares more about what the Bible says - the Baptists who know that Jesus drank and shared wine, but for pastoral reasons hand out grape juice,
I thought the point of grape juice was that Jesus would never had touched alcohol, which is the decaying juice of a fruit. Jesus was about life, not decay. That's not my belief, just what I've been told by an abstaining Chirstian.
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
I thought the point of grape juice was that Jesus would never had touched alcohol, which is the decaying juice of a fruit.
Different Jesus, I think. I'm talking about the one in the NT.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Who cares more about what the Bible says - the Baptists who know that Jesus drank and shared wine, but for pastoral reasons hand out grape juice,
I thought the point of grape juice was that Jesus would never had touched alcohol, which is the decaying juice of a fruit. Jesus was about life, not decay. That's not my belief, just what I've been told by an abstaining Chirstian.
There's a slightly complex history to the discussion about alcohol in Scripture.
First, there was a (relatively) recent concern about over consumption of alcohol. This was particularly acute with the increasing availability of alcohol, spirits in particular, for the poor. There was a social impact, with reduced productivity. There was an even bigger impact on families of drunks - as they lost jobs (because they weren't working as much), spent too much of their small income on booze etc. This lead to the Temperance movement, which rather than attempt to cure each individual alcoholic tried (and in many cases succeeded) to convince large parts of society that alcohol should be completely banned. The Temperance movement was particularly strong in churches, where the pastoral concern for alcoholics trumped tradition and wine was replaced with juice.
But, this created a problem for churches with a higher view of Scripture. The first recorded miracle of Jesus was to produce a significant quantity of wine for a wedding party where people were already pretty well sozzled. And, he had wine at the Last Supper. For many, it was enough to be able to say "there wasn't a non-alcoholic alternative available, and for the majority of the population there wasn't enough wine available for drunkeness except at special occasions, and therefore the social and pastoral concerns we're facing Jesus didn't have to deal with. We acknowledge that Jesus drank wine, even supplied wine by miraculous means, but for pastoral reasons today we're saying that we need a total ban on alcohol". Many other, particularly at the more fundamentalist end of the spectrum, found that approach unacceptable and instead inserted an additional layer of interpretation on the text that turns Jesus' alcoholic wine into something non-alcoholic.
I'm entirely comfortable with an argument that says "Jesus did this, but for pastoral reasons we need to do things differently". The other options of "Jesus did this so therefore we must do so too" and to hell with the pastoral needs of people or "we need to reinterpret the Bible to pretend Jesus did thinsg as we want to" are a lot less satisfactory for me.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
I never said that. I said that the only thing Christ commanded us to do when he said ‘do this in remembrance of me’ was to do what Christ did: take bread and wine, bless it and give thanks over it. The command to eat and drink is separate, but he also commanded that. Which doesn’t actually lessen our case. You cannot eat or drink a pixelated picture on a computer screen.
Apologies again for not getting what you were referring to. I'd still read the "do this in remembrance of me" as referring to the whole action, including the eating and drinking; it just doesn't seem logical to separate the blessing and thanksgiving from the eating/drinking.
They are both important of course, but one (the blessing and thanksgiving) is the basis for the other (the eating/drinking). And the specific command to to this in remembrance of Christ doesn’t refer to the eating/drinking, but to the blessing and thanksgiving. That’s all the text says. In my opinion, the remembrance lies in doing what Christ did, and ‘making’ him present. The eating/drinking is a participation in that.
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
Which is our point. There aren’t any serious disagreement on whether or not the Eucharist is physical.
But, as was pointed out before, that's because there was never any way we could communicate/gather/whatever except in the same place and haven't been until the last 150-200 years with the advent of telecommunications and the internet.
But they did have images. Was there anyone who though that one could just take a look at an image og the Eucharist to participate, for example this icon?
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
It would've sounded daft to the disciples to suggest they could communicate with someone in another place - in another country! - and hold a near-instantaneous conversation with them the same way they would with each other.
And again, that is NOT the argument. Communication is a red herring. The question isn’t wheter or not one can communicate, but whether or not the Eucharist can be non-physical.
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
How that relates to this aspect of Eucharist, the bread and wine element, is not clear.
It’s quite clear. Since the Eucharist is physical, an online Eucharist makes as much sense as an online handshake or an online massage.
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
Clearly people can eat and drink at the same time "on cue", assuming there's no problems with time delays on the line.
