Thread: The Eucharist Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Stoic29 (# 18712) on :
 
I have been reading The Hidden Manna by O'Connor which is considered a landmark study of the Eucharist. It seems almost universal that, in the early Church through the Middle Ages, both East and West believed that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ ("the real presence"). Transubstantiation was not a common term (or any other such term), as this was a latter description to try to articulate what happens at the Lord's Supper. Regardless of the term used, for the first 1,500 years Christians believed that, when they partook of the Supper, that they were actually receiving the Body and Blood of Christ and not a mere memorial.

How do you understand the Eucharist? For me, I wouldn't use the term transubstantiation. Rather, I think I would accept what the Orthodox believe: that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ, but it is a mystery as to how this happens.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
My eucharistic theology is entirely RC. I'm eccentric enough to continue to believe it works in a CofE setting despite the RC objections to that!

[ 17. February 2017, 13:00: Message edited by: betjemaniac ]
 
Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :
 
'transubstantiation' is merely a medieval attempt to explain that the bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ during the celebration of the eucharist. The term was coined round about the time of the Council of the Lateran
in 1215.

During the conflicts about doctrine at the time of the Protestant Reformation the Council of Trent
in 1551 affirmed the traditional doctrine, adding that 'this change the Holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly named transubstantiation.

The Council of Trent did not attempt to explain how the change takes place , but provided a term which attempts to explain what takes place.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
There is 'mere memorialism' and 'mere memorialism'.

Not all 'mere memorialists' are merely memorialist ...

I've gradually moved to a 'higher' view of the eucharist from a very 'low' base but wouldn't know where to begin trying to define such a thing. I don't envisage it in 'transubstantiation' terms but understand how such terms came about.
 
Posted by Stoic29 (# 18712) on :
 
It seems to me, for discussion purposes, that there can be two broad answers:

1) The Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ. As to how this happens, we don't truly know. Regardless of how, we know that it truly is Christ Himself.

or

2) The Eucharist is a memorial supper and we do not consider the Eucharist to be truly the Body and Blood of Christ Himself.
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stoic29:
It seems to me, for discussion purposes, that there can be two broad answers:

1) The Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ. As to how this happens, we don't truly know. Regardless of how, we know that it truly is Christ Himself.

or

2) The Eucharist is a memorial supper and we do not consider the Eucharist to be truly the Body and Blood of Christ Himself.
surely 3?
1) transubstantiation
2) consubstantiation
3) memorial supper
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
sorry, forgot
4) unnecessary (eg Salvation Army approach AIUI)

[ 17. February 2017, 14:37: Message edited by: betjemaniac ]
 
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
surely 3?
1) transubstantiation
2) consubstantiation
3) memorial supper
If you're going to break real presence up in these "major" categories, I'd think you must include receptionism as another category. And Lutheran-style sacramental union, although there's some fuzzy edges in these groups.

I suppose I'd make a division between real presence and memorialism, and then within real presence one between an objective change in the elements vs some of the non-local and faith-requiring descriptions, and then ...
 
Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
surely 3?
1) transubstantiation
2) consubstantiation
3) memorial supper
If you're going to break real presence up in these "major" categories, I'd think you must include receptionism as another category. And Lutheran-style sacramental union, although there's some fuzzy edges in these groups.

I suppose I'd make a division between real presence and memorialism, and then within real presence one between an objective change in the elements vs some of the non-local and faith-requiring descriptions, and then ...
Absolutely - although as you say it's fuzzy. In my head, and I appreciate there's a huge volume of literature arguing against what I'm about to say, I really do struggle to differentiate receptionism, sacramental union and consubstantiation on anything more than the most technical of technicalities. HST eucharistic theory is nothing if not technicalities!

I accept that's my problem rather than that of the churches which subscribe to any one of those three and have laid down why a isn't b or c (for example), but parsing them has always made my head hurt!
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
There's also the Reformed position - the Calvinist one - and Calvin had a lot more 'realised' view of the Eucharist than many of those who claim him as an influence.

That doesn't fit the three neat categories of transubstantiation, consubstantiation or memorialism.

It certainly isn't a merely 'memorialist' position.

But neither is it a 'consubstantiation' or 'transubstantiation' one either.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Whoops - just realised that Leorning Cniht has already referred to this - 'receptionism' ...

Although, if I understand it correctly, the Reformed would argue that their position isn't as simple as 'mere receptionism' if I can put it that way.

Perhaps Jengie Jon can enlighten us ...
 
Posted by Stoic29 (# 18712) on :
 
In the Anglican communion, there seems to be a wide range of understanding. Most high-church would understand the Eucharist in a real-presence sense, which many low-church may understand as a mere memorial.

Strange how priests within high and low churches are ordained by the same bishop, yet may have radically different understandings of the Eucharist.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
sorry, forgot
4) unnecessary (eg Salvation Army approach AIUI)
I wasn't going to comment, not having a dog in this fight, but seeing that someone whistled I just would say that 'unnecessary' does make our position sound flippant, trite and dismissive.

There's a whole lot going on under that one word.

Salvationists would actually say that we are highly sacramental but that we have de-ritualised the Eucharist and place the crucified and risen Christ at the heart of all that we do.

If Schillebeekx is correct, that Christ is the sacrament of God and the church is the sacrament of Christ, then all that the church does is a sacrament.

We have never denied the efficacy of bread and wine as a means of grace (without actually specifiying how it is a means of grace) but would suggest that there are not two sacraments, there are not even seven, but many things that can be used or seen as means of grace.

In response to the word 'unnecessary' we would say that partaking of bread and wine is not 'necessary' for the reception of grace and for salvation - though it may well be very helpful - but keeping the cross, the sacrifice of Jesus, at the heart of worship is absolutely vital.

[ 17. February 2017, 17:06: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
Last time there was a thread on this, I cited Queen Elizabeth I,

Twas God the Word that spake it,
He took the Bread and brake it:
And what that Word did make it,
That I believe and take it.

It isn't just compromise, evasiveness or temporising. What she's saying is that whatever Jesus meant at the Last Supper, and whatever priest/clergyperson/minister/pastor thinks they mean, that is what happens. It's irrespective of our attempts to pigeonhole it theologically.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Hmmm ... Mudfrog, a few observations and a question ...

1) I am very grateful to you for explaining the SA position on this issue a number of times on these boards. I understand it a lot more thanks to you.

2) I recognise that you don't have a dog in this fight and are only responding to a whistle. Fair enough.

Here's the question ...

Could it not be construed that by 'de-ritualising' the eucharist and insisting that everything we do is sacramental (with which I agree) the SA is, in some way, making a tacit value-judgement against those for whom the physical/sacramental act remains important?

Sure, it's not as if the SA is tearing down altars and over-turning communion tables ... nor is it mocking or scoffing those who practice such things.

But by claiming that you 'place the crucified and risen Christ at the heart of all that we do', could it not be construed that you are implying that others aren't?

Ok, so I hold my hand up to a dilemma here ...

To what extent is an apostate cleric or an uber-liberal Spong-y type one who might even be an atheist/theist as it were, placing the crucified and risen Christ at the heart of what they do?

But if we leave those extremes aside for a moment, then surely regularly celebrating the eucharist which - even if understood in 'merely memorialist' terms - does 'represent' the crucified and risen Christ in some way is a means of placing the crucified and risen Christ at the heart of what we do?

It's often jibed that ultra-low church folk celebrate 'the real absence' rather than the 'real presence' ...

Of course, Christ is present everywhere - there is nowhere we can 'flee' from his presence. God is omnipresent, 'present everywhere and filling all things ...'

But you seem to imply that having a 'realised' sense of God's presence in some sacramental way somehow militates against an awareness of his presence in other ways.

I don't know of anyone, not even the most hyper of hyper-sacramentalists - who would claim that God is only present in the sacraments or is somehow constrained purely to working in and through them and in no other way ...

I may have misunderstood your point. In which case I apologise. But as a both/and not either/or person on most issues I don't quite understand the distinction you are making here - seems like a false dichotomy to me.
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
Right anyone who thinks Reformed theology is non-mystical please suspend you concerns for rationality for a while, please. What comes below is my understanding. It draws strongly on Reformed mysticism, gives a good dose of sociological thinking and

First of all, let us grasp the two forms of time within Reformed theology. There are Chronos and Kairos. Chronos is everyday time. Kairos is Salvific time. This is important because the Eucharist happens in Kairos and Kairos is not linear. Indeed it is more like the rings of a tree, what is happening now in Chronos happen within the salvific act in Kairos. The act of salvation is present.

To us as human's what we experience is perhaps better portrayed by Foucault's idea of Heterotopia, a place where multiple realities are present. We, therefore, share bread and wine but we participate in much more, not just the events of Maundy Thursday to Easter day but in creation, in God's promise to Noah, in the God who walks between the animals in creation of a covenant with Abraham, the rescuing of the Hebrews from Egypt and the appearance of Sinia, the temple code, Davidic Kingship, the exile, the incarnation, the ascension and on through the life of the Church to the heavenly banquet.

The bread and wine are the elements of the last supper, the blood and body of God which we participate in, but they are also the sacrifices of the temple, they are the ram killed instead of Isaac and they are the food of the heavenly banquet.

I, therefore, say there are three icons that form a triptych which we use for understanding the Eucharist:
When we focus heavily on a single icon within the triptych we loose much in our understanding to be garnered from the others and also of the interplay within the others.

Jengie

*This is why Calvin can be interpreted so widely by commentators. We try to place him on a dimension between Memorialism and Transubstantiation but he is somewhere else completely.

[ 17. February 2017, 17:47: Message edited by: Jengie jon ]
 
Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Whoops - just realised that Leorning Cniht has already referred to this - 'receptionism' ...

Although, if I understand it correctly, the Reformed would argue that their position isn't as simple as 'mere receptionism' if I can put it that way.

Perhaps Jengie Jon can enlighten us ...
If the Scots Confession of 1560 may be taken as indicative of a classical reformed position, this might be illustrative
quote:
And thairfoir quhasaeuer sclanderis ws as that we affirmit or beleuit sacramentis to be onlie nakit and bair signis do Iniurie vnto ws and speikis aganis the manifest treuth Bot this liberallie and franklie we confess that we mak ane distinctioun betuix christ Jesus in his eternall substance and betuix the elementis in the sacramental signis Sa that we will nouther wirschip the signis in place of that quhilk is signifyit bethame nother yit do we dispyse and interpreit thame as vnprofitabill and vaine bot do vse thame with all reuerence examining our selfis diligentlie befoir that sa we do because we ar assurit be the mouth of the Apostle that sic as eit of that breid and drink of that coup vnworthely ar gyltie of the body and of the blude of christ Jesus
The rejection of 'naked and bare signs', suggests that is not 'as simple as mere receptionsm'.
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
Sorry Gamaliel

I think I did answer your question while posting my own position. Receptionism/Memorialism is one strand of Reformed thought coming from Zwingli. The other that goes back to Calvin is a lot more complex. The sort of language we would use is we partake of Christs Body and Blood in the aspect that we partake in the Eucharist of the heavenly banquet.

What the above theology in practice means is that we are taught almost accidentally that Eucharist is a foreshadowing of the heavenly banquet. This is not done by teaching about the Eucharist but in bible study when over and over again Gospel narratives around meals are seen as foreshadowing this banquet including the last supper.

Go figure!

Jengie
 
Posted by TomM (# 4618) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
If Schillebeekx is correct, that Christ is the sacrament of God and the church is the sacrament of Christ, then all that the church does is a sacrament.

Whilst I recognise you don't actually go this far, to equate Schillebeeckx's position with the Salvationist line is to do him a disservice. He's still fairly keen on the necessity of the sacraments.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomM:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
If Schillebeekx is correct, that Christ is the sacrament of God and the church is the sacrament of Christ, then all that the church does is a sacrament.

Whilst I recognise you don't actually go this far, to equate Schillebeeckx's position with the Salvationist line is to do him a disservice. He's still fairly keen on the necessity of the sacraments.
Oh yes, indeed. I wouldn't take that away from him in the slightest.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
I accept the church's original belief. Which is to say, that which is taught and believed in Orthodoxy.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

Could it not be construed that by 'de-ritualising' the eucharist and insisting that everything we do is sacramental (with which I agree) the SA is, in some way, making a tacit value-judgement against those for whom the physical/sacramental act remains important?

Sure, it's not as if the SA is tearing down altars and over-turning communion tables ... nor is it mocking or scoffing those who practice such things.

But by claiming that you 'place the crucified and risen Christ at the heart of all that we do', could it not be construed that you are implying that others aren't?
Yes, there is that danger; and tragically over the generations there arose, in the minds of some, an attitude that the Army didn't have sacraments 'because we don't believe in them' or worse, 'we don't agree with them,'

There is nothing further from the truth.

Apart from the original rationale for our discontinuance of said ritual, partly 'we are not a church', much of our not celebrating them has to do with our mission which some might say would be to exist as a non-sacramental order within the universal church.

I said somewhere else that we might not celebrate the eucharist but we are part of a Church that does.

So perhaps we could put it, maybe in reverse of the ordination of a single man from within the congregation to be ordained to word and sacrament, that as a movement, The Salvation Army is called within its place in the Church t be 'ordained' to word and service.
If there could be such a thing as a whole movement doing the job of one particular church office, then The Salvation Army is actually called be the Diaconate, not the Priesthood.

In other words, it's not in our gift and calling to be a sacramental church.

The following from our statement of The Salvation Army's place within the Body of Christ might help:

quote:

WE BELIEVE that every visible expression of the Church Universal is endowed with its own blessings and strengths as gifts from God. We respect and admire those strengths, recognising too that because of human frailty every such expression, including The Salvation Army, has its imperfections.

WE DO NOT BELIEVE it is our task to comment negatively upon, or to undermine, the traditions of other denominations, and certainly not in relation to the sacraments (on which our distinctive, though not unique, position sees the whole of life as a sacrament with a calling from God to Salvationists to witness to a life of sanctity without formal sacraments).
It is contrary to our practices to offer adverse comment upon the life of any denomination or local congregation.
We seek to be careful not to belittle the doctrines or practices of any other Christian group. The Army places emphasis in its teaching not upon externals but upon the need for each believer personally to experience that inward spiritual grace to which an external observance testifies.
We maintain that no external observance can rightly be said to be essential to salvation or to the receiving of divine grace and that the biblical truth is that we can meet with God and receive his grace anywhere at any time through faith.
We recognise that external observances such as baptism and eucharist are used in many denominations as a means of grace.
We believe that our calling into sanctity without sacraments is not a contradiction of the ways of other churches, but is something beautiful for Christ, to be held in creative tension with the equally beautiful, but very different, practices of other denominations.
In the overall economy of God there are no inherent contradictions, but there are creative paradoxes.
11

 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I accept the church's original belief. Which is to say, that which is taught and believed in Orthodoxy.
When did that original belief appear?
Are we talking Apostolic or 2nd and 3rd Century?
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Ok, I get that, Jengie Jon and have encountered elements of all of that in small r reformed circles - including Chronos and Kairos and so on ...

It might not be articulated quite as clearly as you have done, though ...

Interestingly, I've come across Orthodox who believe that Calvin's position on the eucharist isn't a million miles from theirs - but also, online rather than in real life, former Reformed dudes who are now Orthodox and who insist that Calvin's position is nothing like theirs ... But that might be a case of convertitis ...
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
Further to my post just now:
quote:

William Booth practised the sacrament of Holy Communion after he was ordained in the Methodist ministry, and throughout his leadership of the Army he was always careful not to dismiss the spiritual benefits felt by those who took communion.
Speaking to a congregation of Salvation Army officers in council in Melbourne soon after the Army had begun to establish itself in Australia, he confirmed: ‘I never allow myself to be led into conversation at the dinner table or to say one word to make anybody else think less of the Sacraments than they do.’
Salvationists are officially permitted (I wish the word was 'encouraged') to share in the sacrament in any church where they are welcomed to partake. I will personally take communion anywhere - and have done, from a small Sunday morning Brethren breaking of bread, to a full ordination Eucharist in Lincoln cathedral.

Had we been allowed I would have quite happily received communion in the small chapel at Ushaw College RC Seminary when I was doing my chaplaincy course with them there.

It is a means of grace, after all (one among many)
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
Jengie, I'd query whether any of what you've written on the Reformed understanding of the Eucharist and the three ikons is incompatible with being a member of the CofE. Because of unease about any language that might be construed as the sacrifice of the mass, middle/lower church people might tend to express the first of the three more in terms of being united with and uniting ourselves with both Christ's sacrifice at Calvary and the whole of salvation history.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Don't forget that the CofE was mildly Calvinist in the mid 16th century, Enoch.

For various reasons Jengie Jon wouldn't consider the CofE as Big R Reformed but the way she has expressed the Calvinist take on the eucharist wouldn't be a million miles from that of many Anglicans I know.

But then, I know many Zwinglian memorial type Anglicans too.

I'd go so far as to say that some Brethren assemblies take communion more 'seriously' than some Anglicans ...
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Last time there was a thread on this, I cited Queen Elizabeth I,

Twas God the Word that spake it,
He took the Bread and brake it:
And what that Word did make it,
That I believe and take it.

