Tag Archives: Eucharist

Luminous Christianity (5)

06 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by in Bible, Catholic Tradition, Faith, Salvation

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Eucharist

There are times when it seems as though there is nothing sacred, that is in the sense that nothing is exempt from the tendency of Christians to argue among themselves, and the subject of the fifth and final Mystery of Light, the Institution of the Holy Eucharist is one of those.

It seems simple enough on the page:

26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, [a]blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood of the [b]new covenant, which is shed for many for the [c]remission of sins. 29 But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.

St Mark’s version, upon which St Matthew’s was most probably based is typically straightforward:

22 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, “Take, [a]eat; this is My body.”

23 Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24 And He said to them, “This is My blood of the [b]new covenant, which is shed for many. 25 Assuredly, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

We can see from this why one of the rumours spread about the early Christians in Roman society was that they were cannibals and ate the body and drank the blood of their god.

There is no Institution narrative in St John, but what he does have to say about Jesus as the Bread of Life drives hom the sense of the words we get from SS Mark and Matthew. When teaching in Capernum, Jesus told His listeners He was the Bread of Life, they queried His words and their meaning, and Jesus was clear in His response:

52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”

53 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is [a]food indeed, and My blood is [b]drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

The result is worth noting: “ From that time many of His disciples went [f]back and walked with Him no more”.

The conventional Protestant explanation (this one from my NKJV Study Bible) is “Jesus was speaking figuratively, but the Jewish leaders took him literally.” But will this really do? We are told that many of His disciples turned away. If they had misunderstood, it would have been easy enough for Jesus to have stated that He was talking figuratively. Instead, He lets them go and even asks “the twelve” whether they, too, will leave Him. It seems a little feeble to explain all of this in terms of figurative speech.

It is St Luke’s versionof the words which seems to have given an excuse for the “figurative” explanation, as there the words of Institution are:

9 And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

Hence the explanation that the Eucharist is a “memorial” of His saving passion, as though we are presented with a binary choice. But is it a binary choice? Have we fully understood what Jesus is saying if we assume so.

As usual, the Church Fathers have been here before us and are an invaluable source of wisdom here.

St John Chysostom explained it thus in Homily 47:2:

When we converse of spiritual things, let there be nothing secular in our souls, nothing earthy, let all such thoughts retire, and be banished, and let us be entirely given up to the hearing the divine oracles only.

The argument here is that we understand Christ’s words spiritually and not carnally. It is in the same vein as St Hilary of Poitier’s statement in On the Trinity:

For as to what we say concerning the reality of Christ’s nature within us, unless we have been taught by Him, our words are foolish and impious. For He says Himself, My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. John 6:55-56 As to the verity of the flesh and blood there is no room left for doubt. For now both from the declaration of the Lord Himself and our own faith, it is verily flesh and verily blood. And these when eaten and drunk, bring it to pass that both we are in Christ and Christ in us.

Orthodox theology, untouched by the scholastic method, argues that in the Eucharist we partake not simply of the physical/material, but of the deified and glorifies Body and Blood of Christ which give resurrection life. Catholic theology expresses the same thought thus:

We believe that at every Mass, bread and wine become Jesus — his body, blood, soul and divinity — even though we can’t fully understand how it happens. The miracle of the Eucharist is a mystery, something that human reason and intelligence can never fully grasp.

The Institution of the Eucharist invites us into the heart of the mystery of God’s love for us. Like the woman at the well, we discover that Jesus is the Living Water, but oh, with what blessing we reflect that in the Eucharistic Feast we receive His Body and His Blood. In the words of the Catechism:

The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods” (CCC 460)

In His Body and Blood we are saved, redeemed and will be glorified.

 

 

Intermission: Luther v Zwingli on the Eucharist

13 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Lutheranism, Salvation

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Phillip mentioned yesterday that Lutherans have a very clear doctrine of the Eucharist, which is certainly true, and that the controversy between Luther and Zwingli highlighted the differences. That too is true. I didn’t want to go into it on his post, it is a bit far off topic. It is interesting, though, and last night I found a concise summary of the differences by Trevin Wax. It also highlights how it differed from Luther’s contemporary Catholic experience.

Luther’s view

In the medieval period before the Reformation, the mass formed the centerpiece of Christian worship and devotion. Three centuries before Luther began teaching in Wittenberg, the fourth Lateran council of 1215 established the doctrine of transubstantiation, which holds that upon the priest’s consecration of the bread and wine, the accidents (according to the senses) remain the same, but the substance (the internal “essence”) is miraculously transformed into the physical body and blood of Christ.

The implications of this doctrine were widespread. Laypeople began to adore the bread and wine from afar or superstitiously carry pieces of bread back home to plant in the garden for good crops or to give to an ailing animal for good health. To avoid an accidental spilling of the wine, the priests began giving only the bread to parishioners, keeping the cup for themselves. By the 1500’s, even the bread was withheld in most churches.