But then it’s not online, and you are not ‘sharing’ anything, except the feelings or the (online) connection (no pun intended). That can be a good thing, God can perhaps even grant grace because of it, but it’s not a sacrament.
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
The problem, for me, comes with the sharing one loaf and one cup (says he, who ministers in a church which uses wee cuppies! Though we do use one loaf of bread, not little cubes...) - how do you do that, or recreate that?
You can’t.
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
I'd be interested to see how this experiment addresses that.
It hasn’t. It just seems to assume that it can be done.
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Who cares more about what the Bible says - the Baptists who know that Jesus drank and shared wine, but for pastoral reasons hand out grape juice, or Catholics who know that Jesus drank and shared wine, but for traditional reasons share no drink at all?
That depends on how you read the text. Did Christ command each Christian to drink, or only the Apostles? That is a quite different argument from whether or not we can have non-physical bread and wine. (Or triangular squares or married bachelors.)
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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Melon
Ship's desserter
# 4038
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
I'd be interested to see how this experiment addresses that.
It hasn’t. It just seems to assume that it can be done.
One of the unexpected joys of this adventure is discovering how many people know more about what is being planned than the people who are still in the process of planning it :-) We're hoping to announce some more specifics soon but, re the current discussion:
- We're expecting to run multiple experimentS
- Several of those experiments involve physical food - more than you get in any church communion service I've seen in at least one case
- At least one of those experiments involves physical food from the same source
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French Whine
Posts: 4177 | From: Cavaillon, France | Registered: Feb 2003
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
That depends on how you read the text. Did Christ command each Christian to drink, or only the Apostles? That is a quite different argument from whether or not we can have non-physical bread and wine. (Or triangular squares or married bachelors.)
FWIW, my personal view is that both Catholics and Baptists celebrate a valid eucharist. Since Zach82 seems to think that the Baptists at least do not, I was pointing out that if he is going to say that if the Baptist isn't receiving communion because his wine contains no alcohol, then it necessarily follows that the Catholic isn't either, since his wine too contains no alcohol. Also, no wine.
There is one way that you can salvage Catholic validity on that analysis. Although the individual communicant isn't getting any of the wine that proper practice required, he is nevertheless participating in a ceremony in which there is something going on elsewhere which involves some other person getting actual wine, which somehow results in the full grace of the sacrament being administered. That is, you could postulate that even without physically drinking, the Catholic communicant benefits from the sacrament of bread and wine by some sort of remote access, that he has, well, we might call it a 'virtual presence' at the altar because the priest is physically doing something on his behalf in which he is involved. That would work.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
That's exactly how it comes across to me, Orfeo. And Alan made the point that communion as we practice it is already an image of a meal as a result. So online sacraments are just taking that a little further.
That’s like a Jew at the time of Christ saying, “Hey, Passover is just a participation in the Original Passover in Egypt. Why not just drop this eating lamb thing and merely draw a picture of a lamb in the sand and look at it while we pray and meditate?” Or, to use a more ‘pedestrian’ metaphor: For many people, eating in front of the TV has become a substitute for the meal they used to share with their family. Since this eating could be seen as an ‘image’ of a meal, couldn’t we just then drop it, and watch the cooking channel instead? It’s just ‘taking it a little further,’ isn’t it?
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
FWIW, my personal view is that both Catholics and Baptists celebrate a valid eucharist. Since Zach82 seems to think that the Baptists at least do not, I was pointing out that if he is going to say that if the Baptist isn't receiving communion because his wine contains no alcohol, then it necessarily follows that the Catholic isn't either, since his wine too contains no alcohol. Also, no wine.
Yes, if the text says that every participant has to partake of both species. But the Catholic Church believes that the command to eat and drink was only given to the Apostles and their successors (Matt 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24), while Christians in general can take the Eucharist by participating in either the host or the chalice (or both), cf. 1Cor 11:27: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or (gr. ἢ) drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and (gr. καὶ) blood of the Lord.”
You don’t have to agree with this interpretation, but it’s perfectly coherent, unlike the baptist interpretation that ‘wine’ = ‘grape juice.’ The greek term οἶνος does not mean, and has never meant, ‘grape juice.’ It means ‘intoxicating wine.’ (Source: BDAG)
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
There is one way that you can salvage Catholic validity on that analysis. Although the individual communicant isn't getting any of the wine that proper practice required, he is nevertheless participating in a ceremony in which there is something going on elsewhere which involves some other person getting actual wine, which somehow results in the full grace of the sacrament being administered. That is, you could postulate that even without physically drinking, the Catholic communicant benefits from the sacrament of bread and wine by some sort of remote access, that he has, well, we might call it a 'virtual presence' at the altar because the priest is physically doing something on his behalf in which he is involved. That would work.