It isn't just compromise, evasiveness or temporising. What she's saying is that whatever Jesus meant at the Last Supper, and whatever priest/clergyperson/minister/pastor thinks they mean, that is what happens. It's irrespective of our attempts to pigeonhole it theologically.
Yes. And in similar vein, from the 1662 BCP:

quote:
...when he delivereth the Bread to any one, he shall say,

The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life: Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.

And the Minister that delivereth the Cup to any one shall say,

The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life: Drink this in remembrance that Christ's Blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.
I'm afraid I'm no theologian so that'll have to do me. I don't want, or feel able, to inquire into it any more deeply than that.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
I wonder what the celebration of the Eucharist achieves or gives to those churches that practise it? Apart from the various theologies, what functions does it fulfil?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I wonder what the celebration of the Eucharist achieves or gives to those churches that practise it? Apart from the various theologies, what functions does it fulfil?
It unites us to God physically and intimately.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I accept the church's original belief. Which is to say, that which is taught and believed in Orthodoxy.
When did that original belief appear?
Are we talking Apostolic or 2nd and 3rd Century?
Whenever the first coherent and accepted belief on the subject appeared, there it was. Clearly the idea that we are eating and drinking Christ was very early since Justin Martyr (d. 150) argued to Roman pagan detractors that we weren't cannibals.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
As for "apostolic" I ask you: how many times does Paul quote Jesus? Yet he gives a huge chunk of the Last Supper narrative, in the context of the worship of the church, and including the words "This is my body" and "This is my blood."

People who claim to take the bible literally somehow never include in their literalism these verses, or the related verses in John, or Christ's statement, "Unless you eat of the flesh of the son of man and drink of his blood you have no life within you."

The "plain and obvious" meaning of scripture is only plain and obvious to them when it agrees with their predetermined theology.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
As for "apostolic" I ask you: how many times does Paul quote Jesus? Yet he gives a huge chunk of the Last Supper narrative, in the context of the worship of the church, and including the words "This is my body" and "This is my blood."

People who claim to take the bible literally somehow never include in their literalism these verses, or the related verses in John, or Christ's statement, "Unless you eat of the flesh of the son of man and drink of his blood you have no life within you."

The "plain and obvious" meaning of scripture is only plain and obvious to them when it agrees with their predetermined theology.
I agree.

That's why I asked; because there are those who would read back church practice of centuries later into the Gospel narratives. For example, those who translate 'cup' in the Gospels as 'chalice'. Chalice is a loaded word and is only used for the cup at Mass. Using it in the prayer book makes Jesus into a priestly celebrant at Mass rather than the host of the Jewish Passover meal.

As for the john 6 (and the Last Supper accounts) I would prefer to see them as having a Jewish meaning, not 2nd century Church meaning.

I don't think John 6 refers to eucharist in the slightest. It has a contemporary Jewish meaning.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I wonder what the celebration of the Eucharist achieves or gives to those churches that practise it? Apart from the various theologies, what functions does it fulfil?
It unites us to God physically and intimately.
As individuals or as a congregation or a people? And why does it have to be repeated?
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I wonder what the celebration of the Eucharist achieves or gives to those churches that practise it? Apart from the various theologies, what functions does it fulfil?
It unites us to God physically and intimately.
It's also a rite that unites us to each other, as something that normally occurs communally.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I think I may have mentioned this before, Mudfrog, but aren't you taking my the RCs more literally here than they do themselves?

I'm no expert on RC doctrine or practice, but I'd be surprised if they saw the Last Supper as 'looking' like a Mass, down to the actual style of cup used ...

Althea the they di, of course, see a continuity between the Last Supper and eucharistic practice - and they have Pauline grounds for doing so.

As for John 6 - the context, of course, is Jewish practice but the Church seems always to have understood it eucharistically - although understandings of it vary of course.

@hatless, good questions ... But why do we repeat anything? Why do churches meet regularly at all? Why not meet once or twice and then disband?
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
So it all went 'wrong' in the 2nd century, did it Mudfrog and only the 1st century Christians got things 'right' in their original Jewish context?

I don't think I've ever met an RC or Orthodox Christian who would claim that their liturgies were identical to 1st or 2nd century models in every detail or respect - but they do see a development from the earliest practice to the Mass or the Liturgy as it subsequently developed.

Which is fair enough. Where else did they come from?
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:


@hatless, good questions ... But why do we repeat anything? Why do churches meet regularly at all? Why not meet once or twice and then disband?
I'm just musing.

We don't repeat Baptism. The Eucharist isn't a once thing. Why is that? I wonder if it makes visible something that is hard to see? I wonder if it is different every time?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
That's why I asked; because there are those who would read back church practice of centuries later into the Gospel narratives. For example, those who translate 'cup' in the Gospels as 'chalice'. Chalice is a loaded word and is only used for the cup at Mass. Using it in the prayer book makes Jesus into a priestly celebrant at Mass rather than the host of the Jewish Passover meal.

As for the john 6 (and the Last Supper accounts) I would prefer to see them as having a Jewish meaning, not 2nd century Church meaning.

I don't think John 6 refers to eucharist in the slightest. It has a contemporary Jewish meaning.
Yes. As I said, the "plain and obvious meaning" of scripture only works when it agrees with your theology. Otherwise taking it literally is reading back in a later understanding. Fortunately evangelicals NEVER read back in later understandings. Because when they take it literally, they are really taking it literally and that's what it actually means.

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
As individuals or as a congregation or a people?
What's the difference?

quote:
And why does it have to be repeated?
Because that's how people work. Very few experiences are once-and-once-only. Baptism stands out, but baptism is walking (swimming) through a door. Eucharist isn't a change of state from one-thing-before to another-thing-after. Your question is like asking why I should take my wife out to dinner more than once. Sure I only married her once. But the relationship is ongoing.

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
It's also a rite that unites us to each other, as something that normally occurs communally.
Good observation.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So it all went 'wrong' in the 2nd century, did it Mudfrog and only the 1st century Christians got things 'right' in their original Jewish context?

I don't think I've ever met an RC or Orthodox Christian who would claim that their liturgies were identical to 1st or 2nd century models in every detail or respect - but they do see a development from the earliest practice to the Mass or the Liturgy as it subsequently developed.

Which is fair enough. Where else did they come from?
Really if everything was fucked up by Justin Martyr's day, what do we make of the Apostolic Fathers? These were men who were all trained by apostles. Were they fucked too, or did they have it right? If they had it right, that means the church went off the rails somewhere between 120 and 150. If they were fucked that means it went off the rails somewhere between say 75 and 110.

Either way the Holy Spirit done fucked up after less than 120 years after Christ's death, allowing the church to completely go astray, only to be called back 1300 years later.

It's the typical restorationist bullshit, only they normally wait until Constantine to knife the Holy Spirit in the back.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Really, Mousethief, language ...

'We'll have no language in this house ...'

I was, of course, trying to point out to Mudfrog how untenable his position is in this one.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Really, Mousethief, language ...

'We'll have no language in this house ...'

I was, of course, trying to point out to Mudfrog how untenable his position is in this one.
Language? Oh, you mean "knife in the back." Well that's how it looks to me, is all.

Your inbox is full by the way.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
Mousethief, you said the Eucharist unites us to God physically and intimately. That does sound like a change of state, like Baptism, marriage, consecration or ordination. Repeated actions are more likely to have an incomplete effect or a temporary effect.

I think I might use the word revelation of the Eucharist. It shows us something, something we keep forgetting.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Mousethief, you said the Eucharist unites us to God physically and intimately. That does sound like a change of state, like Baptism, marriage, consecration or ordination. Repeated actions are more likely to have an incomplete effect or a temporary effect.

I think I might use the word revelation of the Eucharist. It shows us something, something we keep forgetting.
Kissing my wife, or having sex with her, unites me to her physically and intimately. No?
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Ok. Now, now ...

I've just deleted a few messages. They creep up on me.

On the restorationist thing, yeah, I get that ... As a recovered restorationist.

To be fair, though, we all tend to redact our own reflections back into the pages of the NT and the practices of the early Church. It's not just a Protestant thing. Surely the Orthodox legends about St Luke painting the first icon of the Virgin Mary is an example of a later practice being redacted back to an earlier stage?

I don't have any issues with iconography but it would seem that they developed later - the earliest examples I'm aware of are 3rd century perhaps ...

That doesn't mean we shouldn't use icons, of course.

So, I can see what Mudfrog is driving at, although I do think he is taking the RCs more literally on this point than they would themselves. Of course the RCs interpret those passages that Mudfrog refuses to understand eucharistically, eucharistically ...

But I'm not convinced they imagine the Last Supper to have looked like High Mass at the Brompton Oratory.

The first time I read the wee Penguin paperback of the Sub-Apostolic Fathers I was shocked at how 'catholic' they were ...
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
Yes, but doesn't it also refresh something that can fade, even though you're married? Marriage unites, but that unity is better if made present.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Yes, but doesn't it also refresh something that can fade, even though you're married? Marriage unites, but that unity is better if made present.
We humans are fickle people. God is unwavering. We are not. Our hearts do, in fact, grow cold, unless rewarmed by that repeated intimacy. But you asked what it does and not why it's needed. This feels like so much whataboutery.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
I was partly reacting to your bish bash bosh style, there's a question, here is the answer. Which is fine, but I think the Eucharist is one of those things that isn't neat and obvious. I think we grow into it.

And unity with God is a bit of a startling concept! I can just about imagine being drawn into the life of God ..
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
To be fair, though, we all tend to redact our own reflections back into the pages of the NT and the practices of the early Church. It's not just a Protestant thing. Surely the Orthodox legends about St Luke painting the first icon of the Virgin Mary is an example of a later practice being redacted back to an earlier stage?
No. You're conflating two very different things. Telling fairy tales about the past and reading your theology into the New Testament aren't even comparable. Everybody tells stories, and there's nothing terribly wrong with it. The NT is rather sacrosanct in a way that the lack-of-st.-luke-as-iconographer-stories is not.

quote:
I don't have any issues with iconography but it would seem that they developed later - the earliest examples I'm aware of are 3rd century perhaps ...
Catacombs.

quote:
So, I can see what Mudfrog is driving at, although I do think he is taking the RCs more literally on this point than they would themselves. Of course the RCs interpret those passages that Mudfrog refuses to understand eucharistically, eucharistically ...
The whole thing about the word "chalice" strikes me as a tempest in a teacup. It only matters that they translate it "chalice" if they then made some argument based on the word "chalice" being there. That would be rather circular. But merely calling it "chalice" doesn't do that. It's reading the text through the lens of their understanding, but who doesn't? And when it comes right down to it, what does "chalice" mean if not "cup"? At least they didn't say "Grail." Which would also be quite accurate, although dragging in a lot of medieval baggage that isn't necessarily necessary.

quote:
The first time I read the wee Penguin paperback of the Sub-Apostolic Fathers I was shocked at how 'catholic' they were ...
And how they worshiped on Sunday.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I was partly reacting to your bish bash bosh style, there's a question, here is the answer.
If you don't want answers, it would probably work better if you didn't ask questions.

I have no idea what "bish bash bosh" means.

quote:
Which is fine, but I think the Eucharist is one of those things that isn't neat and obvious.
So you were basically trying to ambush people. You ask a question, then when they answer, you pounce, and try to pound them into your understanding of the Eucharist as being too woolly to ask and answer questions about.

quote:
And unity with God is a bit of a startling concept! I can just about imagine being drawn into the life of God ..
Well that's what theosis is all about. I'm Orthodox. It's in our blood, you might say.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
Yes, that's right. It was all a ruse to avoid having a discussion.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:


We don't repeat Baptism. The Eucharist isn't a once thing. Why is that? I wonder if it makes visible something that is hard to see? I wonder if it is different every time?
There must be self-professed Christians who are satisfied with only having taken communion once, or maybe a handful of times, in their lives. I don't know if this attitude has ever been explored by theologians.

What I've noticed is that popular religion frequently de-emphasises communion. I mean 'popular' in two senses: firstly with reference to the large numbers of 'fuzzy faithful', who don't make a particular effort to plan their occasional church visits to coincide with communion services; and secondly, I note that Pentecostalism, now a very popular global form of institutional Christianity, doesn't spend much time encouraging or reflecting on this ritual.

As it happens, I was also surprised to discover when abroad last Easter that 7th Day Adventists didn't celebrate communion at that time. (In fact Easter wasn't mentioned at all at the Adventist morning service I attended. This was a large, well-known church, not a struggling little chapel.) If Easter isn't the right time, when is?

Mind you, even the RCC hasn't always insisted on frequent communion for everyone, so something there has changed somehow. There's a lot of ambivalence surrounding the ritual, and not just dry theological disagreement.

[ 17. February 2017, 23:21: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
 
Posted by Gwalchmai (# 17802) on :
 
The Anglican position is set out in the BCP catechism. A sacrament is defined as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”. In relation to the Eucharist, the outward and visible sign is the bread and wine and the inward part is “The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper”

In this view, arguments over what happens to the bread and wine at the moment of consecration – is it magically turned into flesh and blood? (no, it isn’t) – are unimportant. What matters is “The strengthening and refreshing of our souls”. Do we actually need a pseudo-scientific explanation of what happens?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Yes, that's right. It was all a ruse to avoid having a discussion.
I have it on excellent authority that discussions are okay, just not answering questions.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
There is 'mere memorialism' and 'mere memorialism'.
The difference is between simple and simplistic.

In other words, the term can be used descriptively, or prescriptively/pejoratively.

The latter can legitimately be used to express a genuine belief that memorialism does not meet all the NT criteria.

But it can also be used as a rhetorical device to imply that those who subscribe to memorialism either don't know of, or can't understand, other models - a bluff which needs to be called.

[ 18. February 2017, 01:28: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I accept the church's original belief. Which is to say, that which is taught and believed in Orthodoxy.
You are begging the question.

The "church's original belief" is found in the NT.

What exactly that "original belief" was, and the extent to which Orthodox, RC and various Protestant positions reflect it, is what the thread is attempting to discuss.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
As for "apostolic" I ask you: how many times does Paul quote Jesus? Yet he gives a huge chunk of the Last Supper narrative, in the context of the worship of the church, and including the words "This is my body" and "This is my blood."

People who claim to take the bible literally somehow never include in their literalism these verses, or the related verses in John, or Christ's statement, "Unless you eat of the flesh of the son of man and drink of his blood you have no life within you."

The "plain and obvious" meaning of scripture is only plain and obvious to them when it agrees with their predetermined theology.
You are being disingenuous.

You are perfectly aware that ALL Christian traditions take some passages literally and others non literally, depending on their immediate context, and also on the broader context - what Augustine called the Analogy of Scripture.

As to John Ch.6, Christ's statement in vv.53-4 "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life,and I will raise him up at the last day", must be understood in the context of vv.35,40,47 which indicate that eating/drinking is equivalent to, because imagery for, believing.

It was the crude literal cannibalistic exegesis of this passage that raised the problems the Apologists had to try to deal with.

[ 18. February 2017, 01:59: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
You are being disingenuous.

You are perfectly aware that ALL Christian traditions take some passages literally and others non literally, depending on their immediate context, and also on the broader context - what Augustine called the Analogy of Scripture.
*I* am perfectly aware of that. Many many many evangelicals and fundamentalists are NOT. They sincerely believe that OTHER people "interpret" the Scriptures, but they read them just as they are, without interpretation. Surely you have met people like that on the ship. When I find people leaning in that direction, as we have on this thread, I think it is necessary to point out what you just said. So I did.

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I accept the church's original belief. Which is to say, that which is taught and believed in Orthodoxy.
You are begging the question.

The "church's original belief" is found in the NT.

What exactly that "original belief" was, and the extent to which Orthodox, RC and various Protestant positions reflect it, is what the thread is attempting to discuss.
It was worked out 1850 years ago. We have no need to reinvent that wheel.

[ 18. February 2017, 02:59: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:

We don't repeat Baptism. The Eucharist isn't a once thing. Why is that?
Apart, I suppose, from the trivial answer "Jesus told us to?"
 
Posted by Humble Servant (# 18391) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gwalchmai:

In this view, arguments over what happens to the bread and wine at the moment of consecration – is it magically turned into flesh and blood? (no, it isn’t) – are unimportant.
Is this really the position of transubstantiation? That the bread and wine are physically transformed into actual flesh and actual blood?

It seems to be a Roman-bashing thing - to say that the RCC believes in this "magic". But is that really the belief of the RCC? (they didn't go into it on my RCIA course, which I found disappointing). I think that if you put the elements in your mouth and eat them, you can pretty quickly discover that this hasn't happened. The priest does not store the reserved sacrament in a refrigerator. So clearly, at some level, there must be a belief that the elements are still bread and wine. The transformation must be understood metaphorically in some way or you would tie yourself in knots and leave yourself open to this kind of parody.
 
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Humble Servant:
Is this really the position of transubstantiation? That the bread and wine are physically transformed into actual flesh and actual blood?
Aquinas follows Aristotle in distinguishing between the accidents and the substance of a thing.

The accidents (appearance, physical properties and so on) remain unaltered: the bread still tastes like bread, the wine still tastes like wine. So no, it's not a physical transformation, as that would alter the accidents.

What transubstantiation says is changed is the substance of the bread and wine, not its accidents. The substance is the essence of a thing. A chair might be made of wood, or of metal, or plastic, but it has the essence of chair. This "substance" can't be directly perceived: you can't point at a piece of chairiness.