The mass had turned into a show instead of a sacrament. Some parishioners feverishly hurried from church to church to obtain the blessing of seeing more than one host in a given day.

Luther objected to the extreme practices brought by medieval superstition, but he continued to regard the “images, bells, Eucharistic vestments, church ornaments, altar lights and the like” as “indifferent.”

Two things in particular bothered Luther about the Roman Catholic view of the Lord’s Supper. First, he disagreed sharply with the practice of withholding the cup from the laity. So strongly did Luther believe in the laity’s participation in the mass that he condemned the Roman Catholic practice as one way that “Babylon” holds the church “captive.” (It should be noted however that Luther did not believe that withholding the cup necessarily invalidated the sacrament or that the Christians who were denied the cup during the previous centuries had not received sacramental benefits.)

Secondly, Luther believed that the Roman Catholic understanding of the sacrament as a “good work and a sacrifice” was the “most wicked abuse of all.” Luther argued forcefully that the mass must be seen as a testament – something to receive, not a good work to perform. The only sacrifice at the Lord’s Table is the sacrifice of ourselves. The idea that a priest could sacrifice the body and blood of the Lord was especially appalling to Luther and he considered this belief the most abominable of Roman errors.  […]

Another area in which Luther remained close to Roman doctrine is in the doctrine of the “real presence.” Up until 1519, it appears Luther agreed with the official doctrine of transubstantiation. In 1520, he criticized the idea quite forcefully, painting it as needless speculation based on Aristotelian thought.

A popular misconception among Reformation students is that Luther affirmed and promoted “consubstantiation,” but neither Luther nor the Lutheran church ever accepted that term. Luther simply refused to speculate on how Christ is present and instead settled for affirming that he is there. The presence of Christ in the Supper is miraculous and thus defies explanation.

Roman Catholic theologians strongly emphasized the moment of consecration, when the priest would lift the bread and say “Hoc est corpus meum.” At that moment, bells would be rung and all eyes would be on the elevated host, which had magically been transformed into Christ’s body.

Luther similarly emphasized the words of institution, but only because Christ’s command leads to the change, not because the priest has made a special utterance. In this and other practices, Luther was content to alter the understanding behind Roman Catholic practice without feeling the need to actually change the tradition itself.

Luther believed that the fruit of the Lord’s Supper is the forgiveness of sins. Roman doctrine held that Communion was for the righteous, those who have confessed their sins to the priest. Luther believed Communion was for sinners, those who needed Christ’s incarnation the most.

 

Zwingli’s view

 

Zwingli did not see the need for a “sacramental union” in the Lord’s Supper because of his modified understanding of sacraments.

According to Zwingli, the sacraments serve as a public testimony of a previous grace. Therefore, the sacrament is “a sign of a sacred thing, i.e. of a grace that has been given.” For Zwingli, the idea that the sacraments carry any salvific efficacy in themselves is a return to Judaism’s ceremonial washings that lead to the purchase of salvation.

Whereas Luther sought to prune the bad branches off the tree of Roman Catholic sacramentalism, Zwingli believed the problem to be rooted at least partly in sacramentalism itself. […]

What Zwingli could not accept was a “real presence” that claimed Christ was present in his physical body with no visible bodily boundaries.

“I have no use for that notion of a real and true body that does not exist physically, definitely and distinctly in some place, and that sort of nonsense got up by word triflers.”

Zwingli’s theology of the Lord’s Supper should not be viewed as an innovation without precedent in church history. Zwingli claimed that his doubts about transubstantiation were shared by many of his day, leading him to claim that priests did not ever believe such a thing, even though “most all have taught this or at least pretended to believe it.”

Had Zwingli’s modified doctrine of the “real presence” been an innovation, it would probably not have been so eagerly accepted by his parishioners. The symbolic view spread rapidly because Zwingli had given voice and legitimacy to an opinion that was already widespread.

In Zurich, the mass was abolished in 1525. The Lord’s Supper was celebrated with a new liturgy that replaced the altar with a table and tablecloth.

The striking feature of the Zwinglian observance of the sacrament was its simplicity. Because the bread and wine were not physically transformed into Christ’s body and blood, there was no need for spurious ceremonies and pompous rituals. The occasion was marked by simplicity and reverence, with an emphasis on its nature as a memorial.

Zwingli’s denial of the “real presence” did not result in the neglecting of the sacrament that would characterize many of his followers in centuries to come. He saw seven virtues in the Lord’s Supper that proved its importance for the Christian life.

Do read the articles linked above. While what he says on Lutheran doctrine is in accordance with what I know and believe, and what I know of how it was derived, and I am sort of assuming that as an Evangelical he knows a fair amount about Zwingli, I don’t know enough to comment intelligently about it. My original church had a fair amount of Reformed in it, but it was long ago, and I’ve long since come to believe in The Real Presence myself, actually before I became a Lutheran. It is just more consonant with the Lord’s words and the disciples’ reaction to them.