Or we could (1) interpret St. Paul’s assertion in 1Cor 11:27 — that you profane the body and blood of Christ by partaking in either the host or the chalice — as a verification that you don’t have to participate in both, and (2) interpret Christ’s command in Matt 26:26-28 and Mark 14:22-24 as a verification that the one presiding (as successor to the Apostles) has to partake of both. This is a perfectly coherent interpretation. You don’t have to agree with it, but I don’t see the ‘problem’ you do. (And btw, I’m not Catholic, I’m Lutheran.)
But I think that the thread has gone a bit off into a protestant/Catholic tangent. The real issue of this debate is whether or not the Eucharist is physical. If it is, it cannot be had online.
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
Yes, if the text says that every participant has to partake of both species.
Yes, I know the argument. But since the Baptist is definitely partaking of bread, that's irrelevant to the contention I was responding to. Zach82 wants to say invalidate Baptist communion on the grounds that their 'wine' isn't up to scratch - so he is necessarily arguing that the eucharist cannot live on bread alone. If it could, the fact that it is served with an inferior beverage would no more invalidate it than serving it with no drink at all.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
That's exactly how it comes across to me, Orfeo. And Alan made the point that communion as we practice it is already an image of a meal as a result. So online sacraments are just taking that a little further.
That’s like a Jew at the time of Christ saying, “Hey, Passover is just a participation in the Original Passover in Egypt. Why not just drop this eating lamb thing and merely draw a picture of a lamb in the sand and look at it while we pray and meditate?” Or, to use a more ‘pedestrian’ metaphor: For many people, eating in front of the TV has become a substitute for the meal they used to share with their family. Since this eating could be seen as an ‘image’ of a meal, couldn’t we just then drop it, and watch the cooking channel instead? It’s just ‘taking it a little further,’ isn’t it?
But you've ALREADY dropped the eating the lamb thing. I think that's the difficulty. You've turned an after-supper cup of wine into a cup of wine that can be taken on a Sunday morning with a little piece of bread that doesn't remotely qualify as 'supper'.
How exactly do you justify dropping one part of the context while insisting that another part is absolutely vital? How do you justify saying that one "image of a meal" is fine, but that some other "image of a meal" isn't?
Your analogy falls down because the Jew that is currently having the lamb would be moving from meal to non-meal. Whereas from the viewpoint that Alan, goperryrevs and myself are now presenting you with, you're arguing that people aren't allowed to move from one kind of non-meal to a different kind of non-meal.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
How exactly do you justify dropping one part of the context while insisting that another part is absolutely vital? How do you justify saying that one "image of a meal" is fine, but that some other "image of a meal" isn't?
Because eating and meeting are physical activities.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
How exactly do you justify dropping one part of the context while insisting that another part is absolutely vital? How do you justify saying that one "image of a meal" is fine, but that some other "image of a meal" isn't?
Because eating and meeting are physical activities.
Then you need to articulate why physicality is important. No, not just important, but essential.
I'll give you a measure of eating on the basis of current technology and nutrition, but I have most definitely encountered things on the internet described as 'meetings'. Doesn't mean I *like* them, but they exist. And meeting rooms.
To return to a previous point, someone could just as easily say that writing is a physical activity. And yet we appear perfectly happy to replace something that would have been envisioned as inevitably physical for many centuries with a new-fangled version where I can write to you by causing pixels to be projected on your monitor.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
How exactly do you justify dropping one part of the context while insisting that another part is absolutely vital? How do you justify saying that one "image of a meal" is fine, but that some other "image of a meal" isn't?
Because eating and meeting are physical activities.
I think I've said a few times that I'm much more comfortable with an online communion that still involves eating bread and drinking wine. And that's my problem with this "online sacraments aren't physical" line. If it involves eating and drinking, it's still physical. I see quite a distinction between a Skype-style shared communion and a minecraft-style avatar eating bread and drinking buckets of milk / red health potions.
In other words, eating is a physical activity. Meeting isn't, IMHO. You ask some of my (married) friends how they met, and they'd answer "online". They wouldn't say "well, we met in a cafe, having previously communicated over the internet in a non-real way for a few months."