So transubstantiation says that the substance - the essence - of the bread and wine are transformed into Jesus, but all the outwardly perceptible accidents - taste, colour, shape, chemical composition etc. - remain that of the host species.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
There is 'mere memorialism' and 'mere memorialism'.
The difference is between simple and simplistic.

In other words, the term can be used descriptively, or prescriptively/pejoratively.

The latter can legitimately be used to express a genuine belief that memorialism does not meet all the NT criteria.

But it can also be used as a rhetorical device to imply that those who subscribe to memorialism either don't know of, or can't understand, other models - a bluff which needs to be called.
Well, yes ...

I wasn't saying otherwise. I know 'mere memorialists' who take it all a lot more seriously and reverently than those who theology might appear to incline them to do the same.

Not all 'mere memorialism' is as merely memorialist as it can appear at first sight.

Indeed, I know an Anglo-Catholic priest who'd suggest that mere memorialists aren't merely memorialist inspire of themselves ...

Work that one out ...
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
The Reformed argument with Anglicanism has nothing to do with the Eucharist and all with the nature of the Ecclesiology and how power is activated within that.

Remember
Congregational - government by congregation
Presbyterian - government by presbyters
Episcopalian - government by bishops

in life
Congregationalism - primarily favours the meeting of the local congregation
Presbyterianism - primarily favours a balance of power representative democracy
Episcopaliamism - primarily favours a pattern of patronage.

I know Episcopalianism has been reformed since the 16th century but certainly, within the CofE, the pattern of patronage is still strong and kicking.

Jengie
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
Hang on - surely Episcopacy and Patronage aren't necessarily the same thing? In the past (I don't know how things stand now) there was patronage by (say) Oxford colleges, wealthy land-owners, ecclesiastical societies, city guilds ... a whole mishmash of things!

Surely the two are only co-terminal if the Bishops themselves are always the Patrons? - or, at least, the ones who can collate and demit clergy.

And wasn't the right of Patronage one of the fundamental issues within the 1843 spilt within the Church of Scotland - a Presbyterian denomination?
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
Reformed does not equal Calvinism. Reformed Christianity is the result of the Consensus Tigurinus an agreement between the churches of Geneva and Zurich which many other continental city churches joined in on e.g. Strasbourg. The theology is, therefore, blended. With regard to the Eucharist, Zwinglian Memorialism is the dominant strand, but that does not make it the theology of Calvin nor that Calvin's Eucharist theology is forgotten but it is definitely a harmony rather than the tune.

Jengie
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
Try telling that to Anglican clergy I know in Sheffield.

Right patronage in CofE
- the vicar/priest is appointed by the patron (yep, really)
- appointments for higher roles are by committee. You want to get on, you need to keep well in with those higher up.
- the point of divine right of kings was precisely that all power in the church emanated from the king.

Most of the time it is covered by a middle-class niceness where consultation happens as a norm. However, when things go wrong it is pretty obvious that the ordinary member has little power to counter things.

Realisation this week is that Bishops actually expect to be loved. Do you know anyone in the Baptist Union who expects the moderators or such to be universally loved? It just does not go with the job description.

Jengie
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
Let me also explain the downside of Nonconformist power. The majority of bullying in CofE is largely top down. In Nonconformity the bullying goes in all directions within Presbyterianism and within Congregationalism bullying is most frequently congregation against clergy.

Jengie
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
Fair enough. As you know, my ecclesiology is congregationalist; I simply wanted to point out that Patronage (after the Anglican model) and Episcopacy do not have to equate to each other. How, for example, do things work in the RCC, TEC or among our Orthodox friends?

There is also an interesting debate to be had among Baptists as, in Britain, it has always been assumed that they are congregationalist. But, while this is explicit in many church Trust Deeds, there is nothing to say so in the over-arching "Declaration of Principle". And some of the incoming "ethnic" Baptist groups do have bishops (e.g. the Georgians, although I have not heard of any in the UK). If these churches wish to affiliate with BUGB, should they be accepted or not? - in other words, in congregational polity a "mark" of a Baptist church?

(Nothing much to do with Eucharist, this - except it does have some bearing on who presides at the Table and the extent to which you think they exercise a "priestly" function).

PS Cross-posted with Jengie! I agree with what you say about the general direction of bullying - but I also think that it can go in both ways in all kinds of churches. A Baptist minister wrote a good MA about 10 years ago about ministers who were bullied by their "flock" - but it can also happen in reverse.

[ 18. February 2017, 08:29: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
 
Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :
 
It seems that we are arguing here about the meanings of words which can all be understood in different ways by different people. Surely congregation or congregationalism is simply a word describing a local gathering of the faithful within which there is the same scope for disagreement as in any larger group such as a Catholic 'parish' or a Catholic 'diocese' or even the whole 'Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church'
Someone, somewhere along the line has to have the last word and declare in some way that this is also God's word.

Transubstantiation is the Catholic church's best attempt at a particular time to express in words the mystery of the eucharist.

We should not forget that the eucharist is food and that just as we need regular food for the body we need also this food for the soul.

Admittedly for many centuries the Catholic Church did not urge the faithful to receive the eucharist regularly, but rather in a clericalist age left it to the priest to receive daily on behalf of the faithful. In general the faithful received only once a year at Easter or at the moment of death as Viaticum. That has changed in the last 150 years. Anointing of the Sick was also left to the moment of approaching death, just like baptism many, many centuries ago , but that too has changed.

From the time of St Thomas of Aquin, and probably from his pen we have the following wonderful description of the eucharist,which,I think, agrees with what Jengie Jon had to say.

O sacrum convivium,in quo Christus sumitur,
recolitur memoria passionis ejus
mens impletur gratia
et future gloriae nobis pignus datur.

in English
O sacred banquet in which Christ is received
the memory of His passion renewed
the mind is filled with grace
and a pledge of future glory to us is given.
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
If I had been politer I would have used the three Thomist forms of government and related those to the three forms of Ecclesial government. There are two PhDs at least about the power battles between Elders and Ministers within Presbyterianism.

Congregationalism is both a form of church government and a group of churches. Come on Forthview, until this century there were Congregational Churches in Scotland (they are now largely URC).

Jengie
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:

We don't repeat Baptism. The Eucharist isn't a once thing. Why is that?
Apart, I suppose, from the trivial answer "Jesus told us to?"
As I understand it the origin of the Eucharist is unclear. The Didache only mentions a meal with Jewish style prayers, perhaps like the Corinthian meal Paul criticises. When does the Passover link get established? And the drinking blood idea, so unJewish, where and when are it's origins?
 
Posted by Higgs Bosun (# 16582) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Try telling that to Anglican clergy I know in Sheffield.

Right patronage in CofE
- the vicar/priest is appointed by the patron (yep, really)
- appointments for higher roles are by committee. You want to get on, you need to keep well in with those higher up.
- the point of divine right of kings was precisely that all power in the church emanated from the king.

Most of the time it is covered by a middle-class niceness where consultation happens as a norm. However, when things go wrong it is pretty obvious that the ordinary member has little power to counter things.

Realisation this week is that Bishops actually expect to be loved. Do you know anyone in the Baptist Union who expects the moderators or such to be universally loved? It just does not go with the job description.

Jengie
I'm not sure that is quite right. I was involved with the appointment process when our previous vicar moved to higher pastures. We have a patronage trust as patron, who helpfully described the process, which changed perhaps 100 years ago when parish representatives were introduced. These are two people elected by the PCC.

The patron is the one who proposes candidates. The parish representatives can refuse any candidate. Finally, the bishop grants a licence to the the acceptable candidate. I guess the bishop can refuse to license the person proposed (e.g. if the bishop considered that this person might perjure themselves in swearing the oath of canonical obedience).

Nowadays, I think the most common pattern of appointment would be the one we followed. The post is advertised. The patron does the shortlisting, perhaps in consultation with the representatives. Then the shortlisted candidates are interviewed by the patron, the representatives and the bishop, who seek agreement together on the appointment.
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
The two there are solely there because the patron allows them to be. They have no right to be there.

Jengie
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:

We don't repeat Baptism. The Eucharist isn't a once thing. Why is that?
Apart, I suppose, from the trivial answer "Jesus told us to?"
As I understand it the origin of the Eucharist is unclear. The Didache only mentions a meal with Jewish style prayers, perhaps like the Corinthian meal Paul criticises. When does the Passover link get established? And the drinking blood idea, so unJewish, where and when are it's origins?
I would rather ask, 'when did the Passover link get destroyed (or merely forgotten)'?

I imagine that after Paul's and Peter's martyrdom the evangelical preaching of the Gospel in the synagogues and to the Jews ceased and the Gentile church established itself.

After AD70 when the Jerusalem church lost its position, and as the Gentile Christians grew and grew in number whilst the Jewish converts dwindled, then all the Jewish references and foundations of the church were downplayed and then forgotten in the second, third and fourth generations.

The church was now living in a Greek/Roman context with fewer Jewish converts and people brought ideas and thinking from there, rather than looking to the Jewish roots of what they were doing. It might be argued then that baptism and eucharist borrowed quite heavily from the Mystery religions and some of their interpretations were overlaid on the Christian rituals.

I think it's a shame that the Passover meal itself, with all its elements (bearing in mind we don't know exactly what those elements were for a 1st Century Jewish meal) did indeed become ritualised into bread and wine received sacramentally and given by a priest.

I think how wonderful it could be had the full meal been carried over with all the Exodus and redemption imagery retained and fulfilled in Jesus, and all the different bread and wine elements kept in the context of the shared meal.

It became what it became guess but it would be interesting to focus a bit more on the Passover meal / Jewish breaking of bread meal that was the forerunner of the Eucharist that developed later.

[ 18. February 2017, 09:48: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
I'm not entirely sure that's true, Jengie, though I'm willing to be corrected. As I understand it, on my very sketchy knowledge, a PCC and/or bishop can refuse a patron's offer of an appointment, subject to the patron having a right of appeal to the archbishop. So there is a legal right of veto by the parish, but it can be overridden. But a patron cannot just impose an incumbent of his/ her own volition.

[ 18. February 2017, 09:52: Message edited by: Albertus ]
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
Sorry to double post, but what i take to be the relevant section of the legislation is here.
 
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :
 
I can't speak for the CofE but it's not correct for other parts of the Anglican Communion where a patron essentially acts as a failsafe. A board or council is comprised of various interested parties of anyone from the local community, usually with two or three members/employees of the institution concerned (a school for example) and two members of the local Anglican/Episcopalian parish that the institution resides in. It's not a hard and fast rule, but generally speaking one parish member is elected by the parish and approved (or not) by the vestry/council. The other member may be elected in the same way but the patron has a right of representation should they wish to exercise it and may appoint a member at the approval of the vestry/council. Normally this would be someone form the local parish. It doesn't have to be, but it would be unusual not to. Sometimes you might want someone with a special skill or experience in a similar institution. In such instances an appointment from outside the parish may be wise and gratefully accepted. The patron themselves has a right to chair meeting if they so desired, but in my experience this is rarely done unless there is a particular reason - which could either be the simple fact of the church's previous involvement and investment or the board/council has hit a rocky patch and requires and outside and somewhat impartial chair. The chair can only cast a vote in certain circumstances; usually when the council/board is comprised of an even number and find themselves evenly split on an issue. It's not an easy position to take for the chair - hence why it tends to be avoided by the patrons!
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
You are being disingenuous.

You are perfectly aware that ALL Christian traditions take some passages literally and others non literally, depending on their immediate context, and also on the broader context - what Augustine called the Analogy of Scripture.
*I* am perfectly aware of that. Many many many evangelicals and fundamentalists are NOT. They sincerely believe that OTHER people "interpret" the Scriptures, but they read them just as they are, without interpretation. Surely you have met people like that on the ship. When I find people leaning in that direction, as we have on this thread, I think it is necessary to point out what you just said. So I did.

quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I accept the church's original belief. Which is to say, that which is taught and believed in Orthodoxy.
You are begging the question.

The "church's original belief" is found in the NT.

What exactly that "original belief" was, and the extent to which Orthodox, RC and various Protestant positions reflect it, is what the thread is attempting to discuss.
It was worked out 1850 years ago. We have no need to reinvent that wheel.
Like virtually everything if not everything in the texts, apart from the sense data, nothing is ontological.

Apart from the Incarnation of course ...

[ 18. February 2017, 11:22: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :
 
Baptist but far from memorialist. Calvin is right - Christ communicates with us at the table and is present. The Spirit of God - being in the believers and fundamental to the fellowship of the same - lifts us up.

I go with 1 Corinthians 11.

Remember = not just recall with thanks but be "re - membered" (joined with Christ and one another)

Proclaim = preach Christ through word, deed and life.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Like virtually everything if not everything in the texts, apart from the sense data, nothing is ontological.
On the contrary, everything is ontological. How can it not be? Even dreams and vain imaginings are happenings in a physical brain.
 
Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :
 
JJ the description of congregationalism to which you point me indicates that : it emphasizes the right and responsibility of each properly organized congregation to determine its own affairs'
That has always been my understanding of congregationalism also.Who,however, determines what a 'properly organised' congregation is ?
No problem with determining their own affairs,but how does one know that 'its own affairs' are in harmony with the teachings of Christ ? How does the 'properly organized congregation link in with others who may also claim to be properly organised congregations.

The Catholic catechism says that the word 'church' designates the liturgical assembly, but also the local community or indeed the whole universal community of believers. These three meanings are inseparable. The Church is the People that God gathers throughout the world. The Church exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all, a Eucharistic assembly. The Church draws her life from the Word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes the Body of Christ.

This is, of course, a picture of what the Church
continues to strive to become. We know that the Church is made up also of imperfect human beings.
The possibilities for strife,for bullying,for abuse of power are there equally in a congregational, presbyteral/Presbyterian or Episcopalian system.

Just as all presbyters (priests) are not necessarily members of a Presbyterian Church,not all Episcopalians are necessarily members of the Church of England or even members of the Anglican Communion.

We often use words which have a different meaning for different Christians,even those who use the same language. 'Congregation' ,for example, has a different meaning for Catholics and members of the Church of Scotlan

Individual Christians may have differing understandings of what is meant and understood by the word 'eucharist'but ultimately there is a unity of thought there and that is what I would always wish to promote.

Indeed I am or was aware of the term Congregational Church.In my home town there was an E.U. Congregational Church.I think that the building is still there but I'm not sure what is is used for.I have to confess that it is only in the last few years that I have known what E.U. stands for.It was just lumped together by most inhabitants (both Catholics and Protestants )of the town as one of the many Protestant churches to be found.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Like virtually everything if not everything in the texts, apart from the sense data, nothing is ontological.
On the contrary, everything is ontological. How can it not be? Even dreams and vain imaginings are happenings in a physical brain.
Of course everything is as it is in itself. Whatever that is. The sacrifice of Christ was real. PSA was made up. The Eucharist too. And real presence on top of that. I'm using ontological as in the Trinity, mapped to, congruent with the economic. Hypostatic. The Eucharist, like marriage, PSA, is economic (perceived in the world?). To make it ontological, immanent, fundamental, ultimately and fundamentally true, so, hypostatic as in the Trinity, is ... what a lot of people have done.

I can't.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
So, Mudfrog, seeing as the exact format of the 1st century Passover meal has been lost, and all we have are ersatz 'seder' style approximations in ecumenical services on Maunday Thursday, (not that I have a problem with those) - then what's wrong with having a sacramental rite performed by a priest?

The richness of symbolism -Exodus and so on - hasn't been lost - the Jews retain that - but on a sense has been fulfilled in Christ.

There's no point in bemoaning the passing of a putative 1st or 2nd century Jewish ritual. How about relishing what we have, rather than what you believe we have lost?

I can put up with the most boring sermons ever preached or the most execrable songs ever sung if there's a communion involved - because if I believe I am in some sense receiving the body and blood of Christ then the rest of what goes on is put firmly in perspective ...
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Baptist but far from memorialist. Calvin is right - Christ communicates with us at the table and is present. The Spirit of God - being in the believers and fundamental to the fellowship of the same - lifts us up.

I go with 1 Corinthians 11.

Remember = not just recall with thanks but be "re - membered" (joined with Christ and one another)

Proclaim = preach Christ through word, deed and life.
I'll go along with this 100% - but then I am a fairly "High Church" Baptist. You can put that down to both my Anglican background and the influence of working in an ecumenical URC/Baptist church over the last 11 years.

The Baptist "prayer book" "Gathering for Worship" has an order for Communion (one of several) which "invites the worshippers to share in an act of dynamic re-membering". It says: "When we re-member: broken damaged and dismembered aspects of our past lives are put together again; mind and body and soul in the present tense enjoy wholeness; and helplessness in the face of the unknown future gives way to resurrection hope". These thoughts are reflected in the liturgy.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So, Mudfrog, seeing as the exact format of the 1st century Passover meal has been lost, and all we have are ersatz 'seder' style approximations in ecumenical services on Maunday Thursday, (not that I have a problem with those) - then what's wrong with having a sacramental rite performed by a priest?

The richness of symbolism -Exodus and so on - hasn't been lost - the Jews retain that - but on a sense has been fulfilled in Christ.

There's no point in bemoaning the passing of a putative 1st or 2nd century Jewish ritual. How about relishing what we have, rather than what you believe we have lost?