Ps, the short form

Is God Omnipresent or Not?

04 Sunday Jun 2017

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(Originally posted on The Catholic Thinker — make sure to follow me! : https://whysoseriousdotcom.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/is-god-omnipresent-or-not/ )

“Transubstantiation. Among the many problems with this doctrine is that Jesus Christ – the Son of God, God in the flesh – has a human body, and although it is a glorified body it cannot be in multiple places simultaneously. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is Omnipresent for He is Spirit, but Jesus cannot be at the same time at the right hand of the Father, waiting until His enemies be made His footstool (Hebrews 10:12-14), and present on every Catholic altar in the world. You will say, But this is a Mystery, Maria, but I must answer that the Lord Who is the Truth desires truth in our innermost being (Psalm 51:6). chalcedon451, you realize, don’t you, that men and women have been killed for refusing to worship ‘the Host’?”

( Original post: https://pilgrimsprogressrevisted.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/answering-chalcedon451-of-all-along-the-watchtower-on-the-church-of-rome/ )

Maria, a gentle iconoclast ( https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/22263041 ), published a reply to chacedon451 ( https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/36089350 ), that included the excerpt from above.

It is appalling that a “Christian” would deny that Christ can be present at multiple places at once. Such a belief seems to put limitations on God, something that is alien to the Bible.

Revelation 19:6 says:

“And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunders, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord our God the Almighty hath reigned.”

God is Almighty, that is, Omnipotent. He can do anything. This alone should show that Christ, as God, can be in multiple places at once. Indeed, Christ says clearly that “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

Now, there are things God is unable to do, such as lying (Titus 1:2). But lying is an imperfection, something that God cannot do because He is perfect. Not being able to lie is not a handicap, because lying is sinful. Sin is an imperfection, and therefore God cannot “sin”, because sin is evil, the absence of good. God is by no means limited in power by not being able to sin.

Can Christ be present in multiple places at once? Christ teaches that he can. In Matthew 18:20, Christ says that wherever two or three are gathered together in His name, He is present among them. Certainly there are simultaneously many people worldwide gathered in Jesus’ name, correct? Can He not be with them all at once?

In Matthew 28:20, Christ says to His Apostles: “…behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

How can Christ be with His Apostles after He ascended into Heaven? Could Christ perhaps be able to be in several places at once??

1Corinthians 15:6 says that Jesus, after His resurrection, appeared to 500 of his brethren at the same time. Were all these people in the same exact place? Maybe, maybe not.

It cannot be said that Christ cannot be in multiple places at the same time. That is a human attempt to diminish the power of the Almighty God.

— Patrick Devens

 

Catechism, and the Rev Dr Luther

03 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in Faith, Lutheranism

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luther1(1)Often, we hear it said (yes, by me too!) that our people are not properly catechized. but what does that mean exactly? All of our churches have huge books relating to our dogmas and doctrines.

Do we mean that we all have to know all in those books? Of course not, that would fit in the same category as being judged by God with only justice. We all fail without mercy. So there has to be a minimum out there someplace of what we have to know. And there is, for Lutherans, it comes not surprisingly from the Rev Dr Luther himself.

And here it is from The Large Catechism

Short Preface of Dr. Martin Luther

1] This sermon is designed and undertaken that it might be an instruction for children and the simple-minded. Hence of old it was called in Greek Catechism, i.e., instruction for children, 2] what every Christian must needs know, so that he who does not know this could not be numbered with the Christians nor be admitted to any Sacrament, just as a mechanic who does not understand the rules and customs of his trade is expelled and considered incapable. 3] Therefore we must have the young learn the parts which belong to the Catechism or instruction for children well and fluently and diligently exercise themselves in them and keep them occupied with them.

4] Therefore it is the duty of every father of a family to question and examine his children and servants at least once a week and to ascertain what they know of it, or are learning, and, if they do not know it, to keep them faithfully at it. 5] For I well remember the time, indeed, even now it is a daily occurrence that one finds rude, old persons who knew nothing and still know nothing of these things, and who, nevertheless, go to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and use everything belonging to Christians, notwithstanding that those who come to the Lord’s Supper ought to know more and have a fuller understanding of all Christian doctrine than children and new scholars. 6] However, for the common people we are satisfied with the three parts, which have remained in Christendom from of old, though little of it has been taught and treated correctly until both young and old, who are called and wish to be Christians, are well trained in them and familiar with them. These are the following:

First – THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF GOD.

1] 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

2] 2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain [for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain].

3] 3. Thou shalt sanctify the holy-day. [Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.]

4] 4. Thou shalt honor thy father and mother [that thou mayest live long upon the earth].

5] 5. Thou shalt not kill.

6] 6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

7] 7. Thou shalt not steal.

8] 8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

9] 9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.

10] 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his cattle [ox, nor his ass], nor anything that is his.