That's what I meant by "a little further", k-mann. To me, someone sitting in a pew eating a mouthful of bread and having a sip of drink isn't a having a meal. Doing the same in front of a computer isn't having a meal either. The little further is on the scale of human interaction (which isn't a binary "together or not", but a variable, IMO, as was explored earlier on the thread).
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
I think I've said a few times that I'm much more comfortable with an online communion that still involves eating bread and drinking wine. And that's my problem with this "online sacraments aren't physical" line. If it involves eating and drinking, it's still physical. I see quite a distinction between a Skype-style shared communion and a minecraft-style avatar eating bread and drinking buckets of milk / red health potions.
Same here, actually.
quote:
In other words, eating is a physical activity. Meeting isn't, IMHO. You ask some of my (married) friends how they met, and they'd answer "online". They wouldn't say "well, we met in a cafe, having previously communicated over the internet in a non-real way for a few months."
That's what I meant by "a little further", k-mann. To me, someone sitting in a pew eating a mouthful of bread and having a sip of drink isn't a having a meal. Doing the same in front of a computer isn't having a meal either. The little further is on the scale of human interaction (which isn't a binary "together or not", but a variable, IMO, as was explored earlier on the thread). [/QB]
Excellent. Well put.
[ 06. July 2012, 06:20: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Then you need to articulate why physicality is important. No, not just important, but essential.
Have you ever seen non-physical bread or non-physical wine?
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
I'd agree with goperryrevs that meeting isn't necessarily a physical activity; I'd also argue that just because you're physically in the same place as someone else, doesn't mean you're necessarily "together" in any meaningful sense.
Imagine a couple sitting next to each other on the sofa. Both are on their laptops/smartphones/iPads/whatever, engaged in instant messaging, or IRC, or Facebook messaging or something similar - having online conversations with people. They're not paying any attention to each other at all, all their interaction is with the people they're talking to online; they're sharing jokes, secrets, perhaps complaining about each other safe in the knowledge the other will never know.
Are they really together, just because they're in the same place? Or are they more "together" with the people they're chatting to online? I'd argue the latter, that's where the real communication is taking place, where the real relationships (yes, relationshps) are being formed and developed.
To drag this back to the physicality of Eucharist and the need expressed by some here for us to be physically together to make this happen, I can't help thinking about that passage in 1 Corinthians. It seems they were physically in the same place. It seems they had bread and wine and (AFAICS) were doing the "correct" things with them. Yet in v20, Paul says, in effect, that it's not a valid Eucharist, that "it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat". Why? Because some are going ahead and eating straight away and getting full and drunk and others are waiting and going hungry.
In short, I'd argue, while they might be together physically, they're not in any real sense because of the way some are behaving in stuffing themselves silly before others have even started. That, allied with all the other divisions in the church, suggests they're not together in any real sense and the presence of real bread and wine doesn't stop it being invalid.
IMHO, the physicality is only one aspect of it; the 1 Cor passage suggests it can be "trumped" by other, less tangible things, the "spirit" in which it's taken seems (to me) to be more significant. Which is why I don't have a problem with non-alcoholic wine for pastoral reasons (otherwise I'd never be able to preside at Communion at my own church!) and why I wouldn't, ultimately, have a problem with sharing in some form of online Communion, whatever shape the experiments take.
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
I think I've said a few times that I'm much more comfortable with an online communion that still involves eating bread and drinking wine. And that's my problem with this "online sacraments aren't physical" line. If it involves eating and drinking, it's still physical.
But you don't share it. You might share some common experience, but you aren't sharing a meal. And again, I disagree with you in your assessment that communion isn't a meal. People get together. People eat and drink.
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
IMHO, the physicality is only one aspect of it
Yes, it's only one aspect. But it's an aspect that cannot be abstracted away, just as any other aspects.
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
quote:
Originally posted by Stejjie:
IMHO, the physicality is only one aspect of it
Yes, it's only one aspect. But it's an aspect that cannot be abstracted away, just as any other aspects.
I wasn't trying to, at least in terms of the "being together" part - I was trying to say that "being together", say, online, is (or can be) as real and concrete and non-abstract as being together in the same place.
quote:
But you don't share it. You might share some common experience, but you aren't sharing a meal. And again, I disagree with you in your assessment that communion isn't a meal. People get together. People eat and drink.
When I was a student, we'd quite regularly go down the bar (who'd have thought it, eh?). As well as drinks, someone would quite often get a packet of crisps or two, open the bag and place them in the middle of the table we were sat round for us to share. We were drinking, we were eating together, even sharing the same packet of crisps. But I don't think any of us thought we were having a meal.