I can put up with the most boring sermons ever preached or the most execrable songs ever sung if there's a communion involved - because if I believe I am in some sense receiving the body and blood of Christ then the rest of what goes on is put firmly in perspective ...
Well, it means we have actually lost the intimacy of that kind of worship - the Jews still gather in the home for this type of remembrance meal and the Apostles carried on that tradition in Acts 2 - Breaking bread in their homes.

We had a Jewish family across the street from us and you could see them on a Friday night in their dining room for their Sabbath meal and sometimes I felt quite envious.

I'm surprised that you would be advocating for a priest to perform this ceremony?


May I ask about your final point about boring sermons and execrable songs but receiving the body of Christ?

In the last module of my degree I did a study on the shared experience of sacramental worship that a Salvation Army congregation had when united with the Methodist congregation.
We were 'homeless' and shared every Sunday evening service with our Methodist friends.

I wanted to know what was 'happening' when the time came for communion and most of the Methodists and not a few of the Salvationists knelt at the rail to receive bread and juice.

Were the people who did not go to receive denied the reception of grace?
Did only those who were kneeling receive grace?
What did those who knelt think was happening to those who were still sitting?
What did those who were sitting think was happening in the hearts and minds of those who were kneeling?

My overall question was do we all equally receive the same grace in that service whether we partake of the communion or not?

After my qualitative study the conclusion seems to be yes. Communion was not seen to be necessary - though often very helpful - to the reception of 'the Lord Jesus'.

Would you say that only in ritual observance of communion can one receive the body and blood of Jesus?
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Well, one could argue that chewing a piece of bread and drinking a sip of wine is a pretty 'intimate' thing to do, whether it happens in a ceremonial cathedral type setting with all the trimmings or in a Brethren Gospel Hall.

I mentioned the sacerdotal aspect and the priest because you seemed to suggest that there was something reprehensible about that in and of itself and implied that the fact that there was a priest involved necessarily makes the whole thing more remote and distant.

I don't think that's necessarily the case.

It's not all down to impressions and experiences, of course, but one of the most powerful 'apprehensions' if you like that I can remember in a communion setting happened in a very 'average' Baptist chapel in South Wales. No fanfare, no flashing lights, no wringing out of the emotions ... but from a few things the bloke presiding at the table said and prayed it was suddenly as if I felt intimately connected in some inexplicable way with events in Palestine 2000 years ago ...

The enormity of what we were doing and celebrating came vividly home to me in a very real way.

Now, I'm not saying that this was the only way such a thing could have happened ... it could just as well happened through the reading of a passage of scripture or the words of a hymn - and I can cite instances where those have deeply affected me too. I'm sure we all can.

I'd begin to scare the Protestant horses a bit too if I were to say that iconography has affected me that way at times too - and again without any great build-up and ra-ra-rah ...

I would agree that we have lost the family type intimacy of Jewish worship and, like you, I'd have been envious of your Jewish neighbours in that respect. But most churches these days have some form of small group activity - and those can be intimate too - but perhaps in a different kind of way.

One of the things I've noticed about the Orthodox - and it's something I've seen in Jewish synagogues too - is that the faithful are completely 'at home' in their services and remarkably unself-conscious. There's a strange combination of relaxation and reverence at one and the same time - indeed, to 'western' eyes it can look somewhat slap-dash and irreverent to an extent - people wandering around, or nipping in and out of the service at times ...

On my comment about boring sermons and execrable songs, the point I was making was that if I'm in a communion service then that, for me, is the main - but not the only - focus. So it might not be the most scintillating or impressive sermon I've ever heard, the style of music might not be to my taste but whatever else is going on I'm still going to receive the body and blood of Christ in some way that I don't understand.

That doesn't mean that anyone else there who doesn't partake doesn't receive grace or that only those who receive communion are receiving grace. Why should it?

That's why I don't get particularly upset when I attend an Orthodox Liturgy or an RC Mass (which I've done on fewer occasions) and am unable to 'communicate' along with the Orthodox or the Catholics. I'm saddened that we aren't in full communion with one another but I still feel that I am participating in some way - even if it's only by joining in with the Lord's Prayer and the recitation of the Creed. I still receive grace in some way, but not in the same way as if I were in full communion with them.

If you'll excuse this analogy ... it'd be a bit like if I drove to someone's party and so didn't have an alcoholic drink because I was driving or I'd given it up for Lent or for some other reason. Does that mean I'd enjoy the party less because I didn't have a glass of beer or wine?

No, of course not. I'd still enjoy the atmosphere, the conversations, the music perhaps ... I wouldn't 'need' the alcohol to enjoy the party.

Wine can enhance a meal but that doesn't mean that every meal has to be accompanied by a glass of wine.

I enjoy a pint - in moderation - but that doesn't mean I can't equally enjoy a convivial time over a cup of tea or coffee.

So - no, I don't think those who didn't received communion in the Methodist setting you describe were somehow losing out - nor that those who did were somehow gaining greater benefit. It's not up to me to determine such a thing in the first place. I don't have X-ray vision to determine the spiritual state of people's souls.

I don't think your 'qualitative study' tells us anything. I'd say it was asking the wrong question.

Is it better to kiss my wife, squeeze her hand or say some kind of endearment? It's a ludicrous question.

As to your final question:

'Would you say that only in ritual observance of communion can one receive the body and blood of Jesus?'

Well - first up - as the eucharist or communion or the Lord's Supper - call it what we will - is an ordinance/ritual/sacrament that purports to convey such a thing - then it's an odd question to ask.

Are we receiving the body and blood of Jesus when we read the Bible or hear a sermon? Well no, because that's not what that activity claims to be doing. That doesn't make it any the less important. We may feel 'united' to Christ in the fellowship of the word of God - as it were - we may feel the written word conveying to us the Living Word - the Word made flesh ...

Great. Bring it on.

But we are not doing the same thing as we are when we 'remember Christ's death until he comes' through the physical action of receiving communion.

If I walk up a hill or cycle up it instead, I still get to the top of the hill (hopefully) but if I walk I haven't cycled and if I cycle I haven't walked ...

If you are asking whether it's possible to receive grace outside of the ordinances, the 'dominical sacraments' or whatever we call them according to our respective traditions and perspectives - then of course we do. Nobody is saying that the Eternal and Almighty God, Maker of Heaven and Earth is restricted to working solely through a particular practice or form of words ...

Remember my mantra, both/and not either/or ...

A while ago I visited a nose-bleed High parish in South Wales with my brother. As it came to communion, the visiting priest (the parish priest was on holiday) made it clear that they only accepted people to communion who had been confirmed. I've not been confirmed. So I didn't go forward to receive.

Did I feel cheated in some way? Did I feel that I'd been denied grace? Did I feel that the rest of the service had been a complete and utter waste of time? No, of course I didn't.

That's not how I think and not how I approach these things. It seems like a false dichotomy to me. What can we get away with not doing? What can we push to one side as unnecessary?

I don't think about it in those terms.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I am confirmed and I wouldn't have gone forward.

That makes me so bloody angry. And NOTHING does. I mean I forgive my estranged grandma and her sister their exclusion, but my mother!
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
We all roll differently, Martin60.

I didn't make me angry. I was a visitor. When I visit people's houses I abide by their house rules.

Had I been confirmed, I might not have received either - not because of anger but because when I thought about it, I didn't particularly feel 'prepared'.

Don't get me wrong, I don't jump through hoops and perform rigorous feats of self-examination before receiving communion - but I do try to prepare as best I can. On that particular occasion, I didn't feel particularly prepared anyway ...

Besides, what's the big deal?

If I couldn't receive communion in that particular church because of their polity on eucharistic hospitality, why should I be offended or upset? I can always go to another Anglican or other church where they don't have that particular stipulation in place and I could receive there.

They are entitled to regulate their communion practices as they see fit. Why should that cause me any offence? It's not as if it spoiled my day in some way.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
One thing the Orthodox -- particularly the Slavic and Arabic versions -- do a lot and well is eat together. Coffee hour is rarely just coffee and biscuits. We adore potlucks and communal suppers and parties. We are very "intimate" in the sense of eating together.

A Jewish shabbos "service" is just one family. Yes it's intimate but the same family eats together the other 6 days of the week too.

Our potlucks bring the whole congregation, and visitors, together to sit down at table (or at folding chairs around the perimeter of the parish hall, depending on the set-up) and fellowship. I'd say more than 75% of the Sundays of the year we have some kind of beyond-just-biscuits viands, and once a month an official potluck, which tends toward lavish and OTT.

Where am I going here? I guess, if a (local) church doesn't have intimate eating-together times, it's their own damned fault.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
You're too decent mate. I'm not. We call any of that crap Christian? Would Jesus?
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stoic29:
It seems to me, for discussion purposes, that there can be two broad answers:

1) The Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ. As to how this happens, we don't truly know. Regardless of how, we know that it truly is Christ Himself.

or

2) The Eucharist is a memorial supper and we do not consider the Eucharist to be truly the Body and Blood of Christ Himself.
i would agree, particularly if the first option were edited slightly to say "the Eucharist is truly communion in the Body and Blood of Christ." I think transubstantiation, consubstantiation, sacramental union, spiritual presence, etc., are all encompassed in that first option.

As for me, I'm firmly in the Calvin camp, specifically where he says:

quote:
I shall not be ashamed to confess that [this] is a secret too lofty for either my mind to comprehend or my words to declare. And, to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it. Therefore, I here embrace without controversy the truth of God in which I may safely rest. He declares his flesh the food of my soul, his blood its drink. I offer my soul to him to be fed with such food. In his Sacred Supper he bids me take, eat, and drink his body and blood under the symbols of bread and wine. I do not doubt that he himself truly presents them, and that I receive them.
Institutes 4.17.32. (And noting that "symbols" does mean "bare symbols." Here there is a sense of the elements being connected to what they represent.)

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Would you say that only in ritual observance of communion can one receive the body and blood of Jesus?
I wouldn't go that far; God can do what God chooses to do.

But I would say that it is only in the Lord's Supper, however observed (and by whatever name called), that Christ has assured us that we will be fed with his Body and Blood.

I would also say that regardless, he commanded us to break the bread and take the cup as his memorial, as the proclamation of his death and resurrection, until he comes again. Do we need more reason to do so?
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
One thing the Orthodox -- particularly the Slavic and Arabic versions -- do a lot and well is eat together. Coffee hour is rarely just coffee and biscuits. We adore potlucks and communal suppers and parties. We are very "intimate" in the sense of eating together.

....

Where am I going here? I guess, if a (local) church doesn't have intimate eating-together times, it's their own damned fault.
Many churches in the American South tend to do this well, too.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I'd be surprised if Mudfrog's SA Citadel doesn't go in for food and fellowship.

Most churches I know do, irrespective of tradition. Some do it more than others, but they generally have their equivalents. But
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
One thing the Orthodox -- particularly the Slavic and Arabic versions -- do a lot and well is eat together. Coffee hour is rarely just coffee and biscuits. We adore potlucks and communal suppers and parties. We are very "intimate" in the sense of eating together.

A Jewish shabbos "service" is just one family. Yes it's intimate but the same family eats together the other 6 days of the week too.

Our potlucks bring the whole congregation, and visitors, together to sit down at table (or at folding chairs around the perimeter of the parish hall, depending on the set-up) and fellowship. I'd say more than 75% of the Sundays of the year we have some kind of beyond-just-biscuits viands, and once a month an official potluck, which tends toward lavish and OTT.

Where am I going here? I guess, if a (local) church doesn't have intimate eating-together times, it's their own damned fault.
We would say that is a sacrament.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'd be surprised if Mudfrog's SA Citadel doesn't go in for food and fellowship.

Most churches I know do, irrespective of tradition. Some do it more than others, but they generally have their equivalents. But
Tomorrow evening we will have Informal Worship.
We will still sing, pray, read the word and hear a bit of preaching, but after that we will eat!

That too is a sacrament. Christ will be present.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It was worked out 1850 years ago.
Trouble is, it wasn't.

You might not agree with the eucharistic views of Calvin, Luther or Zwingli, but they were intelligent men who were steeped in church history, including patristic theology (read Calvin's Institutes), and who were not challenging accepted interpretations for trivial reasons (except for Luther, of course, who only precipitated the Reformation, as everyone knows, because he wanted to get married....bloody sex fiend!)

To suggest that it was "all sorted out 1850 years ago" is ahistorical obscurantism.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
To suggest that everybody had it wrong for 1500 years and then suddenly they got it right is beyond belief.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I've heard anyone claim that the only reason Luther precipitated the Reformation was to get his leg over ...

Although I've heard similar charges levelled at Henry VIII.

Nor have I heard anyone suggest that the Reformers were anything other than intelligent. 'Learned Germans ...' was how the Ecumenical Patriarch addressed them in his reply to Melanchthon's letter - before going on to to highlight what he felt to be flaws in their theology and approach.

Of course, the Orthodox shared many aspects in common with Rome but not some of the issues that acted as a catalyst for the Reformation and Counter-Reformation - or at least not to the same extent.

From an Eastern perspective, they could understand some of the Reformers' concerns but regarded the whole thing as two sides of the same coin - the Reformers perpetuated the same errors as Rome had and were simply taking certain medieval Scholastic emphases a few stages further.

I've heard some Orthodox claim that the Reformation was simply a spiritual renewal movement and needed corrective that got out of hand.

Whatever view we take of it, let's put it in a proper historical perspective not an overly romanticised one.

Meanwhile, I hope you have a good time at your informal worship meeting and bun fight, Mudfrog. It's up to you whether you regard it as sacramental or not. It's not up to me to determine whether it is or isn't or the degree to which Christ is present - even if we can think of it in those terms.

As I said to you upthread, carrying out a qualitative study, as you put it, to determine what was going on at the Methodist communion service in an attempt to identify who was or wasn't receiving grace is the wrong question to ask. It's a nonsensical thing to do and simply an attempt to rationalise and defend your own SA position.

'Look, those people who don't receive communion are receiving just as much grace as those who do. Therefore it justifies not receiving communion.'

That doesn't tell us anything about the licitness or otherwise of the practice.

'The wind bloweth where it listeth.'

I'm not going to church at all today. Shock, horror. I've been invited down to Birmingham to participate in a poetry workshop and meet some friends.

Would it make sense to 'measure' and contrast that with what I would derive from attending a church service instead?

No, because they are different things and do a different 'job'.

I doesn't even occur to me to compare them any more than it would occur to me these days to try to work out who was benefiting the most at a Methodist communion service - those Methodists and Salvationists who received and those who didn't - or whether they were all equally 'blessed'.

For a kick-off God is everywhere present and filleth all things and is around at poetry events in Birmingham - he's rather partial to poetry, I think - as well as a worship services of one form or other.

For another, it's none of my business and I no more have an X-ray machine to assess the condition of people's souls if they attend a church service of whatever kind today or whether, like me, they choose to do something else instead.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I've heard anyone claim that the only reason Luther precipitated the Reformation was to get his leg over ...

Although I've heard similar charges levelled at Henry VIII.

Nor have I heard anyone suggest that the Reformers were anything other than intelligent. 'Learned Germans ...' was how the Ecumenical Patriarch addressed them in his reply to Melanchthon's letter - before going on to to highlight what he felt to be flaws in their theology and approach.

Of course, the Orthodox shared many aspects in common with Rome but not some of the issues that acted as a catalyst for the Reformation and Counter-Reformation - or at least not to the same extent.

From an Eastern perspective, they could understand some of the Reformers' concerns but regarded the whole thing as two sides of the same coin - the Reformers perpetuated the same errors as Rome had and were simply taking certain medieval Scholastic emphases a few stages further.

I've heard some Orthodox claim that the Reformation was simply a spiritual renewal movement and needed corrective that got out of hand.

Whatever view we take of it, let's put it in a proper historical perspective not an overly romanticised one.

Meanwhile, I hope you have a good time at your informal worship meeting and bun fight, Mudfrog. It's up to you whether you regard it as sacramental or not. It's not up to me to determine whether it is or isn't or the degree to which Christ is present - even if we can think of it in those terms.

As I said to you upthread, carrying out a qualitative study, as you put it, to determine what was going on at the Methodist communion service in an attempt to identify who was or wasn't receiving grace is the wrong question to ask. It's a nonsensical thing to do and simply an attempt to rationalise and defend your own SA position.

'Look, those people who don't receive communion are receiving just as much grace as those who do. Therefore it justifies not receiving communion.'

That doesn't tell us anything about the licitness or otherwise of the practice.

'The wind bloweth where it listeth.'

I'm not going to church at all today. Shock, horror. I've been invited down to Birmingham to participate in a poetry workshop and meet some friends.

Would it make sense to 'measure' and contrast that with what I would derive from attending a church service instead?

No, because they are different things and do a different 'job'.

I doesn't even occur to me to compare them any more than it would occur to me these days to try to work out who was benefiting the most at a Methodist communion service - those Methodists and Salvationists who received and those who didn't - or whether they were all equally 'blessed'.

For a kick-off God is everywhere present and filleth all things and is around at poetry events in Birmingham - he's rather partial to poetry, I think - as well as a worship services of one form or other.