Secondly – THE CHIEF ARTICLES OF OUR FAITH.

11] 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

12] 2. And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

13] 3. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

14] Thirdly – THE PRAYER, OR “OUR FATHER,” WHICH CHRIST TAUGHT.

Our Father who art in heaven.

1. Hallowed be Thy name.

2. Thy kingdom come.

3. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

4. Give us this day our daily bread.

5. And forgive us our trespasses as we for give those who trespass against us.

6. And lead us not into temptation.

7. But deliver us from evil. [For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever.] Amen.

15] These are the most necessary parts which one should first learn to repeat word for word, 16] and which our children should be accustomed to recite daily when they arise in the morning, when they sit down to their meals, and when they retire at night; and until they repeat them, they should be given neither food nor drink. 17]Likewise every head of a household is obliged to do the same with respect to his domestics, man-servants and maid-servants, and not to keep them in his house if they do not know these things and are unwilling to learn them. 18] For a person who is so rude and unruly as to be unwilling to learn these things is not to be tolerated; for in these three parts everything that we have in the Scriptures is comprehended in short, plain, and simple terms. 19] For the holy Fathers or apostles (whoever they were) have thus embraced in a summary the doctrine, life, wisdom, and art of Christians, of which they speak and treat, and with which they are occupied.

20] Now, when these three parts are apprehended, it behooves a person also to know what to say concerning our Sacraments, which Christ Himself instituted, Baptism and the holy body and blood of Christ, namely, the text which Matthew 28:19ff and Mark 16:15f record at the close of their Gospels when Christ said farewell to His disciples and sent them forth.

21] OF BAPTISM.

Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

22] So much is sufficient for a simple person to know from the Scriptures concerning Baptism. In like manner, also, concerning the other Sacrament, in short, simple words, namely, the text of St. Paul [1 Cor. 11:23f ].

OF THE SACRAMENT.

23] Our Lord Jesus Christ, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and gave it to His disciples and said, Take, eat; this is, My body, which is given for you: this do in remembrance of Me.

After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; this cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you for the remission of sins: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.

24] Thus would have, in all, five parts of the entire Christian doctrine which should be constantly treated and required [of children], and heard recited word for word. For you must not rely upon it that the young people will learn and retain these things from the sermon alone. 25] When these parts have been well learned, you may, as a supplement and to fortify them, lay before them also some psalms or hymns, which have been composed on these parts, and thus lead the young into the Scriptures, and make daily progress therein.

26] However, it is not enough for them to comprehend and recite these parts according to the words only, but the young people should also be made to attend the preaching, especially during the time which is devoted to the Catechism, that they may hear it explained, and may learn to understand

what every part contains, so as to be able to recite it as they have heard it, and, when asked, may give a correct answer, so that the preaching may not be without profit and fruit. 27] For the reason why we exercise such diligence in preaching the Catechism so often is that it may be inculcated on our youth, not in a high and subtile manner, but briefly and with the greatest simplicity, so as to enter the mind readily and be fixed in the memory.

28] Therefore we shall now take up the above-mentioned articles one by one and in the plainest manner possible say about them as much as is necessary.

Now, remember that this is the basics for, as Dr. Luther put it, the simple and children, it is not all there is, in Lutheranism any more than in any of our churches. But if you don’t understand and believe this, the rest matters not.

Reformation Day, Millenarianism, and Saving the World

31 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in Church/State, Faith

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Today is the 498th anniversary of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses on the door of All Saint’s Church in Wittenberg. It turned into a big deal, as we all know. But maybe the split of Protestant from Catholic wasn’t the biggest deal, insofar as our faith is concerned.

There’s a case to be made that the split between Luther and Zwingli is more important. For here is the real beginning of the split in the western church.

Firstly I doubt any will be surprised that I completely agree with what Chalcedon wrote yesterday in his post The Real Schism, I almost always agree with him. That said, perhaps we need to look deeper.

Lutherans (like Anglicans) believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, in this we follow our Catholic brethren albeit we do phrase it somewhat differently. Yes, I do recognize that both churches have more or less split on this but that is what our doctrines say, and I would submit that the Catholic church has the same split although not mentioned aloud. why do I say this?

The Zwinglians believe not in the Real Presence but that the Eucharist is a remembrance. Seems minor, doesn’t it? It’s not.

Christ said clearly, “This is my body”. Seems sort of radical, how can God be bounded by something material like bread? That bothered Luther too, I suspect, leading to his formulation, “in, under, and around”. That says the same thing without imposing limits on God. In a sense, it’s a small point, but it leads to the point. if you had leprosy in Jesus’ time, you didn’t go out into nature and hug a tree to get cured, you went to Jesus, and his body.

That doesn’t contradict that God is everywhere, but the mystery of God-in-Flesh is that He came down to earth, where we are, “for us men and our salvation”.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit created the church. The church is the body of Christ. It is where we are baptized into His Body and commune with His body through the Eucharist.