I'm not trying to compare Communion with having a drink and a packet of crisps down the bar. But I am saying that a meal is more than just "eating and drinking together". We tend to associate it with something substantial, perhaps with more than one course, certainly something that involves a reasonable amount of food (and maybe drink). This may not be the dictionary definition, but I would suspect it's the common usage of the word "meal". Whatever Communion is, it ain't that and doesn't fit with most people's ideas of what a meal is.
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Then you need to articulate why physicality is important. No, not just important, but essential.
Have you ever seen non-physical bread or non-physical wine?
Well, I've seen graphics of them, yes...and PHOTOS. I can find you lots of photos of bread and wine.
I've also seen grape juice that looks like wine, obviously.
And I've imagined meals without having them. Heck, I've visualised the Last Supper without being there. But right now I'm picturing the bottle of wine I shared a couple of nights ago.
[ 06. July 2012, 10:36: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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IconiumBound
Shipmate
# 754
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Posted
On Wednesday the US celebrated it's history of independence. Millions of people watched the many special programs that celebrated the original event.
Would you not say that those watching a program were also celebrating that event?
Posts: 1318 | From: Philadelphia, PA, USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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Melon
Ship's desserter
# 4038
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
You might share some common experience, but you aren't sharing a meal.
What happens in every church I have attended isn't a meal either. I think there are more calories in the sugar lump you used to get to help swallow medicine at the doctor's. You might get something more meal-like by cycling with your mouth open.
I live in France, an hour from the Med. We know what Mediterranean shared meals look like and taste like here and a communion wafer really isn't it. What you are calling a meal is not a meal. It's a meal with all the meal taken out. It's meal-evocation through homeopathic doses. If you fed it to children, squarely, three times a day, and called it nutrition, you'd get locked up for abuse. If you tried to sell it as a meal you would get prosecuted. By any mainstream definition of "meal", it isn't.
quote:
And again, I disagree with you in your assessment that communion isn't a meal. People get together. People eat and drink.
So we're agreed now that anyone's call on this is an assessment, and that the claim that 5cc of red liquid and a minute wafer is a meal is therefore up for discussion?
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French Whine
Posts: 4177 | From: Cavaillon, France | Registered: Feb 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
And again, I disagree with you in your assessment that communion isn't a meal. People get together. People eat and drink.
I missed this before.
I'm not liking your definition any more than Melon does, and for the same reasons. Also, it suggests that football games are "meals". As are intervals at the theatre, and boxes of popcorn at the movies.
[ 06. July 2012, 16:01: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
How exactly do you justify dropping one part of the context while insisting that another part is absolutely vital? How do you justify saying that one "image of a meal" is fine, but that some other "image of a meal" isn't?
Because eating and meeting are physical activities.
Then you need to articulate why physicality is important. No, not just important, but essential.
We already have, but I'll spell it out again.
T-H-E I-N-C-A-R-N-A-T-I-O-N.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Well, I've seen graphics of them, yes...and PHOTOS. I can find you lots of photos of bread and wine.
That’s not bread and wine, it’s photos of bread and wine. Just like this is not a pipe.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I've also seen grape juice that looks like wine, obviously.
That’s not wine. And remember, ‘see’ is not just used about eyes. ‘See’ can also be used metaphorically, as ‘find,’ ‘understand,’ etc.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
And I've imagined meals without having them.
Heck, I've visualised the Last Supper without being there. But right now I'm picturing the bottle of wine I shared a couple of nights ago.
I fail to see how this refutes my arguments.
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
And again, I disagree with you in your assessment that communion isn't a meal. People get together. People eat and drink.
I missed this before.
I'm not liking your definition any more than Melon does, and for the same reasons. Also, it suggests that football games are "meals". As are intervals at the theatre, and boxes of popcorn at the movies.
No, because you aren’t eating the football. If, however, you ate together between each half of a footbal game, that would be a meal. But anyway. A shared meal needs to: (1) be physical, since you cannot eat your dreams or your mental images; and (2) be done by people who are actually gathered.
To people sitting in front of a computer in two very different parts of the world and both eating hamburgers on cue might be having a conversation, they might have a good time, they might feel that it’s important, it might be very important, God might even grant them grace because of that, but it’s not a meal. And if you change a few details, it’s not a sacrament either.