For another, it's none of my business and I no more have an X-ray machine to assess the condition of people's souls if they attend a church service of whatever kind today or whether, like me, they choose to do something else instead.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
That should have read, 'I've never heard anyone claim ...'
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
Shows how much the Patriarch knows. Calvin the most intellectual of them was French.

Gamaliel

We need to split several things that are confused in your mind. The Continental Reformation is not the same as the the English Reformation which is not the same as the Scottish Reformation.

What is more the splits in the English Church are not reflected on the continent at all.

The splits between the Continental Protestant churches seem to largely be over Eucharist.

The splits between the English Protestant Churches are over Ecclesiology and the exercise of power. In this case, the CofE is definitely one. This is not the case on the continent (they wonder what we get so het up about). I have no need to talk about Roman Catholic or Orthodox Ecclesiology if I am characterising divisions between English Protestant Churches.


Anglicans might like to think it is differences over communion that make them distinctive but it isn't. It is having Bishops and the patronage-style power that is implied by that. The power to influence is given by largesse on the part of the Monarch and then the Bishops and so on down the line.

This is why there is a strong republican strand in Non-Conformity. We would rather be citizens than subjects. It is not antipathy towards the royal family. They do a pretty good job as far as I can tell. It is why we wanted a vote in parliament about triggering article 50, however sham that was.

Jengie
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It was worked out 1850 years ago.
Trouble is, it wasn't.

You might not agree with the eucharistic views of Calvin, Luther or Zwingli, but they were intelligent men who were steeped in church history, including patristic theology (read Calvin's Institutes), and who were not challenging accepted interpretations for trivial reasons (except for Luther, of course, who only precipitated the Reformation, as everyone knows, because he wanted to get married....bloody sex fiend!)

To suggest that it was "all sorted out 1850 years ago" is ahistorical obscurantism.
I've got to go with mousethief on this one. I'd say it was worked out 1850 years ago; the West just became dissatisfied with how it was worked out.

1850 years ago, the near-universal understanding was, as I understand it, that in receiving the bread and wine, we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. It's a mystery how that happens, but the "how" is irrelevant and unknowable anyway; we believe it happens. If that had been the understanding in 16th Century Europe, I'm not sure there would have been a dispute about it. But two things had happened in the intervening centuries.

One was that in the West, there had been an increasing desire to explain and pin down "how" it happens. (Why has the West so often felt the need to explain everything?) This led to dogmatizing and anathematizing about the specifics of how Christ is present.

The other was the rise of devotions to the Blessed Sacrament—Benediction, Corpus Christi, etc.—that had no counterpart in the East and that the Reformers had problems with, thinking that they "overthrew the nature" of the Sacrament (per the 39 Articles).

That was the context the Reformers found themselves in, and what they were reacting against. There were a few glimmers of going back to the ancient position—the quote upthread attributed to Elizabeth I, for example, or the quote I gave from Calvin. (Although before he said what I quoted, he used a lot of ink trying to explain his understanding.). But for the most part, they continued looking for an adequate explanation.

The East, meanwhile, continues as it has for all these centuries, seeing no need to explain the presence of Christ i the sacrament, or value in doing so, I seems to me.

So I'd say it was worked out. The West just started moving away from that worked-out understanding many centuries later. I don't think that was to our benefit, frankly.
 
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
We all roll differently, Martin60.

I didn't make me angry. I was a visitor. When I visit people's houses I abide by their house rules.

Had I been confirmed, I might not have received either - not because of anger but because when I thought about it, I didn't particularly feel 'prepared'.

Don't get me wrong, I don't jump through hoops and perform rigorous feats of self-examination before receiving communion - but I do try to prepare as best I can. On that particular occasion, I didn't feel particularly prepared anyway ...

Besides, what's the big deal?

If I couldn't receive communion in that particular church because of their polity on eucharistic hospitality, why should I be offended or upset? I can always go to another Anglican or other church where they don't have that particular stipulation in place and I could receive there.

They are entitled to regulate their communion practices as they see fit.
BTW small point of fact- that wouldn't or shouldn't apply in the CinW now- since last Advent Sunday, communion has been open to anyone who is baptised. We could talk about the rights and wrongs of that elsewhere (and I suspect ad nauseam) but I've certainly found, as a Churchwarden, that it makes the welcome to visitors more straightforward.
 
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Shows how much the Patriarch knows. Calvin the most intellectual of them was French.

Gamaliel

We need to split several things that are confused in your mind. The Continental Reformation is not the same as the the English Reformation which is not the same as the Scottish Reformation.

What is more the splits in the English Church are not reflected on the continent at all.

The splits between the Continental Protestant churches seem to largely be over Eucharist.

The splits between the English Protestant Churches are over Ecclesiology and the exercise of power. In this case, the CofE is definitely one. This is not the case on the continent (they wonder what we get so het up about). I have no need to talk about Roman Catholic or Orthodox Ecclesiology if I am characterising divisions between English Protestant Churches.


Anglicans might like to think it is differences over communion that make them distinctive but it isn't. It is having Bishops and the patronage-style power that is implied by that. The power to influence is given by largesse on the part of the Monarch and then the Bishops and so on down the line.

This is why there is a strong republican strand in Non-Conformity. We would rather be citizens than subjects. It is not antipathy towards the royal family. They do a pretty good job as far as I can tell. It is why we wanted a vote in parliament about triggering article 50, however sham that was.

Jengie
I think you're conflating episcopy with establishment. Anglicanism in Scotland has been non-conformist (and for a lot of that time considered borderline seditious) since the late 17th Century, while the Church of Scotland was subject to patronage well into the 20th Century.
 
Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :
 
'Non-conformist' is another word which may mean different things to different people.The word hardly exists in Scotland and would really only be known by those interested in the history of religion in England. Obviously that's not everyone in Scotland.

The post Reformation church in Scotland was both episcopal and Presbyterian, with bishops sitting in the Scottish parliament ( as the King's men !)

Only from the time of the arrival in England of William of Orange did the Kirk become completely Presbyterian.The Presbyterians decided to support William of Orange's claim to the Scottish throne if he agreed to toss out of the Kirk the Scottish bishops and anyone else who agreed with episcopacy.

It was after this that we had the movement to found a clandestine episcopal church which existed like the Catholic church in the shadows till the end of the penal laws.

In the 1700s there were also the beginning of the many breakaways from the Presbyterian Church which are too many and too complicated to go into,though none of the arguments would have been about the eucharist.

The word 'non-conformist' would not have been used,however.
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
This is why there is a strong republican strand in Non-Conformity. We would rather be citizens than subjects. It is not antipathy towards the royal family. They do a pretty good job as far as I can tell.
I think that a lot of early 17th-century Nonconformists would dispute the last couple of sentences!

Of course they don't dislike the royal family as people, but they're against the institution.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
No Jengie, you are showing your own ignorance, not the Patriarch's.

Melanchthon wrote to the Patriarch. Melanchthon was German. Hence the reference to 'learned Germans'.

Had Calvin written to him then the answer might have been, 'learned Frenchmen ...'
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
This is why there is a strong republican strand in Non-Conformity. We would rather be citizens than subjects. It is not antipathy towards the royal family. They do a pretty good job as far as I can tell.
I think that a lot of early 17th-century Nonconformists would dispute the last couple of sentences!

Of course they don't dislike the royal family as people, but they're against the institution.
That is what I am trying to say. They do the job well but the job should not exist.

Jengie
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
Ah, I see what you mean [Smile] .
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've heard anyone claim that the only reason Luther precipitated the Reformation was to get his leg over ...
I came across it back in the Sixties at high school.

A girl who had previously attended an RC school joined our class, and as I headed up the school's ISCF group, she and I used to chat about religion.

She told me that the teaching sisters had told them that Luther kicked off the Reformation because he wanted to get married.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
I'd say it was worked out 1850 years ago; the West just became dissatisfied with how it was worked out.
That might or might not be true of Luther and Calvin, but it certainly does not apply to Zwingli's memorialist position.

Zwingli might have modified his memorialism toward the end of his life, but by that time the position was out there independent of his later tergiversation, and remains there, and represents a radically different (and arguably far more scriptural) approach to the Lord's Supper.
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
I'd say it was worked out 1850 years ago; the West just became dissatisfied with how it was worked out.
That might or might not be true of Luther and Calvin, but it certainly does not apply to Zwingli's memorialist position.
I'm not so sure of that. The question to me is whether anyone would have advocated a memorialist position to start with had the West not gone down the path it did in the preceding centuries. Zwingli's memorialist position can, I think, be seen as a direct reaction (and some might say over-reaction) to the sacramental understanding of the Western Church in his time.

[ 20. February 2017, 01:55: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Sure, I don't doubt the nuns told her that in the 1960s. Heck, I know of people who were asked by Spanish nuns in the 1960s whether Protestants believed in Christ ...

That was then, this is now. Generally speaking, whatever our tradition we tend to be a lot better informed these days about one another's positions ...

It all depends where you are. I met a Romanian monk a few years ago who'd experienced a striking conversion from atheism / nominal Christianity in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary in a Russian art gallery ...

He told me that when he first entered a monastery out in the wilds of the Romanian woods the monks were all convinced that both Rome and all Protestants were demonic.

He reckons they only act more politely now as they've been told to be more ecumenical by the Romanian Orthodox authorities ... but deep down ...

Thing is, we can all find examples of that sort of thing. Chick Tracts anyone?

My Brethren buddy at school used to live next door to a lovely RC family. His parents and the next door parents became very close friends. They'd go on family holidays together. They shared meals together. They were like relatives rather than neighbours. But then, week by week down the Gospel Hall they were told how RCs were all going to Hell that there was no salvation for Catholics unless they were prepared to break with Rome ...

And so on and on and on ...

As to whether Zwinglian memorialism is 'more scriptural' than a sacramental understanding of these things - well, as I keep saying, it all depends on what lenses you are wearing in your spectacles.

Zwingli wasn't the first to 'break' with a more sacramental understanding - the Waldensians and Lollards had moved away from transubstantiation before the Reformation proper got underway.

But none of these things happen in a vacuum. There was a reaction to the private masses and paraphernalia.

It is, of course, purely conjectural as to whether the Christian East could have had similar controversies - any kind of Reformation would have been difficult under Ottoman rule.

That's not to say that the Eastern Churches didn't have their own exotic break-away groups - the Bogomils and so on ... plus the bewildering welter of often quite loopy sects which broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church in later times ... some of them with very bizarre practices indeed ... mass orgies in bath-houses, mass flagellations leading to frenzied sex ...

Human beings are capable of perverting almost anything and everything.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
It's wonderfully depressing what utter crap we 'believe' whilst actually getting on with being halfway decent people.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Speak for yourself ...
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Er, I wish I could.
 
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
At the risk of throwing a spanner in the works and/or a cat among the pigeons, I think the biggest mistake you can make in discussing the Eucharist is to home in on the nature and significance of the act of communion in isolation from everything else. The Eucharist is first and foremost ritual, an example of that profound means of communication that is what humans do when words alone can't do what we need to have done.

There are lots of theories of ritual, but I think one of the weakest and least convincing is that it is a set of words and actions designed to produce a specific result. The purpose of the Eucharist is not to turn bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ: that is a theory of ritual which runs perilously close to making it indistinguishable from magic. If ritual makes things happen at all, it does so on a rather different level (e.g. the classic example "I name this ship..."). Principally, I think, ritual of the kind exemplified by the Eucharist is mostly - not exclusively - about the celebration and proclamation of something that already is, namely the presence of Christ in the Church which also claims the name of his "Body". In doing so, it also has an eschatological role: each Eucharist moves the Church "from glory to glory" and makes a fresh imprint of the Kingdom of God on this world.

That's what I think, anyway. Such a pity it's all so well hidden on a dreary Sunday morning.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Excellent. Rational. Faithful. Therefore it can't possibly catch on. Not without a zero sum game realisation by a billion people.
 
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Excellent. Rational. Faithful. Therefore it can't possibly catch on. Not without a zero sum game realisation by a billion people.
I claim no originality. 'Twas Aidan Kavanagh's books that really formed my ideas on the Eucharist; desultory readings in the theory of ritual thereafter.
 
Posted by Stoic29 (# 18712) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Principally, I think, ritual of the kind exemplified by the Eucharist is mostly - not exclusively - about the celebration and proclamation of something that already is, namely the presence of Christ in the Church which also claims the name of his "Body". In doing so, it also has an eschatological role: each Eucharist moves the Church "from glory to glory" and makes a fresh imprint of the Kingdom of God on this world.
I think this right, even though I may word it differently.

Many people view the Eucharist (and the liturgy/mass) primarily as a means of grace and an aid in the spiritual life (which is, of course, true). However, I think that this a secondary. The only worship that is perfect and acceptable to the Father is the worship that Christ offered to God the Father. Our participation in the liturgy is our way of entering into that worship - the worship of Christ himself. In this way, we can truly be the body of Christ...meaning that, when we partake of the Eucharist, we are joined to Christ not only in a spiritual way, but a physical way. But this physical way cannot be our own flesh but must be the real/true Flesh of Christ himself.

The ritual is certainly not magic and many fall into this way of thinking... as if we can zap Christ into our midst. The mass/liturgy is our way of entering into the eschaton to where Christ is, not only spiritually by physically.

How Christ is revealed to us physically in the Eucharist is a deep mystery, but it certainly is his true, physical Body and Blood. If it is not the "real presence" (again, regardless of how this happens), then it is not the real Christ.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
That all sounds good to me, Stoic29.
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stoic29:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Principally, I think, ritual of the kind exemplified by the Eucharist is mostly - not exclusively - about the celebration and proclamation of something that already is, namely the presence of Christ in the Church which also claims the name of his "Body". In doing so, it also has an eschatological role: each Eucharist moves the Church "from glory to glory" and makes a fresh imprint of the Kingdom of God on this world.
I think this right, even though I may word it differently.

Many people view the Eucharist (and the liturgy/mass) primarily as a means of grace and an aid in the spiritual life (which is, of course, true). However, I think that this a secondary. The only worship that is perfect and acceptable to the Father is the worship that Christ offered to God the Father. Our participation in the liturgy is our way of entering into that worship - the worship of Christ himself. In this way, we can truly be the body of Christ...meaning that, when we partake of the Eucharist, we are joined to Christ not only in a spiritual way, but a physical way. But this physical way cannot be our own flesh but must be the real/true Flesh of Christ himself.

The ritual is certainly not magic and many fall into this way of thinking... as if we can zap Christ into our midst. The mass/liturgy is our way of entering into the eschaton to where Christ is, not only spiritually by physically.

How Christ is revealed to us physically in the Eucharist is a deep mystery, but it certainly is his true, physical Body and Blood. If it is not the "real presence" (again, regardless of how this happens), then it is not the real Christ.
Adeodatus and Stoic29, I agree too. I think and hope that both of you have expressed that very well. Otherwise, I've been misunderstanding a lot for a long time.

So we don't, by kneeling at the rail (this is CofE speak) receive two little portions of grace to help us on our way for another week. In Holy Communion/The Eucharist/The Mass/The Holy Liturgy/The Lord's Supper/The Breaking of Bread Service/The Holy Qurbana (have I left any out) we are allowed to join in the worship of heaven, we participate in Christ's offering of himself, we anticipate the marriage feast of the Lamb and the full coming of the kingdom at the consummation of time, and so we feed on him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving.
 
Posted by Stoic29 (# 18712) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
So we don't, by kneeling at the rail (this is CofE speak) receive two little portions of grace to help us on our way for another week.
Right. Essentially, this is a Nestorian view of the Eucharist. We would be joined to a man who became God through Grace rather than joined to man who is God by Nature.

By partaking in the Eucharist we receive Grace from He whom is Grace by Nature. The Eucharist is not a potion derived from magic but union with the Person (Body and Blood) of Christ...Who is still and always is real flesh and blood.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Sure, I don't doubt the nuns told her that in the 1960s. Heck, I know of people who were asked by Spanish nuns in the 1960s whether Protestants believed in Christ ...

That was then, this is now. Generally speaking, whatever our tradition we tend to be a lot better informed these days about one another's positions ...

It all depends where you are. I met a Romanian monk a few years ago who'd experienced a striking conversion from atheism / nominal Christianity in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary in a Russian art gallery ...

He told me that when he first entered a monastery out in the wilds of the Romanian woods the monks were all convinced that both Rome and all Protestants were demonic.

He reckons they only act more politely now as they've been told to be more ecumenical by the Romanian Orthodox authorities ... but deep down ...

Thing is, we can all find examples of that sort of thing. Chick Tracts anyone?

My Brethren buddy at school used to live next door to a lovely RC family. His parents and the next door parents became very close friends. They'd go on family holidays together. They shared meals together. They were like relatives rather than neighbours. But then, week by week down the Gospel Hall they were told how RCs were all going to Hell that there was no salvation for Catholics unless they were prepared to break with Rome ...

And so on and on and on ...[/UOTE]

And so on and so on indeed.

Enough already.

It was a frivolous throwaway line.

You are breaking a butterfly on the wheel.