God is everywhere, but outside His church, he is hidden in uncertainty, seen “through a glass darkly” as it were. We see him fully only through the Eucharist.

It’s pretty basic, but if Jesus is God-in-flesh for me, I am not. God is not me, I am not God. God is in me because He gave His body for me, even unto death. Three points here:

  1. He will always be outside me, not under my control.
  2. He will always be a gift, not something I imagine, but a gift of His own divine will. Grace, if you will.
  3. Administrating this gift will involve ordained things and people, water, bread, wine, clergy, and even formal words.

These implications horrified the ancient (and modern?) Gnostics. Why? Because this community created by and around the Eucharist created exactly the sort of political monstrosity that bound the Self. It, like other systems; marriage, family, and even the state, that thwart the unbound self.

If God can be separated from the Eucharist then man and God can proceed hand in hand doing great things, on their own terms. This is where the Millenarian cults come from.

These cults (usually of personality) were the first liberals, radicals, and progressives. Their paradigm was that If God transgressed the boundaries of Jesus (and the Sacrament), ti will also transgress the boundary between church and state. For those of us who are orthodox, the difference between God’s Kingdom and the kings of this world has always been clear. See also Luther’s two kingdoms, and every medieval altarpiece. It’s a very clear boundary.

When God is out of his containment in Christ and church, one gets a (un)Holy mess. One gets an ‘elect’ who believe they are God’s instrument to make His Kingdom on earth. The church becomes a political movement based on good deeds. Because the Holy Spirit worked directly in their hearts, they were to spearhead the new emerging age.

Churches that understand the Sacraments properly don’t ever believe they are “God’s hand in history” because they never confuse themselves with God. Their approach to God is prayer, not one of “how can I change the world”. That goes right back to understanding that one is not God, but God is in one.

The view is one that “views the world as a sinful place, rather than one to be molded into God’s kingdom on earth”.

Hegel was influenced by his Pietist upbringing. In true millenarian form, Hegel believed that “the heart, the sensitive spirituality of man…can and ought to take possession of the truth, and this subjectivity is that of all men.” He interpreted the Reformation in as wrong a fashion as could be imagined, believing that Luther had liberated minds from the tyranny of external ordering agents like the church. […]

Hegel explains from a philosophical perspective why an evangelical movement—which is to say millenarian, or Anabaptist, or Pietist movement—is “step one” in the gradual process toward a secular religion. It begins with the focus away from the external formalism of the church and its Sacrament toward internal psychological occurrences. From there, precisely because of the mechanisms Hegel identifies, evangelicalism tends to devolve into unitarian moralism and communitarianism. God leaks out of his containment in the church’s word and sacraments into my heart, and however I reconstitute him becomes a more “authentic” spirituality than what that fuddy duddy institutional church is telling me.

Much of this article is excepted from, and all quotes come from How Denying Christ’s Body And Blood Leads To Progressive Politics. I strongly recommend reading the full article.

To me, this brings us right back to the problem of our churches delegating part of our mission (Feed the hungry, …) to the state, and even more the problem of the Established Church which I spoke of here and here, in all its flavors.

Good Friday meditation

03 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in Easter, Faith

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cropped-mary-at-the-foot-of-the-cross.jpgWe call it ‘Good Friday’. The altar in my church is stripped bare, and the crucifix is covered, and we leave with the smoke from the extinguished candles filling the gloom of an English spring afternoon. With temperatures stuck next to freezing, the shivers could have a number of causes; but meditating on the Passion of Our Lord is enough. The sense of sorrow is an echo of that first Friday at Calvary, and it is hard to know, at that moment what is ‘good’ about it.

But when we stop in prayer and think, we can see precisely what is good.  It is the day on which all our sins are loaded on the Lamb of God, when He takes upon His shoulders your sins and mine. What wonder is this? What have we done to be so rewarded? How can this be? What wondrous love is this? Good? Yes, the best news mankind ever had or ever will have. Whatever confessional allegiances divide us, I like to feel on this day of all days, the Cross of Christ unites us.

I leave it to all the clever men to explain what in my heart I know is simple. Christ loves me. He loves us all. He did what He did, He suffered what He suffered willingly. He knew if would be terrible, and He would have preferred it if it had been otherwise; but that makes it all the more precious.

The American expression ‘when the rubber hits the road’ comes to mind. This is where our salvation was earned, and not by us. With every nail that was hammered in, as with every stripe He bore for us, we are being saved. If we find those sufferings horrible, we should know that is how God finds our sins; God did something about it – what are we doing?

It was through the breaking of that body on the Cross, and the spilling of that blood that we see what He meant on the evening of the Last Supper. His Body was broken for us; His blood spilled for us. Some of us believe that at the Eucharist we receive His Body and Blood as He said; others that it is in memory of Him. Well, Good Friday is no time to rehearse what divides us – yet more stripes we apply to His back. It is a time for prayer and contemplation.