And to the arguments that some have given that there is an ordained minister whose voice have been recorded who stands for the concecration: Since he didn’t have any intention to concecrate the particular pieces of bread and/or the particular cups of wine that the persons online are having by the computers, I fail to see how they are concecrated, unless he actually concecrates every piece of bread in the whole world.
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
K-Mann, you're using the word 'meal' in a way no one uses it in real life. If I have a cup of tea and a biscuit, then told someone I'd just had a meal, they'd laugh at me. And you eat and drink way more with a cup of tea and a biscuit than you do at communion in most churches. To call the Eucharist (as we have it now) a meal is such a huge stretch that I find it strange you're still insisting it.
In terms of a priest consecrating bread, that's not part of my theology, so it's not an issue for me, though I understand it could be for some people.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Melon
Ship's desserter
# 4038
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
T-H-E I-N-C-A-R-N-A-T-I-O-N.
Absolutely! God did not become a human in abstract. He became a specific man in a specific culture at a specific time, spoke specific languages and employed culturally-relevant symbols and analogies throughout his life. He submitted himself to the human-made specificity of that culture in order to critique and transform that culture.
That's how our God interacts with human culture. And, today, that's how I expect God - through his people - to interact with today's cultures.
The incarnational way isn't to drag people out of 21st Century culture and give them a crash course on how to pretend to be from the First Century by performing a rite that no First Century native would recognise as a meal. That, for me, isn't incarnation. That, for me, is religious ghetto thinking.
For me, the incarnational way means looking for echoes of community, consecration, hope, memory and transcendence in our own cultures, appropriating those echoes in our culture for ourselves, and expecting God to condescend to join us in that endeavour, because, from what we see through the incarnation, that's what our God is like.
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French Whine
Posts: 4177 | From: Cavaillon, France | Registered: Feb 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
K-Mann, you're using the word 'meal' in a way no one uses it in real life. If I have a cup of tea and a biscuit, then told someone I'd just had a meal, they'd laugh at me. And you eat and drink way more with a cup of tea and a biscuit than you do at communion in most churches. To call the Eucharist (as we have it now) a meal is such a huge stretch that I find it strange you're still insisting it.
And I find it strange as well. Because I wouldn't call a box of popcorn at the cinema a 'meal', and frankly it's more substantial than Communion on a Sunday morning.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Maybe obesity would be less of an issue if people realized that a box of popcorn at the cinema actually counted.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Maybe obesity would be less of an issue if people realized that a box of popcorn at the cinema actually counted.
NEWFLASH!!! 'Correct' understanding of the Eucharist reduces obesity! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Considering you were very reticent about describing any concrete practical benefits of doing the Eucharist 'properly', that's quite a u-turn!
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I have been very open about the benefits of Holy Communion, here and in that stupid hell call. You just didn't think those benefits were worth having. Here, I'll state in full what I think it's about, with emphasis against online communion added:
"And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all other who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.
And although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
[ 07. July 2012, 15:54: Message edited by: Zach82 ]
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
You just didn't think those benefits were worth having.
Er... citation definitely needed!
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
Actually, Zach, I thought you were right to be hesitant in talking about the practical benefits of communion before. Otherwise you get in to territory similar to "I prayed and it didn't work", or worse, prosperity gospel ideas.
But you just undid that by suggesting that, if people have a proper view of the Eucharist, they'll define the word 'meal' correctly (differently to the way everyone else in the world defines it), and that will impact obesity.
Now, I'm guessing that was probably an off the cuff comment that you hadn't really thought through. We've all done it. But deflecting isn't helping much...
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I have been very open about the benefits of Holy Communion, here and in that stupid hell call. You just didn't think those benefits were worth having. Here, I'll state in full what I think it's about, with emphasis against online communion added:
"And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all other who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and we in him.
And although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service, not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offenses, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Hmm. You know, the fact that you've brought up a source that isn't written in anything resembling modern English doesn't help your argument.
Not for me, anyway. I think Melon's most recent contribution is excellent because it puts the finger on the nub of the issue. Which is that there's something problematic with requiring people in the 21st century to behave just like people in the 1st century, despite the enormous cultural changes in between.
(And you're probably NOT asking them to behave like people in the 1st century to begin with, what with all the problems about how a communion service doesn't really resemble a 1st century dinner. So perhaps you're just insisting that 21st century people behave like 16th century people.)