[QUOTE]That's not to say that the Eastern Churches didn't have their own exotic break-away groups - the Bogomils and so on ... plus the bewildering welter of often quite loopy sects which broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church in later times ... some of them with very bizarre practices indeed ... mass orgies in bath-houses, mass flagellations leading to frenzied sex ...
Yes. I've often thought that such groups - or even the Adamites and Doukhobors with their straight nudity - have a lot to teach we Brethren about livening up servces to make them more attractive to young people....
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stoic29:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
So we don't, by kneeling at the rail (this is CofE speak) receive two little portions of grace to help us on our way for another week.
Right. Essentially, this is a Nestorian view of the Eucharist. We would be joined to a man who became God through Grace rather than joined to man who is God by Nature.

By partaking in the Eucharist we receive Grace from He whom is Grace by Nature. The Eucharist is not a potion derived from magic but union with the Person (Body and Blood) of Christ...Who is still and always is real flesh and blood.
For the infinity of sapient creatures from eternity? Or just infinitesimal us?
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
You're onto something there, Kaplan ...
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
I'd say it was worked out 1850 years ago; the West just became dissatisfied with how it was worked out.
That might or might not be true of Luther and Calvin, but it certainly does not apply to Zwingli's memorialist position.
I'm not so sure of that. The question to me is whether anyone would have advocated a memorialist position to start with had the West not gone down the path it did in the preceding centuries. Zwingli's memorialist position can, I think, be seen as a direct reaction (and some might say over-reaction) to the sacramental understanding of the Western Church in his time.
Perhaps we are talking past one another.

I am not questioning the fact that the church adopted a transubstantiationist (or proto-transubstantiationist) position quite early, but asking whether (Vincentian Canon notwithstanding) it was the correct one, and whether it was never thereafter validly interrogated.

The challenges to the eucharistic consensus, before and during the Reformation, of which Zwingli's memorialism was the most radical, have to be recogniised, and assessed seriously in the light of Scripture.

As the Pilgrim Fathers' pastor, John Robinson, famously observed: "I am verily persuaded that the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth from his holy word".

FWIW, while I personally favour memeorialism, I am tolerant of more sacramentalist positions which avoid transubstantiation.

[ 20. February 2017, 20:31: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Interestingly, in my experience, those who quote Robinson approvingly are often the most reluctant to accept any 'new' insight or development ...

Have we had a thread about Robinson's quote and whether it can be trusted, how we decide what is further light and truth and not novelty for novelty's sake?

The operative word in Kaplan's post is, of course, 'personally' ...

I 'personally incline towards ...'

The corollary of that is, 'I believe that X is an example of further light and truth breaking out of God's most holy word even though the rest of you don't ...'

There's a balance somewhere. I don't know where.
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Interestingly, in my experience, those who quote Robinson approvingly are often the most reluctant to accept any 'new' insight or development ...
Having quoted him approvingly on several occasions, I hope I am not among their number!
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Heh heh ...

The thing is, of course, is that people are highly selective in the way they quote Robinson.

They'll apply his quote only to endorse developments or positions they approve of.

We could parse this:

My development is an example of more light and truth breaking forth from God's most holy word.

Your development is a dangerous and unscriptural innovation.

In my experience - and I'm sure you don't fall into this - Robinson is often quoted by dispensationalists to excuse their eccentric interpretations, by the slightly better read among the charismatics or by neo-Calvinists.

The point is, who decides what comprises a legitimate 'Robinsonian' development and what doesn't?

Do you?

Do I?

Does Kaplan?

Or would it need all of us?
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
I have used it to justify changed approaches to sexuality and marriage. And I have paralleled it to Jesus' radical reinterpretation of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount.

By the way, you forgot to say that "Their understanding is yet another dangerous compromise with worldly values".

[ 21. February 2017, 07:53: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The point is, who decides what comprises a legitimate 'Robinsonian' development and what doesn't?
Not sure what the fuss is all about, because all Christian traditions recognise the principle which his words express, or at least practise it without admitting it, whether it is "semper reformanda"; "development of doctrine" in Roman Catholicism and to a lesser extent in Orthodoxy (or even "evolution of dogma"); or "contextualisation" in liberal, and even not so liberal, Protestantism.

And yes, it is a messy and untidy, while unavoidable, process.

[ 21. February 2017, 09:00: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
 
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Stoic29:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
So we don't, by kneeling at the rail (this is CofE speak) receive two little portions of grace to help us on our way for another week.
Right. Essentially, this is a Nestorian view of the Eucharist. We would be joined to a man who became God through Grace rather than joined to man who is God by Nature.

By partaking in the Eucharist we receive Grace from He whom is Grace by Nature. The Eucharist is not a potion derived from magic but union with the Person (Body and Blood) of Christ...Who is still and always is real flesh and blood.
For the infinity of sapient creatures from eternity? Or just infinitesimal us?
Option (a), Martin. It has to be option (a). Grace and salvation are cosmic, or not at all.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Not so much a 'fuss' Kaplan as a question.

I've given some instances where the Robinsonian remark is used in a conservative way, Baptist Trainfan has given instances where it has been applied in a more liberal way.

Yes, it's messy. But that doesn't side-step the issue of who gets to decide what's a legitimate development and what isn't.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Our dogma doesn't evolve.
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
But it does - just think of the work of theologians such as John Zizioulas.

[ 21. February 2017, 13:32: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
If I understand it correctly, Orthodox theology evolves but dogma doesn't.

Zizoulas hasn't introduced any new dogma.

The Orthodox are less dogmatic than Rome and her daughters. They reckon all the dogma they need is contained in the great Creeds and the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils.

That doesn't mean that things are static when it comes to non-dogmatic issues but it does mean that dogma is pretty fixed.

I think you were using the term 'dogma' in a fairly loose way, Baptist Trainfan. As I understand it, 'dogma' in Orthodox terms refers to the non-negotiables, such as the Trinity and the Deity of Christ and the Deity of the Holy Spirit.
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think you were using the term 'dogma' in a fairly loose way, Baptist Trainfan.
Guilty as charged, m'lud!
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Which patriarchates have accepted Zizioulas' opinions as part of their official teachings?
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
I have no idea, I simply used him as an example of a theologian within your tradition who seemed to be doing some serious and hopefully original thinking.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
Evangelicals can argue that memorialism (or something like it) was the NT understanding of the Eucharist; that the church quickly lapsed into some sort of transubstantiationist misunderstanding of it; and that Robinsonian light burst forth before and during the Reformation to restore the truth.

Like wise RCs can argue that the NT church believed in Petrine episcopal primacy; that benighted Orthodox and Protestants deviated from it; and that later, Robinsonian truth broke forth to enlighten various Uniate groups who restored their allegiance to Rome.

The Orthodox can argue that Roman primacy is not taught in the NT; that the church got sucked into this error; and that the Orthodox received a Robinsonian revelation that Roman claims to precedence were not valid.

In other words we all do it, nobody really imagines that their set of interpretations are eternally set in concrete and have never changed, and the fact that there is not a unitary, objective authority to appeal to in cases of disagreement as to what is and is not a genuine case of "more truth breaking forth" is just something we have to live with.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
quote:
Originally posted by Stoic29:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
So we don't, by kneeling at the rail (this is CofE speak) receive two little portions of grace to help us on our way for another week.
Right. Essentially, this is a Nestorian view of the Eucharist. We would be joined to a man who became God through Grace rather than joined to man who is God by Nature.

By partaking in the Eucharist we receive Grace from He whom is Grace by Nature. The Eucharist is not a potion derived from magic but union with the Person (Body and Blood) of Christ...Who is still and always is real flesh and blood.
For the infinity of sapient creatures from eternity? Or just infinitesimal us?
Option (a), Martin. It has to be option (a). Grace and salvation are cosmic, or not at all.
Indeed Adeodatus, soooo, is that through our flesh and blood Jesus only?
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
I wonder what might have happened had the Jerusalem church not disintegrated and lost the Apostolic influence over the church.

Acts 15 shows that Jerusalem HQ directing affairs as far as the gentile converts were concerned and had AD70 come and gone with no crisis, I can imagine that any significant alteration of the Lord's Supper would have been frowned upon.

The Last Supper itself was seemingly the Passover meal with one of the elements given a new meaning to reflect the giving of the body and blood of Christ in a new covenant.

I don't see any of the mystery elements in that whatsoever and I do wonder what the first generation apostles themselves might have thought about the 2nd century changes.

I might also suggest that baptism also became a 'mystery' initiation rather than the oft-repeated ritual cleansing which Jesus instructed the disciples to continue to use, but this time instead of the Shema, they were to immerse in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Sadly, to my mind, the word 'baptise' nowadays only means the Christian sacrament and I wonder whether we read that meaning of the word back into what the apostles were doing; when I believe they were simply using the mikveh. The did not invent a new ceremony.

In conclusion, I feel that regrettably we lost the Jewish link and there is no obvious continuation with the Passover and mikveh anymore.

That, of course, was made worse by the anti-Semitism of the early church that deliberately moved Easter away from the Passover timing.
 
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Indeed Adeodatus, soooo, is that through our flesh and blood Jesus only?
If I read you right, Martin, I don't think grace comes to the cosmos through us alone, let alone through our sacraments alone. The Church will, of course, hold on to its sacraments like Kate Winslet in Titanic clinging to a floating chest of drawers (or whatever it was). It has to. But the older I get, the more I think we've not made enough out of "sacramentals", or of those other random moments of grace, remoter from any theological pinning-down, that occur within or - principally for me these days - without the Church.

But this is taking us far from a discussion of the theology of the Eucharist. Probably.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
You read me just fine Adeodatus, considering my witlessly gnomic propensities.

I think this is all very Eucharistic.

I agree that the universe is not saved through us let alone our sacraments, so it isn't saved by both in our Jesus, the Son of Man, by His flesh and blood. Let alone the infinite eternity of universes prior to and concurrent with ours.

The universe teems with at least trillions of sapient races like ours, our small galaxy alone must have ten at least. Which is absurdly small. One in forty thousand million star systems.

Incarnation will occur in all of them. And our universe is one of infinite from eternity.

God, including eternal creation salvation is a tad more vastly complex than we can possibly imagine.
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
Adeodatus, I don't think that is quite so far from our discussion of what happens at the Eucharist as you might suggest.

Does 'grace come to the cosmos' at all? Is that what grace is, how it works, or what it means? It seems to me that's thinking of grace as a sort of hypostatic fluid, or celestial electricity, something with an independent existence of its own, that is somehow transmitted or impeded by certain actions.

I know some writers give that impression. It's particularly prevalent both among neo-Thomists and neo-Calvinists. However, IMHO it's a serious misunderstanding. It seems to me that grace is a word that better describes something about God's personality, his nature, the way he is, what he is like.

It's the hypostatic fluid, celestial electricity understanding that is hidden in the criticism I hope I implied in my phrase 'receive two little portions of grace to help us on our way for another week'.
 
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
I share the qualms about speaking of grace as a sort of engodded ether pervading creation. Perhaps it's better to talk about graces - specific instances of divine gift, given not randomly or whimsically, but as acts of divine will, but which to really be graces must also be perceived and received, not randomly or whimsically, but as acts of human will. Or something like that. (And yes, I know that if you apply that to the Eucharist, there's a sniff of receptionism about it. But I think there should be - just a sniff. Seed falling on stony ground and all that.)
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I wonder what might have happened had the Jerusalem church not disintegrated and lost the Apostolic influence over the church.

Acts 15 shows that Jerusalem HQ directing affairs as far as the gentile converts were concerned and had AD70 come and gone with no crisis, I can imagine that any significant alteration of the Lord's Supper would have been frowned upon.

The Last Supper itself was seemingly the Passover meal with one of the elements given a new meaning to reflect the giving of the body and blood of Christ in a new covenant.

I don't see any of the mystery elements in that whatsoever and I do wonder what the first generation apostles themselves might have thought about the 2nd century changes.

I might also suggest that baptism also became a 'mystery' initiation rather than the oft-repeated ritual cleansing which Jesus instructed the disciples to continue to use, but this time instead of the Shema, they were to immerse in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Sadly, to my mind, the word 'baptise' nowadays only means the Christian sacrament and I wonder whether we read that meaning of the word back into what the apostles were doing; when I believe they were simply using the mikveh. The did not invent a new ceremony.

In conclusion, I feel that regrettably we lost the Jewish link and there is no obvious continuation with the Passover and mikveh anymore.

That, of course, was made worse by the anti-Semitism of the early church that deliberately moved Easter away from the Passover timing.
So effectively, the whole thing was holed below the waterline the moment the Jerusalem Church was scattered or disintegrated?

Everyone's been getting it wrong from the mid to late 1st century ...

I see ...

[Roll Eyes]

I agree with you on the anti-Semitism thing and the Epistle of Barnabas is part and parcel of all that, with the early Christians distancing themselves polemically from their Jewish roots ...

But we can't go crying over spilt milk, neither can we 'restore' things to how we imagine them to have been.

As for the views the Apostles might have had about subsequent developments, that's always going to be a matter of conjecture.

RCs and Orthodox are going to see subsequent developments as being commensurate and inline with the apostolic deposit.

Protestants - and particularly those of a revivalist or restorationist bent - are going to say, 'Oh no, it isn't ...' and suggest that the Apostles would have agreed with them.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
It was said of the liberal 19th century scholars who went on 'the quest for the historical Jesus' that when they looked down the well they saw the reflection of themselves looking back up at them ...

It strikes me that the same could be said about evangelicals looking at the NT and at the early Christian writings ... they see themselves reflected back or else an image of what they think ought to be there ...

The same thing could be said, of course, about RCs and Orthodox but other than those who seem to take stories about St Luke being the first iconographer seriously ... most of those I've spoken to do accept some form of development between the immediate Apostolic period and what came afterwards - whilst, of course, maintaining that subsequent developments were commensurate with the Apostolic deposit ...

The difference, though, it seems to me, is that RCs and Orthodox are up-front about the role in tradition / Tradition in all of this - whereas evangelicals pretend that this doesn't come into it and that somehow everyone else is wearing spectacles except them ...

It's a big blindspot, I think ... he said paleo-orthodoxically ...
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
How frightfully Nietzschean!
The pit of postmodernism!

[ 22. February 2017, 19:09: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
I have no idea, I simply used him as an example of a theologian within your tradition who seemed to be doing some serious and hopefully original thinking.
But we weren't talking about the existence of original thinkers. My claim was "Our dogma does not evolve" not "We have no original thinkers." Your response was 99% irrelevant.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
In other words we all do it, nobody really imagines that their set of interpretations are eternally set in concrete and have never changed, and the fact that there is not a unitary, objective authority to appeal to in cases of disagreement as to what is and is not a genuine case of "more truth breaking forth" is just something we have to live with.
So? What conclusion are you hoping we'll draw from this?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
It beggars my imagination to think that the apostles of the apostles -- people who sat at the feet of Peter, James, John etc., could have completely and unanimously changed the church quite against all they learned and against the leading of the Holy Spirit. It's a huge charge, and one without any evidence at all except that some latter day exégčtes have reinterpreted some bible passages to fit their presuppositions. They piped, and the Apostolic Fathers didn't dance.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
In other words we all do it, nobody really imagines that their set of interpretations are eternally set in concrete and have never changed, and the fact that there is not a unitary, objective authority to appeal to in cases of disagreement as to what is and is not a genuine case of "more truth breaking forth" is just something we have to live with.
So? What conclusion are you hoping we'll draw from this?
"Hoping" doesn't come into it.

When historical facts are put out there, inevitably some people accept them and others, for reasons of their own, don't.

'Twas ever thus.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It beggars my imagination to think that the apostles of the apostles -- people who sat at the feet of Peter, James, John etc., could have completely and unanimously changed the church quite against all they learned and against the leading of the Holy Spirit. It's a huge charge, and one without any evidence at all except that some latter day exégčtes have reinterpreted some bible passages to fit their presuppositions. They piped, and the Apostolic Fathers didn't dance.
Cultural shift explains it all.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
That works both ways, of course, Kaplan.

For 'reasons of their own', Protestant exegetes and commentators attempt to dislocate the scriptures and the early Church from Big T Tradition. For other reasons RCs and Orthodox insist on congruence in exactly those areas.

One could argue that 'historical fscts' are overlooked or manipulated on both sides.

The issue I have with the 'It all went to pot and became gradually more Catholic from the second century onwards' position is that it's so darn selective.

It's a kind of evangelical parallel of the uber-liberal Protestant view that this Jesus bloke was alright but then that nasty old Paul came along and ruined everything and then look what happened ...

Are you claiming that you have incontrovertible historical facts and historical truth on your side of the equation? That's a bold claim. Just as bold a claim that the RCs or Orthodox make from their respective positions.

I can see what you are getting at, but if we take Mudfrog's 'What would have happened had the lovely Jerusalem Church not disintegrated' thing to it's logical conclusion then we end up with Christianity only being 'kosher' as it were for a generation at the most.

As soon as the last of the Apostles was dead then the whole thing was stuffed.

Ah - but wait - there's a godly man over there with a Bible. More light and truth pours forth from God's most holy word. Alleluia! We're saved ...

I mean, c'mon. Is that really how it works? The reformer in the white hat riding to the rescue, the lone law man with the sheriff's star and the six gun?
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... Ah - but wait - there's a godly man over there with a Bible. More light and truth pours forth from God's most holy word. Alleluia! We're saved ...

I mean, c'mon. Is that really how it works? The reformer in the white hat riding to the rescue, the lone law man with the sheriff's star and the six gun?
Gamaliel, there are times when I wish the ship provided us with a 'like' button.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
When was it ever not at pot?
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Blush, blush ...