Mine is that for all of us, the Spirit of Christ may be with us this Easter, and that we may know Him as Lord, and worship Him and be thankful for what He has done for us. What did we do to earn it? Nothing. What can we do to be worthy of it? Just heed His call to repent and follow Him in belief that He is the Christ.

In the shadow of the Cross we kneel and pray and give thanks – we are redeemed through His suffering. As the ancient hymn has it, let all mortal flesh keep silent. He has saved us. It is Good Friday – be sad and yet rejoice.

[First published on nebraskaenergyobserver on 29 March 2013]

My Journey: Part One

28 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Faith, Lutheranism

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salemOur new commenter Ginnyfree asked if I would document my journey in faith. While I can’t imagine anything more boring than my journey, she did ask nicely. And so I’ll try. And as she noted, my verbose switch is stuck in on so this will be a multi-part post.

I think we are all, in large part, the sum of our yesterdays, and especially our youngest years. That doesn’t mean you can’t overcome them but, you will work fairly hard to, especially in your subconscious. In that way, I was extremely lucky. I was born in a town of 800 people, six churches, and only four bars. In other words a typical small town of the German type in northern Indiana, in fact I’m what we referred to when I was young as a Region Rat, from the northwest corner where the steel industry was a part of our lives, as well as agriculture. I was born in the early 50s, in what looking back looks like a perfect time to be an American, and a Christian.

My heritage is Norwegian and most of my family belonged to the American Lutheran Church, the American offshoot of the Church of Norway (and others). But that didn’t exist where I grew up and so my folks ended up in the Evangelical and Reformed Church, the American offshoot of the the Church of Prussia, now the Evangelical Kirche.  Kind of Lutheran with a fairly large dose of Calvin mixed in.

Well, sort of anyway. Like many small towns in middle America, there were about three families and they were interrelated. My church was E&R because of a family feud in the Missouri Synod church, and a group split off. I’m not sure that anybody (including our preachers) really knew much about the theology. They had studied it in seminary and could look up answers but it rarely came up. It was the old days when we were all Christians of one variety or another and we didn’t pay too much attention to how many sacraments other guys did or didn’t have, or even if they believed in the Real Presence. That was business for the elders, not for us to question! I suspect it has always been thus for most people.

But the thing is, I always believed that Christ died and rose again for me personally, as did most everyone. Then as now, a lot of men would find any excuse not to go to church, didn’t mean they didn’t believe, they just didn’t want to put on a coat and tie and sit still an hour. My dad was one of them, his claim was that the church would fall down if he entered. That was women’s work, and we kids did Sunday school, Bible school, and church regularly. And in truth both of my sisters and I have been officer’s of our churches.

By the time I was confirmed the E&R had merged into the United Church of Christ which was (and is) a mess. It runs from the old Puritan Congregationalists to Rev. Wright in Chicago. In other words it’s an example of what false ecumenism can do. While I was confirmed out of the old Evangelical Catechism, as my much older sisters had been, it had become so easy that it was nearly a joke. The form was intact but not the substance.

And in truth in high school I lost interest. Until Mom died I just had better things to do, sometimes including getting over Saturday night. Young and invincible would describe me, and church was for little old ladies of both sexes. Like Dad, I believed completely in God just not the church. And after Dad passed (I spoke of him here), I ended up doing what in my business we call ‘booming’ which means I was working for a contractor and rarely any place longer than about six weeks. That’s not very conducive to going to church and I was lucky to make it on Christmas and Easter.

Until I got down here, in Husker land, on a long term job, and fell in love with a local girl (well woman would be more accurate). She was a practicing Lutheran, and I was ready (past ready by about ten years, actually) to finally get married and perhaps even have a family. And so I joined the ELCA, the successor to all the Scandinavian Lutheran Churches in America. In a generational way, it completed the circle.

Well the kids didn’t happen, and  various problems like money, and job schedules, and other things, that I’ve mentioned, led to the breakup of the marriage, and with the way it went I got out of the habit of regular attendance, and the form of liturgy used these days here, is not something I care for (like so many of us) and so I make some mostly for the Eucharist, which I find essential. And that I thought was the end of the story. Just another complacent American Christian of the Lutheran variety.

I think the main lesson here is the old American (and Christian) belief in absolute personal responsibility for your thoughts and actions combined with an absolute belief in the Trinitarian God, as stated in the Nicene Creed.

We will continue soon.

Six Hundred Years- The Same Message

06 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Faith

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The other day this showed up in my Twitter feed.

And since BruvverEccles is one of the people that I highly respect, I followed the link, which led me here.