While I frequently rail against the view that 'the ancients' were a bunch of idiots who knew nothing, I'm just as wary of the opposite extreme where we're expected to copy little slices of their life because those were the bits that were written down in a particular way, when we've lost all of the social and cultural knowledge that the initial audience knew instinctively.
I mean, take wine for instance. Our relationship with wine is quite different from the relationship of 1st century people. As I understand it, they drank wine as their staple drink, because water was often unsafe. We drink wine primarily as a treat - although even that's a wild generalisation, as continental European culture tends to emphasise wine with meals while the English-speaking world often goes out TO drink, without a meal as context.
Also, not ONE of the bits you happily bolded actually bolsters your argument in the way you seem to think it does. Not one. I can offer my body to the Lord regardless of whether other people are in the room with me offering theirs. Given that I, like many, don't believe that the communion is literally Jesus' body and blood, I can remember the sacrifice of his body and blood without having to have physical contact with the apparently magical hands of the person standing behind the altar.
And frankly, the other choices of highlighting are just plain weird. One of them merely says "something is important, a duty". And as a drafter, I'm looking at the references to "here" and "this" and wondering exactly what you would suggest as alternatives that would permit online Communion without doing horrible violence, not to theology, but to the English language!!
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Your argument rests on there being no real difference between bread and a picture of bread, but a stark, irrevocable difference between a snack and a meal. Honestly, I can't be bothered to do much more than drop a line every now and then because I am quite certain that this is all a huge joke.
quote:
Hmm. You know, the fact that you've brought up a source that isn't written in anything resembling modern English doesn't help your argument.
See? It all just HAS to be a strange joke.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Your argument rests on there being no real difference between bread and a picture of bread, but a stark, irrevocable difference between a snack and a meal.
No, it rests on there being a difference between bread and a picture of bread, just as there is a difference between (barely) a snack and a meal. If you can't even describe what <we> (used loosely) think, then how do you expect to refute it?
And I'm getting tired of saying that I think physical, real, bread and wine are important anyhow. And that I think that it vastly preferable that online sacraments actually include real bread and wine/juice.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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k-mann
Shipmate
# 8490
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Your argument rests on there being no real difference between bread and a picture of bread, but a stark, irrevocable difference between a snack and a meal.
No, it rests on there being a difference between bread and a picture of bread, just as there is a difference between (barely) a snack and a meal. If you can't even describe what <we> (used loosely) think, then how do you expect to refute it?
Let me ask a different question: Where, exactly, does it say that communion is to be a meal as you understand it? That is, a meal like dinner, supper, etc?
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
And I'm getting tired of saying that I think physical, real, bread and wine are important anyhow. And that I think that it vastly preferable that online sacraments actually include real bread and wine/juice.
But then it’s not online. It is different people sitting in different rooms with different pieces of bread and/or wine. They aren’t gathered.
And no one has answered this question yet: Since the (ordained?) minister presiding cannot intend to consecrate every particular piece of bread that happens to be used in services where his recorded voice is used (since he doesn’t know how many they are, where they are, etc.), wouldn’t you have to assume, then, that he actually has to intend to consecrate every piece of bread in the whole world, just to ‘cover his bases’?
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"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt."
— Paul Tillich
Katolikken
Posts: 1314 | From: Norway | Registered: Sep 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
Your argument rests on there being no real difference between bread and a picture of bread, but a stark, irrevocable difference between a snack and a meal.
No, it rests on there being a difference between bread and a picture of bread, just as there is a difference between (barely) a snack and a meal. If you can't even describe what <we> (used loosely) think, then how do you expect to refute it?
Seconded. I only had to scroll down briefly to find the correct response to Zach once again assuming that a person who disagrees with his argument must believe in the EXACT OPPOSITE argument. Which isn't the case at all.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
You are both confusing the sort of difference involved here. The difference between a snack and a meal is one of degree. Ultimately they are the same sort of thing, only a meal has more food involved. It is also woefully ignorant of the fact that millions upon millions have to make due with a meal of only a mouthful of bread every day! Since the Gospels do not say how much food was consumed at the Last Supper, I would imagine it was not a relevant part of Jesus' commandment.
But the difference between bread and a picture of bread is one of kind. They are not the same sort of thing. One is actual food, the other is an an arrangement of pixels on your computer screen. You eat one, you look at the other.
So all this pitching about the difference between a snack and a meal is all terribly irrelevant. An internet Eucharist isn't on the same spectrum as pontifical high mass in its similarity to the Last Supper. It is another sort of thing altogether.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Stejjie
Shipmate
# 13941
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
Let me ask a different question: Where, exactly, does it say that communion is to be a meal as you understand it? That is, a meal like dinner, supper, etc?