As well as a delete button at times ...

On the transubstantiation thing ...

I can understand Kaplan's squeamishness about that and his openness to 'sacramental positions' that avoid defining things in those terms.

However, it's been pointed out to me over the years that in some ways the medieval transubstantiation position was adopted in a philosophical attempt to stave off the kind of superstition that has emerged in popular eucharistic devotion - the tales of bleeding Hosts and so on.

On one level it was an Aristotelian attempt to 'lift' people's understanding beyond the crude and the overly literal - and to define things in a Thomist kind of way - although the term itself predates all that and emerges around 1215 I think - with the Lateran Council.

Whether it was successful in doing so is a moot point, of course. But it's a mistake, I think, to regard the RC position on this as some kind of crudely superstitious literalism.

That said, I don't pretend to understand the RC position but I can see their approach as a worthy and well-meaning attempt to define the indefinable.

That's about as far down that route as I feel I can go.

There can seem to be a kind of reverse fundamentalism going on in the more sacramental traditions / Traditions ... including proof-texting at times.

But at the same time I get the impression that there's more to it and more going on at a rational and an affective level than Protestant detractors will acknowledge.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
I like the 'lift'. This is a great story of what we bring to the party. Protestant counter claims included. What an unholy mess!
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
When historical facts are put out there, inevitably some people accept them and others, for reasons of their own, don't.
Let me try again. You missed it.

Accept them and draw what conclusion from them?
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

As soon as the last of the Apostles was dead then the whole thing was stuffed.

Ah - but wait - there's a godly man over there with a Bible. More light and truth pours forth from God's most holy word. Alleluia! We're saved ...

I mean, c'mon. Is that really how it works? The reformer in the white hat riding to the rescue, the lone law man with the sheriff's star and the six gun?
You are rather c0lourfully overreacting to a simple and obvious point which I think you actually agree with: it is a historical fact that no Christian tradition can claim a seamless process of development during which they never changed something because they thought it needed to be brought into line with an earlier truth or ideal.

And even if such an example could be found, it still wouldn't be any sort of evidence that such attempts are inherently wrong.

To paraphrase John Maynard keynes, "When I am persuaded I am wrong, I change my mind. What do you do?"
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
it's a mistake, I think, to regard the RC position on this as some kind of crudely superstitious literalism.
Sometimes it is.

It can also be an attempt to deal with the sort of problem we discussed upthread, of the clash between the doctrinal and the logical (such as Jesus being one hundred per cent divine and one hundred percent human at the same time), and which in this case takes the form of the possibility of substance without accident.

My basic objection to transubstantiation is neither exegetical/hermeneutical (ie hyperliteralism) nor scholastic/ philosophical, but theological.
 
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Stoic29:
It seems to me, for discussion purposes, that there can be two broad answers:

1) The Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ. As to how this happens, we don't truly know. Regardless of how, we know that it truly is Christ Himself.

or

2) The Eucharist is a memorial supper and we do not consider the Eucharist to be truly the Body and Blood of Christ Himself.
surely 3?
1) transubstantiation
2) consubstantiation
3) memorial supper
4) unnecessary (eg Salvation Army approach AIUI)
Following on from this. How much does it matter to you if people have different understandings from you?

My faith tradition was memorialist but I have been welcomed in RC eucharists even though I have found an RC authorised website that says I should not be because my lack of belief in transubstantiation means that I am eating and drinking unworthily.

Personally, I welcome anyone as I see that is the spirit of communion. I find it sad when communion is used to divide rather than unite.
 
Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :
 
It is wrong,Mudfrog, to think that you are eating or drinking unworthily.
However if you do not accept the Catholic understanding of the eucharist,there is no need for you to participate fully in something which you do not believe ,apparently,to be the case.
None of us is really worthy to participate fully in the eucharist but Jesus invites us,all the same ,to do so.
But if we don't believe that the Church is what it claims to be,nor that the Eucharistic bread is what the Church claims it to be,then there is no need to participate fully in the mystery.
 
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Forthview:
It is wrong,Mudfrog,
Latchkey Kid here.
 
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
I don't think I am participating unworthily, that was the view stated on the website which does not concern me except to be aware of what others might think.

I do think the spirit of Matt 5:23-24 should be recontextualised to the eucharist.

quote:
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift

 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
... I do think the spirit of Matt 5:23-24 should be recontextualised to the eucharist.

quote:
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift
I've always assumed that and assumed everyone else does. However, it's just occurred to me that there might be extreme Prods who are so het up by the word 'altar' that they don't allow that connection. Does anyone know if such an extreme position exists?
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
On the John Maynard Keynes thing, Kaplan, yes, of course.

Which is why I've changed/am changing my mind and position from a memorialist one to what might be seen as a more 'realised' one.

And you're right, I do agree with your point about all Christian traditions adjusting or deveping their positions - but I feel more comfortable where such developments are agreed collegially and conciliarly rather than by some unilateral voice or someone in a white hat with a star in their chest and a six gun - as I expressed it. Obviously, it depends on the issue and how 'serious' it is.

That doesn't mean I subscribe to 'group-think' but it does mean I am wary of running after novelty for novelty's sake - I've seen enough of that in my time.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
“It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless.”
― Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism

Says it all really, as it does on the 'Hi, I'm the Bishop of Blackburn and I'm not listening.' thread and many others.
 
Posted by roybart (# 17357) on :
 
Great quote with much truth to it. Thanks, Martin.
 
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
... I do think the spirit of Matt 5:23-24 should be recontextualised to the eucharist.

quote:
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift
I've always assumed that and assumed everyone else does. However, it's just occurred to me that there might be extreme Prods who are so het up by the word 'altar' that they don't allow that connection. Does anyone know if such an extreme position exists?
I'd thought that people may think the passage does not apply because you do not offer your gift at the eucharist. I have known several occasions where the passage would be relevant to a communion which is not in this spirit, but the passage has never been raised as a reminder.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
such developments are agreed .... by some unilateral voice or someone in a white hat with a star in their chest and a six gun

novelty for novelty's sake
Could you provide some examples?
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I don't know about others. But I had to stay away from communion for this reason a couple weeks ago. Couldn't stop wanting to rip the head off a sister in Christ.
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
I have certainly not taken communion for that reason. Please note it is not me having something against my brother/sister but them having something against me.

Jengie
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
It went both ways.
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
I'd thought that people may think the passage does not apply because you do not offer your gift at the eucharist. I have known several occasions where the passage would be relevant to a communion which is not in this spirit, but the passage has never been raised as a reminder.
Isn't Matthew 5:23–24 one reason that some liturgies position the Peace prior to the offertory—i.e., the offering of our gifts of bread and wine?

And I do have some recollection that some of the old "fencing of the Table" exhortations in the Reformed Tradition referenced this passage, if not explicitly, then at least in meaning.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
@Kaplan ... Examples?

I can think of plenty at a micro and praxis level ...

I was once part of a church where one of the elders decided that it'd be a good idea not to meet on a Sunday but to meet regionally mid-week leaving the weekends free for us to get involved with other stuff and get to know people we could then invite to church ...

It was a complete disaster. The church never really recovered from that.

I could cite other examples.

If you want larger scale, theological examples then how about dispensationalism?

I think that's enough to be going on with and to rest my case.
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
I'd say it was worked out 1850 years ago; the West just became dissatisfied with how it was worked out.
That might or might not be true of Luther and Calvin, but it certainly does not apply to Zwingli's memorialist position.
I'm not so sure of that. The question to me is whether anyone would have advocated a memorialist position to start with had the West not gone down the path it did in the preceding centuries. Zwingli's memorialist position can, I think, be seen as a direct reaction (and some might say over-reaction) to the sacramental understanding of the Western Church in his time.
Perhaps we are talking past one another.

I am not questioning the fact that the church adopted a transubstantiationist (or proto-transubstantiationist) position quite early, but asking whether (Vincentian Canon notwithstanding) it was the correct one, and whether it was never thereafter validly interrogated.
Then I think we may indeed be talking past each other, as I'm not really seeing much difference in what you say here and what I said above.

I'm certainly not suggesting that various views shouldn't be taken seriously, nor am I suggesting that established views can never be questioned. I am Reformed, after all.

I'm simply saying it at there was indeed consensus in the early church on this matter, and that consensus was based in part on recognizing a mystery rather than trying to get too specific on details. That consensus unquestionably broke down in the West, partially out of a desire to nail down specifics and explain the mystery.

That is what transubstantiation is. It is not synonymous with Real Presence; it is one attempt at explaining or understanding the Real Presence. Others advanced other explanations, including those at the more radical end who advanced a memorialist position. But none of that changes that there was a consensus much earlier.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Indeed, which is why the term 'transubstantiation' is of relatively late coinage. And as Nick Tamen says, it's not coterminous with Real Presence but one attempt to define and specify how it 'works'.

I'm wondering whether we've got something similar going on here to what happened with ideas about the atonement. The Christian East never saw the need to define or explain, whereas the Latin West defined and filleted things to the nth degree.

Not that it's wrong to attempt to define or explain things, but there seems to be a point after which it topples over into angels on a pin-head territory.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Before the epiklesis it's just bread and wine. After the epiklesis it has somehow, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, become the body and blood of Christ? How? In what manner? To quote the great Carl Sagan, "Nnnnnnobody knows."

And we don't have to know. It may be fun to speculate and spin theories, but they're not necessary, and we run the risk of mistaking them for reality, for thinking we've got it all figured out. Then we start hitting people over the head with our dogma clubs because their theories are different.

It's like the Anglicans are so fond of saying, "In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity."

We just have a lot fewer "essentials" than the RCC does. Their 1000 year plan seems to have been to move as many things as possible into the Essentials column.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I can see them moving some stuff back into the inessentials tray at some point ...

As for the Reformers? What has their 500 plan been? To chip away at essentials or to create more inessentials?

What will be the outcome of the Reformation project? Dissipation or genuine reform?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I can see them moving some stuff back into the inessentials tray at some point ...
I think they're "once a dogma, always a dogma." Although Bingo was of the opinion that the impossibility of remarriage after divorce, although not a dogma, was the defining essential of what differentiated the RCC from the EOC. To paraphrase Tom Petty, they won't back down.

quote:
As for the Reformers? What has their 500 plan been? To chip away at essentials or to create more inessentials?
You'd have to ask them. We can look at the effects. They certainly have tossed out RCC dogmas left and right, of course depending on denomination. And RCC non-dogmas such as married clergy (eastern rite notwithstanding -- if the RCC really liked their eastern rite, there would be a lot fewer American Orthodox saints), remarriage, perpetual virginity of Mary, the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture, Real Presence, over half of the sacraments, infant baptism, and much, much more. Indeed it has been noted, not ironically and by Protties themselves, that they are often more defined by what they DON'T believe/do than by what they do believe/do.

They have also created essentials of their own, again depending on denomination, such as PSA, teetotalism, bans on certain innocuous activities such as reading secular books on Sunday or playing cards, inerrancy/infallibility of Scripture (variously defined), believers' baptism, "dedication" of infants (invented out of whole cloth one might add), and certain political stances (in many churches in the USA if you vote Democratic, you can be outfellowshipped).

quote:
What will be the outcome of the Reformation project? Dissipation or genuine reform?
Both. Already there is a strong movement in the Protestant world, at least in the United States, of people who seek not so much union with God as personal affirmation and a justification for chasing after mammon (think The Prayer of Jabez). This will either remain a subset or continue growing and ultimately swallow the whole, or at least leaving only an insignificant remnant. This should have Protestants with any sense of continuity with the historical gospel sweating. Interesting times are coming for those outside the ancient walls of Rome and Constantinople.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Material for another thread there, perhaps, Mousethief - but even in my full-on restorationist days I'd begun to wonder whether the independent Protestant world - on the one hand - was losing any semblance of connection with the 'grand tradition' and spinning off into subjectivity and individualism writ large ...

Whereas on the other hand, the mainstream Protestants were floating off into a morass of modernist relativism ...

I don't think all is lost though, but I do fear for those groups that are less securely grounded in the 'grand tradirion' and which lack creedal ballast.
 
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :
 
Don't most Reformed churches baptise infants?
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think that's enough to be going on with and to rest my case.
Changing the meeting day?

Dispensationalism?

Hmmm. I suspected as much.

Both are trivial, and neither is remotely as important as the Eucharist, Reformed challenges to the traditional understanding of which were prompted by serious scriptural and theological (including soteriological) concerns.

They are simply not in the same league.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

I'm simply saying it at there was indeed consensus in the early church on this matter, and that consensus was based in part on recognizing a mystery rather than trying to get too specific on details. That consensus unquestionably broke down in the West, partially out of a desire to nail down specifics and explain the mystery.
We are agreed that there was a consensus.

You appear to think that the breakdown of that consensus was prompted primarily by intellectual and philosophical theological motives.

These no doubt came into play, but I would suggest that the motivation instead was primarily theological, soteriological and pastoral.

In other words, rightly or wrongly, those who questioned the traditional view of the Eucharist before and during the Reformatin genuinely believed that it was biblically wrong, and that it was implicated in wrong views of salvation and a human being's relationship with God.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I didn't say they were on the same level, Kaplan. You asked me for examples of novelty for novelty's sake. I gave them. Trivial examples? Yes. But bloody disastrous for all that.

I don't think that the radical reformed emphasis on memorialism is novelty for novelty's sake. I think it is the result of serious reflection and a serious attempt to reach a theological position.

But I'm afraid I'm now of the opinion that it loses something in the process.

I'm afraid I'm coming to the conclusion that much of evangelicalism has lost its way and become trite and trivial. A loss of confidence in the eucharist is part and parcel of that.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It's like the Anglicans are so fond of saying, "In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity."
Not just Anglicans.

"In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas" was actually coined by an early seventeenth century heretical Roman Catholic archbishop.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
I simply cannot accept the view that the Church, like some stately Galleon, sails through the centuries driven by the wind of the Spirit, progressing further towards the Kingdom with hardly the need for even a single nudge of the tiller to correct her course.

Yes, I do believe that the church has been steered on a wrong course in many different ways and by many different people.
And it's not restorationists (of which I am not one) liberals and evangelicals that might be accused of looking down a well and seeing their own reflection; neither is it just revivalists who look to the Apostolic church and see all their beliefs there. Can we say that the church started to go wrong in the first century? Well Luther evidently felt the Church had moved a bit!

And actually, so did the Apostle Paul! Much of his teaching in his epistles was to correct doctrinal and ethical deviance in the churches in the 50s and 60s.
And when you get to the letters in Revelation in the 90s you can a lot of references to leaving the truth and entertaining heresy.

Do we really think that when central apostolic control was dissipated, until that central authority reappeared, that the churches didn't fall even further in many ways from the simple apostolic faith once received?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Do we really think that when central apostolic control was dissipated, until that central authority reappeared, that the churches didn't fall even further in many ways from the simple apostolic faith once received?
Do we really think that at no time between 33 AD and 1492, nobody fixed anything? The Church was just stewing in error until the brave Reformers came to save the day?

And further that even though everybody before 1492 had the same Scriptures that Luther and Calvin and so forth did, they were unable to see things that were just right there in plain view waiting to be found?

[ 25. February 2017, 22:29: Message edited by: mousethief ]
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Do we really think that when central apostolic control was dissipated, until that central authority reappeared, that the churches didn't fall even further in many ways from the simple apostolic faith once received?
Do we really think that at no time between 33 AD and 1492, nobody fixed anything? The Church was just stewing in error until the brave Reformers came to save the day?

And further that even though everybody before 1492 had the same Scriptures that Luther and Calvin and so forth did, they were unable to see things that were just right there in plain view waiting to be found?
Well, the Reformers evidently thought so!
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Do we really think that when central apostolic control was dissipated, until that central authority reappeared, that the churches didn't fall even further in many ways from the simple apostolic faith once received?
Do we really think that at no time between 33 AD and 1492, nobody fixed anything? The Church was just stewing in error until the brave Reformers came to save the day?

And further that even though everybody before 1492 had the same Scriptures that Luther and Calvin and so forth did, they were unable to see things that were just right there in plain view waiting to be found?
Well, the Reformers evidently thought so!
Which is one of the reasons I find them a bunch of flakes.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Jesus is so lucky to have us.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
We all fall short, Mudfrog.

If I understand the Big T Traditions correctly, they aren't saying that everything is perfect nor that things don't need to be rectified, but there is a confidence there - whether we agree with it or not - that the Holy Spirit will keep things on track. We aren't talking pietistic perfectionism here, though.

The difference, I think, is that within the historic Churches, there is a tendency to go back to the Tradition - 'Let's return to the rule of St Benedict', say, rather than to innovate - 'Let's start a new church or denomination ...'

The RCs, of course, have tended to innovate more than the Orthodox have - the Franciscans, Ignatius and the Jesuits etc.

I've heard Metropolitan Kallistos Ware say that he firmly believes that at its core Orthodoxy is very simple and direct and an outworking of the simple truths of the Gospel - irrespective of how fussy and complicated it looks from the outside.

I think I can see what he means, for all the floridity that has accumulated over the centuries.

Monastic life looks pretty simple and direct to me, too. Although we can't all walk that particular route, of course.

Whatever tradition we're in we are all trying to love the Lord our God and our neighbours as ourselves.