[…]

OK here goes (this is exactly as I’d say it to a 10 year old): Some people think that what we do at Mass is a bit like having a meal – a special meal – but still a meal. In some ways this is right, BUT it is the most special meal you can imagine. It is special because the person you love most in the world (Jesus, of course) is actually giving you himself as food. That sounds a bit gruesome doesn’t it? Well, that’s what’s special about Mass – Jesus gave us the way to eat his body and drink his blood in a non-gruesome way the night before he was raised up on a cross. This was called the Last Supper – or you could call it the First Mass! You see, the important thing is that Jesus died and was raised up again 3 days later. That’s what we have at Mass, not just a memory of something that happened in the past, but we’re actually there – we are there with Mary beside the cross, but also there 3 days later when Jesus rose from the dead. So to go back in time to the night BEFORE he died doesn’t make sense – why would we want to go back in time then? The most important bit hadn’t happened yet! Instead, on that night Jesus gave us the way, not to time travel, but to make present in our today what He did for us once and for all. […]

Here’s the link again wp.me/p2sOVi-np 

statue_of_dame_julianAnd that explanation rang a bell with me. It is very reminiscent of  what julian of Norwich wrote in her Revelation of Divine Love, which I wrote about last fall (on NEO) here and here. She is also T. S. Elliot’s source for the verse that I quote often from Little Gidding in The Four Quartets.

Sin is Behovely, but
All shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well.
If I think, again, of this place,
And of people, not wholly commendable,
Of no immediate kin or kindness,
But of some peculiar genius,
All touched by a common genius,
United in the strife which divided them;
If I think of a king at nightfall,
Of three men, and more, on the scaffold
And a few who died forgotten
In other places, here and abroad,
And of one who died blind and quiet
Why should we celebrate
These dead men more than the dying?
It is not to ring the bell backward
Nor is it an incantation
To summon the spectre of a Rose.
We cannot revive old factions
We cannot restore old policies
Or follow an antique drum.
These men, and those who opposed them
And those whom they opposed
Accept the constitution of silence
And are folded in a single party.
Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching

And so, we see in these two expressions spread over half a millenium, a deep and continuing strain of mysticism in the Mass, more specifically in the Eucharist, connecting us back to the little band of disciples who witnessed the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

I thought we might expand a bit on Julian’s writings to shed a bit more light on it. (Note that that my copy of her manuscript has some problems in transcription that I’m nowhere near competent to fix.)

For man, he holdeth some deeds well done, and some deeds evil – and our Lord beholdeth them not so, for as all that 34

me

hath being in kind of God’s making, so is all thing that is done, in property of God’s making. For it is easy to understand that the best deed is well done; and all in the property and order that our Lord hath ordeined to, fro without beginning. For their is no Door (doer) but he.

and

[…] and all his pains and passions bodily and ghostly, and the pains of all his creatures ghostly and bodily. and we shall be troubled following our master Jesu, till we are purged of our deadly flesh, and all our inward affectations, which be not very good. And the holding of this with all the pains that ever were, or ever shall be. And with all this I understood the passion of Christ, for the most pain and over passing.

I think we can see in even these short excerpts, one of the best explanations of why sometimes we seem to get crosswise with the Lord. It’s simply that we are not privy to all the information that He has. And so we come back to, “We see through a glass but darkly”. To be honest, in my experience, knowing this doesn’t necessarily ease the pain of something we desperately want but, it may at least help us to understand why the Father sometimes says , “No”.

And yes, Julian of Norwich’s book is fascinating, as is her story, there’s a link to where it can be downloaded here.

Men and Church

19 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by in Consequences, Faith, Lutheranism

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whoI am a great fan of Chalcedon’s idea of AATW as a kind of lay apostolate but, in truth, in many ways, it always has been. This has always been a place where people, but especially strong willed men have felt free to discuss Christianity. And if you read through our archives, you’ll find that it is different than what you’ll find in church.

Servus Fidelis in one of his very apt comments (here) said:

Catholics, just don’t do Protestantism very well, and though we now have multitudes of clubs and activities for the laymen to get involved, clearly a small number are interested in the least at joining. Those who do try to join everything. They are a small core of folk that develop and are top-heavy in the over 50 crowd. Hard to get the young ones to join anything voluntarily and even more unusual that they are truly enthusiastic.

I would add that most of us Protestants don’t do Protestantism very well either, we have all the same problems. Why is that? I think there are several reasons.

Someplace I read that Jesus preached to women and children but, he tested men. Men are competitive creatures, we are quite willing to fight for our beliefs, even as Jacob wrestled with God himself. I suspect many of the older guys here relate quite well to that phrase, I surely do. We like to win, or at worst lose honorably. We do it here, forcefully, and yet without rancor. Usually we find that we mostly believe the same thing in different words, anyway.

But, something else I’ve noticed about almost all of us is that we are not all that enthused with our church’s physical worship experience. I am certainly amongst them. Frankly, I find little in my worship service that brings me in, other than certain things, like the Eucharist, that are necessary to my faith. But even this, I find in a degraded state, in the last few years.