All 3 gospel accounts of the Last Supper indicate Jesus and the disciples were eating a meal ("while they were eating... after the supper..."). Not that it was the meal in itself. Zach argued that Communion was doing what Jesus did; so if Jesus and the disciples were eating a meal when they took Communion, couldn't it be argued that we should be, too?
quote:
But then it’s not online. It is different people sitting in different rooms with different pieces of bread and/or wine. They aren’t gathered.
But, for the reasons I've suggested above, I think people can gather online - if we accept that people don't have to be physically in the same place to be together.
quote:
And no one has answered this question yet: Since the (ordained?) minister presiding cannot intend to consecrate every particular piece of bread that happens to be used in services where his recorded voice is used (since he doesn’t know how many they are, where they are, etc.), wouldn’t you have to assume, then, that he actually has to intend to consecrate every piece of bread in the whole world, just to ‘cover his bases’?
As was pointed out above, not every theology of Communion requires the bread to be consecrated, so this wouldn't necessarily be a problem for those who subscribe to theologies and traditions like that.
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A not particularly-alt-worshippy, fairly mainstream, mildly evangelical, vaguely post-modern-ish Baptist
Posts: 1117 | From: Urmston, Manchester, UK | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
[x-post, responding to Zach]
How nice of you to clarify that the kinds of differences you approve of are okay, but the kinds of differences you don't approve of aren't.
We already went over this when you said that communion was "basically" the same thing that people had been doing down the centuries.
Which differences matter and which ones don't is surely a matter of opinion, once you've gone down the path of allowing differences at all, rather than insisting on proper recreation of a Passover meal. It comes down to what the purpose of the enterprise is.
It frequently seems to me is that your interest is very much on recreating particular elements, because of something you can see in a text, without asking WHY you're doing it. What's the point?
If Jesus said "do this in remembrance of me", surely the MAIN purpose is the remembrance, rather than the doing? Surely?
That's what I mean when I talk about how we shouldn't dismiss the 'ancients'. Human nature hasn't really changed. Thought processes haven't really changed. I can understand remembrance of Jesus' sacrifice perfectly well two centuries later.
What I can't understand is locking in physical details of how to do that for all time. Not that I have anything against gathering together, blessing bread and wine and remembering Jesus' sacrifice. I'm just not convinced that this is the only permissible method of carrying out the intended remembrance.
You know what it feels like to me? Imagine if Jesus was around circa 1990 and said "play this CD at your gatherings". Because he said "play this CD" instead of "play this music", you'd be swearing blind that it's absolutely vital the music come from a CD and not from an mp3 file. In two thousand years time, you'd be insisting with iron resolution that whatever new music-playing things we'd come up with just would not do the job.
[ 08. July 2012, 05:25: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
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Posted
Other people have already responded as I would, but a couple more things...
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
Where, exactly, does it say that communion is to be a meal as you understand it? That is, a meal like dinner, supper, etc?
As has already pointed out, it was a meal. But if you think that's not good enough, and it should say somewhere that our communions should also be meals, well that would make sense under a bible as a textbook type of understanding of scripture. I just don't see the bible like that. It's not a textbook, and shouldn't be read as such.
To go back to my "good enough" principles from earlier in the thread, I think that ideally, communion should include a full meal. I understand that's not practical, so in its place, just bread and wine on a Sunday morning is good enough. If someone is house-bound then a home visit is good enough. If no-one can visit them (or there's some other good reason), sharing real bread and wine online is good enough. I'm undecided as to whether an online sacrament without real food is good enough. I'll be looking forward to the experiment with interest.
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
And no one has answered this question yet: Since the (ordained?) minister presiding cannot intend to consecrate every particular piece of bread that happens to be used in services where his recorded voice is used (since he doesn’t know how many they are, where they are, etc.), wouldn’t you have to assume, then, that he actually has to intend to consecrate every piece of bread in the whole world, just to ‘cover his bases’?
As I said, I don't have that theology, so it's hard to put myself into that mindset, but I guess it would be the difference between seeing consecration as a kind of magical spell, or as an act of dedication to God. If its the latter (which I think is much more reasonable), then, knowing that God is omniscient, they can trust that they can dedicate to God the different bread that will be eaten by the different people that will take part in that communion.
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
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