The idea that the Holy Spirit can be trusted to keep things on track isn't incompatible with us messing things up or failing to live consistent Christian lives.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
They have also created essentials of their own... teetotalism, bans on certain innocuous activities such as reading secular books on Sunday or playing cards
Seriously?

These are characteristic of Protestantism?

Talk about (desperately) scraping the bottom of the barrel.

You must have been researching nineteenth century manuals of piety, or gone hunting through Dickens and Gosse and Butler.

Talk about anachronistic.

You could with as much justification characterise Orthodoxy by anti-Semitism, monkish sodomy, and putting out opponents' eyes

quote:
in many churches in the USA if you vote Democratic, you can be outfellowshipped
Many?

Actually, spiritually blackmailing parishioners to vote in a certain direction is historically far more characteristic of Roman Catholicism.

It was done within living memory here in Australia.

quote:
Interesting times are coming for those outside the ancient walls of Rome and Constantinople.
It's always been interesting times for the inmates of both sets of ancient walls, given that both churches claims primacy, and yet differ on fundamentals such as papal authority, and can't both be right.

How can you be sure that you are in the right one?

As for Rome, the old adage "Rome never changes" has been dead since at least Vatican II.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
They have also created essentials of their own... teetotalism, bans on certain innocuous activities such as reading secular books on Sunday or playing cards
Seriously?

These are characteristic of Protestantism?
Where did I say "characteristic"? Go away and come back when you want to engage what I actually said and not your straw man.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
I don't think Luther and Calvin were 'flakes', but neither are they infallible Papal figures. They were doing their best, as they saw it, to reform the Church of their time and to correct abuses - of which there were many. The Orthodox have similar misgivings to those they had about aspects of Western Catholicism at that time - indulgences, private masses and so on.

Obviously, the Orthodox believe the Reformers went too far and chucked out some legitimate stuff as well as correcting imbalances.

But then, from an Orthodox perspective, both Rome and the Reformed churches are two sides of the same corrupted coin.

That's not to say that there haven't been reforming movements in Orthodoxy, but where these have taken place they haven't upset the apple-cart as much nor introduced innovative teachings or understandings.

Coming back to the OP and how we regard the eucharist, perhaps those who have adopted a memorialist position might explain why they believe this to be preferable in theological or soteriological terms to some kind of Real Presence position - whether this is understood in RC, transubstantiation terms, in Orthodox terms or in the way that Calvin understood it - in a more 'realised' way, if you like than the radical reformers.

What advantages are conferred by the 'real absence' as it were, rather than the Real Presence. In what way do memorialists benefit that Real Presence proponents don't?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
That's not to say that there haven't been reforming movements in Orthodoxy, but where these have taken place they haven't upset the apple-cart as much nor introduced innovative teachings or understandings.
As St. Maria of Paris said, the Orthodox Church has been in hunker-down mode for so long, first under the Ottomans and then under the Soviets, that it has forgotten that there was ever any other mode. And if anybody -- God forbid! -- suggests otherwise, they are cut to ribbons.

And of course Athos considers itself the keeper of the Orthodox flame, never mind that they gave the world Joseph Dzugashvili by their inability to keep their pants pulled up and their cossacks pulled down, driving him back to Georgia in disgust. Thanks, guys.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
Was that a Freudian slip or was the EOC repressive of those of Khazar descent?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Was that a Freudian slip or was the EOC repressive of those of Khazar descent?
That I do not know.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Fair enough, I must admit, I've always found the Orthodox refreshingly up front and direct about the faults, failings and sins of their own Church - although some converts and some cradles can be starry-eyed.

I'm not saying the West isn't. But on certain evangelical circles - even in the CofE - I've occasionally encountered a kind of Stalinist closing down of debate or a turning of blind eyes to mistakes as if they've never happened - rather than a learning from them, an acknowledgement and a moving on. I heard of a dreadful example in one diocese only recently.

I've often said that you need to have a short memory to be a restorationist or revivalist. I don't doubt, though, that other traditions do the same in different ways or according to their own characteristics.

Meanwhile, in fairness to Kaplan, Mousethief, you did rather make it sound that the list of features and failings you produced were defining features of Western Christianity per se, whether Roman or Reformed / reformed.
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Jesus is so lucky to have us.
Another example of something where I wish the Ship provided a 'Like' button. Thank you Mousethief.
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... What advantages are conferred by the 'real absence' as it were, rather than the Real Presence. In what way do memorialists benefit that Real Presence proponents don't?
That's a very good question Gamaliel.

The Reformers would probably have pointed out that it discourages Adoration of the Host. Apart, though, from the RCC and a few very High Church Anglicans who copy them in all things, I don't think anyone else who believes in a Real Presence does that. I'm fairly sure the Orthodox don't.

I'm off to church fairly soon but can anyone answer it?
 
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... What advantages are conferred by the 'real absence' as it were, rather than the Real Presence. In what way do memorialists benefit that Real Presence proponents don't?
That's a very good question Gamaliel.

The Reformers would probably have pointed out that it discourages Adoration of the Host. Apart, though, from the RCC and a few very High Church Anglicans who copy them in all things, I don't think anyone else who believes in a Real Presence does that. I'm fairly sure the Orthodox don't.

I'm off to church fairly soon but can anyone answer it?
This creates for me a picture of people agonising over whether they should believe in Real Presence or Memorial. And, of course, this just doesn't happen for memorialists I have mixed with.

In general, people just follow the rituals of their own tradition. I can imagine that some might say that Jesus is always present when two or three are gathered in his name, (but that just popped into my head now). Personally, I would wonder if "Real" was used tautologically; but I would only wonder for a moment and then forget it as it is no big deal for me and I have never discussed this with anyone.

A quote from Simone Weil I came across the other day I take as a warning against going overboard.
quote:
The mysteries of the faith are degraded when made into objects of affirmation or negation, when they ought to be the object of contemplation.

 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Was that a Freudian slip or was the EOC repressive of those of Khazar descent?
That I do not know.
A puckish Freudian slip then.

And Latchkey Kid, perfect orthogonality to the false dichotomy.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
... What advantages are conferred by the 'real absence' as it were, rather than the Real Presence. In what way do memorialists benefit that Real Presence proponents don't?
That's a very good question Gamaliel.

The Reformers would probably have pointed out that it discourages Adoration of the Host. Apart, though, from the RCC and a few very High Church Anglicans who copy them in all things, I don't think anyone else who believes in a Real Presence does that. I'm fairly sure the Orthodox don't.

I'm off to church fairly soon but can anyone answer it?
Cool - and thanks Latchkey Kid for your observations too.

Interestingly, perhaps, Fr Gregory (an Orthodox priest who used to post here at one time) observed to me recently that he felt that the whole memorialism thing was driven by a desire not to appear Roman Catholic as much as it was by theological conviction ... and that the theological conviction followed the abandonment of 'appearances' rather than it being the other way around ...

As an analogy, he cited the abandonment of prayer-mats and kneeling prostrations in prayer across the Eastern Churches once the Muslims had started doing it. These practices were dropped from Christendom not on theological or biblical grounds but because they had become associated with Islam.

He felt that a similar process occurred across the Reformed world. Hence, Luther and Calvin retained a 'high' view of the eucharist whereas the radicals abandoned that for a snake-belly low approach - a measure provoked by the desire to avoid accusations of eucharistic devotion as much as anything else.

I'm not sure how close or wide of the mark he is on that but it's an interesting point. It's sometimes been said of the early Pentecostals that they had their initial experiences and then set out to find chapter and verse to fit, rather than it being the other way round. 'Look, this is in the Bible, let's look for the experience ...'

As you might expect, I suspect it may have been a both/and thing in both instances - the radical reformed disavowal of the 'real presence' in the eucharist and the way that early Pentecostals sought biblical justification for their practices.
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Do we really think that when central apostolic control was dissipated, until that central authority reappeared, that the churches didn't fall even further in many ways from the simple apostolic faith once received?
Do we really think that at no time between 33 AD and 1492, nobody fixed anything? The Church was just stewing in error until the brave Reformers came to save the day?

And further that even though everybody before 1492 had the same Scriptures that Luther and Calvin and so forth did, they were unable to see things that were just right there in plain view waiting to be found?
Well, the Reformers evidently thought so!
Probably a discussion for a different thread, but at least if Luther, Calvin and their contemporaries are meant by "Reformers," then I think it's rather evident that is not at all what they thought.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
No, it's what Mudfrog thinks they thought or wishes they'd thought ...
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
You appear to think that the breakdown of that consensus was prompted primarily by intellectual and philosophical theological motives.

These no doubt came into play, but I would suggest that the motivation instead was primarily theological, soteriological and pastoral.

In other words, rightly or wrongly, those who questioned the traditional view of the Eucharist before and during the Reformatin genuinely believed that it was biblically wrong, and that it was implicated in wrong views of salvation and a human being's relationship with God.
No, I think it was primarily theological and pastoral. I'm not sure how I suggested otherwise.

What I'm saying is that the Reformers' theological and pastoral thinking happened in a specific context. It was prompted by that context and influenced by that context. In a different context, it might have taken a different trajectory, assuming it happened at all.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:
Probably a discussion for a different thread, but at least if Luther, Calvin and their contemporaries are meant by "Reformers," then I think it's rather evident that is not at all what they thought.
That was actually my thought as well.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I don't think that the radical reformed emphasis on memorialism is novelty for novelty's sake. I think it is the result of serious reflection and a serious attempt to reach a theological position.

But I'm afraid I'm now of the opinion that it loses something in the process.

I'm afraid I'm coming to the conclusion that much of evangelicalism has lost its way and become trite and trivial. A loss of confidence in the eucharist is part and parcel of that.
The issue is not what view of the Eucharist enables us to get the most out of it, or seems to do the most for us (individually or corporately), but what is theologically and scripturally true - or at least closest to the truth.

You appear to be confusing the two.

Yes of course memorialists can be shallow and nominal, but so can subscribers to the various receptionist theories across all the Christian traditions - and often a sight more superstitious, what's more.

[ 27. February 2017, 00:22: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
subscribers to the various receptionist theories across all the Christian traditions
Apologies.

My bad.

That should have read "subscribers to the various non-memorialist (ie receptionist and transubstantiationist) theories across all the Christian traditions".
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
Superstition is a dangerous charge to fling about. Atheists fling it over all of us Christians. If you want to rid yourself of the possibility of being called "superstitious" you need to forego all metaphysics altogether. For my part I will stay with the continuous teaching of the historic church, even if you or anybody else wants to call it "superstitious." I've been called worse things and so has the Church.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Yes, there are superstitious practices associated with 'real presence' understandings of the eucharist.

As I said upthread, perverse as some memorialists might find it, that's one of the reasons why the Western Church of the middle ages developed a more Aristotelian and philosophical approach in the form of 'transubstantiation'.

No, I'm not arguing for that particular understanding, and it seems to be we don't need to adopt such a view if we wish to retain or move towards a more 'realised' understanding of the mystery.

Which is in itself a paradoxical statement, how can we understand a mystery?

On the superstition thing, nature abhors a vacuum and in some ways popular forms of evangelicalism seem to me to have developed their own forms of that - not applied to physical objects such as hosts and relics but to particular Bible passages or eschatological speculation or loopy and eccentric interpretations of certain texts.

That's not to let the more Catholic traditions off the hook in respect to superstitions.

As to whether a receptionist, a transubstantiationist or memorialist position is somehow more 'true' to scripture - well as I keep saying - in an annoyingly 'catholic' way perhaps, we can't disaggregate the scriptures from the faith community/ies which produced them. They don't and can't 'stand alone' - I'm back to the guy in the white hat with the silver star and six gun again ...

I do think there is something of a reverse fundamentalism going on in the way some of the more sacramental traditions interpret some Johannine texts, for instance. But at the same time I can see how these texts and indeed hints and images throughout the NT can indicate that there is more going on than 'mere memorialism'.

These don't stand alone but operate alongside the commentaries and observations of the Fathers and early Saints. And, if we are RC, later Scholastic insights, or, if Reformed, the contributions of the Reformers, whether Magisterial or radical.

There ain't one of us here who isn't coming at it through one or other of those particular routes or lenses, as it were.

If we are going to claim this, that or the other view as more scriptural than any of the others, then we are going to have to acknowledge that we are doing so within the framework of one or other of the particular interpretive systems.

We can't claim otherwise. We can't claim to be the one in the corner of the saloon with the silver star and six gun.
 
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :
 
Posted by Enoch:
quote:

The Reformers would probably have pointed out that it discourages Adoration of the Host. Apart, though, from the RCC and a few very High Church Anglicans who copy them in all things, I don't think anyone else who believes in a Real Presence does that.
I've often wondered about this in terms of how you define adoration. For instance, I've been to memorialist only shacks where there was a more profound sense of adoration than what you can find in real presence shacks. I even found it in one place where the altar (or I probably should say 'table') was inscribed with the words, 'He is not here'! Yet in spite of all their protestations about being profoundly 'Protestant' the elements were treated with extreme reverence and you had a very powerful sense of being a part of something that had enormous significance. There was nothing casual about it and none of the vessels were what you would call normal table ware. Even the prayers and readings changed to a very mannered style. To me these sense of adoration was almost tangible and it felt like a very curious contradiction between this and what I knew they believed about it.

Or is adoration only to be considered in the context of a monstrance?
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Indeed, and that's one of the reasons why I think I stated at the outset of this thread that very often 'mere memorialism' is certainly not 'mere' ...

Nor, arguably, is some of it even 'memorialism' ...

On one level, however we celebrate the eucharist we are recalling or tapping into (as it were) something very, very real and something that derives from the practices of Christ and the very first disciples.

I've had a very profound sense of that at times in settings that wouldn't claim to be setting out to 're-present' Christ's Passion in any sacramental sense.

I suppose my position would be that at the very least we can be memorialist ...

We can't be 'less' than that ... but we can be 'more' or at least no 'mere' ...*

* And I'm applying that to those who celebrate communion in some way. I'm not entering into value judgements about those who, for whatever reason, don't 'formally' celebrate communion in any 'ordinance' or sacramental sense.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Superstition is a dangerous charge to fling about.
Indeed, and my reference to superstition was not to transubstantiation per se, subscription to which I disagree with, while respecting those who hold it.

It was rather to that vast, semi-underground literature of bizarre beliefs and events associated with the host, such as peasants stealing a portion of the host to carry out some sort of blessing or curse, and being betrayed by torrents of blood issuing from the pocket in which they had secreted it.
 
Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on :
 
Of course the good Kaplan will know that none of these things he mentions are official teachings of the Catholic Church.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
Oddly enough, there seems to be a superstitious element, their professed rationalism notwithstanding, in stories of militant anticlericals in predominantly RC countries using a purloined host, or portion thereof, for obscene sexual or scatological purposes.

It was as if they unconsciously believed they could negate its mojo by blaspheming it sufficiently.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
But as I've said, one of the reasons the RCs developed the more philosophical 'take' involved in transubstantiation was to try to batten down on such practices ...

Of course, it's not accident that some of the most obscene swear words in Spanish are based on scatological subversions of the eucharist.

'I shit myself on the Sacred Host' is a literal translation of a Spanish phrase, I've been told.

As soon as you have any sense of something being holy or sacred then you immediately set yourself up for subversion.

I remember Fr Gregory saying how, when he was an Anglican vicar, he heard some strange noises in the porch of his vicarage. He opened the door to find a couple in flagrante. It was as if the possibility of being discovered by the local vicar added an extra frisson to their al fresco frolics.

Who do we blame for that? The couple themselves or the establishment of a firm of religiosity to subvert or rail against?
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
It would be a strange argument indeed that said, as soon as you call something sacred, somebody is going to come along and try to desecrate it, therefore you shouldn't call anything sacred.

A form of letting the bullies run the playground.
 
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I remember Fr Gregory saying how, when he was an Anglican vicar, he heard some strange noises in the porch of his vicarage. He opened the door to find a couple in flagrante. It was as if the possibility of being discovered by the local vicar added an extra frisson to their al fresco frolics.
Perhaps they were just a respectable married couple who were desperate for some intimate koinonia somewhere - anywhere - undisturbed by their kids?

It was once generally believed that many parents sent their kids off to Sunday School on Sunday mornings for the same reason.

[ 27. February 2017, 23:04: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Perhaps, but I suspect that's unlikely. After all, the porch of someone's house, whether it's a vicarage or whatever else, isn't a particularly good choice of venue if you don't want to be disturbed.

Who knows? Perhaps the prospect of being disturbed - and by a cleric too - added to the frisson?

Coming back to the plot ...

Of course militant anti-RCs or anti-anything elses are going to engage in iconoclastic behaviour that can topple over into the bizarre. In 1930s Russia, squads of Bolsheviks sent to rid the peasants of their superstitions would put icons on 'trial' in show-trials and then shoot them to pieces with machine guns in firing squads.

I wrote a poem about that once, it seemed such an interesting and arresting idea. There's a kind of reverse superstition going on in iconoclasm of any kind - be it pious Christians burning Masonic regalia - I've heard of that happening - or a charismatic Anglican bishop who removed or exorcised a riever's spear from a cathedral up near the Scottish borders because there was supposed to be a curse attached to it ... And yes, that happened not very long ago.

But we are straying into the territory of the superstition thread ...
 


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