Could it be that over the centuries, our churches have become the province of women, yes, some of our denominations restrict the ministry to men but, behind the scenes almost all is done by women, and the church has become a reflection of that. Sort of a softer, gentler Christianity. In an article on Church for Men it said

Every Sunday, without even realizing it, we send subtle signals to guys: you are in feminine territory.

The signals start in Sunday school. Think of the pictures of Jesus you saw as a child. Didn’t they suggest a tender, sweet man in a shining white dress? As our boys grow up, whom will they choose as a role model: gentle Jesus, meek and mild, or Arnold Schwarzenegger, the action hero? The irony here is that the real Jesus is the ultimate hero, bold and courageous as any man alive, but we’ve turned him into a wimp.

There are signals in the sanctuary. Let’s say a common working stiff named Nick visits your church. What’s the first thing Nick sees? Fresh flowers on the altar. Soft, cushiony pews with boxes of Kleenex underneath. Neutral carpet abutting lavender walls, adorned with quilted banners (or worse: Thomas Kinkade paintings). Honestly, how do we expect Nick to connect with God in a space that feels so feminine?

Nick looks around at the men. Some are obviously there against their will, dragged by a wife or mother. Others are softies. Research finds that men who are interested in Christianity are less masculine than average; seminarians also exhibit more feminine characteristics than the typical male. Even the vocabulary of churchgoing men is softer. Christian men use terms such as precious, share, and relationship, words you’d never hear on the lips of a typical man.

and

The signals keep coming during the service. Nick may be asked to hold hands with his neighbor. He may be asked to sing a love song to Christ, such as, “Lord, You’re Beautiful,” or “Jesus, I am so in love with You.” Someone may weep. Then Nick will have his male attention span put to the test by a monologue sermon. When this torture test is finally over, Nick is invited to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

Let’s spend a moment on that last one: a personal relationship with Jesus. That phrase never appears in the Bible. Yet in the past 50 years it’s become the number one way the evangelical church describes the Christian walk. It’s turned the gospel into a puzzle for men, because most guys don’t think in terms of relationships. Let’s say Lenny approaches Nick and says, “Nick, would you like to have a personal relationship with me?” Yuck! Men don’t talk or think like this, yet we’ve wrapped the gospel in this man-repellent package.

I think most of us guys see Jesus more as a guy who we would like to sit down and have a whisky and a cigar (or a beer) with and figure it out. Because, He was a real man, and one heck of a leader, who has many lessons to teach us. Anybody who thinks St. Peter thought about singing “Shine, Jesus, Shine” is simply delusional, although I can see him chiming in on a chorus of “Onward, Christian Soldiers”. Can’t you?

Somebody said that church is for ‘little old ladies, of both genders”. But that drives away the forceful men, as well as the young ones. That doesn’t leave much for us does it?

I suspect we’ll continue this discussion after the holidays.

What then does Dr Pusey mean?

31 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Anglicanism, Catholic Tradition, Faith, Islam, Pusey

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bread-and-cup

Servus Fidelis has asked a question posed by many of Pusey’s contemporaries – what does he mean by ‘Real Presence’? Our difficulty is that Pusey’s method is more common in Orthodox theology, where the apophatic method tends to prevail; there, rather than define God by what He is, the mode is to define Him by what He is not. For Pusey, Jesus was really, but not carnally, present in the bread and the wine once they were consecrated:

I believe the consecrated elements tp become, by virtue of His Consecrating words, truly and really, yet spiritually, and in an ineffable way, His Body and Blood.

There was, he insisted:

no physical union of the Body and Blood of Christ with the bread and wine. Yet where the consecrated bread is, there, sacramentally, is the Body of Christ; where the consecrated wine is, there sacramentally, is the Blood of Christ.

Christ was present, really and truly, but not in any way the sense could apprehend – or comprehend. Transubstantiation, consubstantiation were all, to him, the results of ‘carnal, sensual thoughts’, and the desire of sinful man to ‘understand the mysteries of God’. This was not possible. Transubstantiation was, for him, a presumptuous attempt to penetrate the mysteries of God, but it was better by far than the Protestant insistence on it not being a Sacrament; there was, for Pusey, no change in the elements, but Christ was there – truly and really, although the ‘how’ was a deep mystery which, to him, required naught but humble acceptance:

He who is God and Man, is with us as God only, except that in some way known to Himself, He, while abiding in Heaven in His natural mode of being, causes His body sacramentally to be with us.

Pusey took literally Our Lord’s words: “This is My Body … This is My Blood”. “Reverence for the word of God’, he wrote, ‘requires that we should should not tamper with its apparent meaning in any preconceived notions of our own.’ Well aware that at times Our Lord talked in metaphor – He was not, obviously literally a door – Pusey cited the number of instances in the New Testament where the Lord insisted on the literal meaning of the words, and where St Paul did the same. The Patristic evidence supported this claim.

Pusey’s real problem was that his own claims were inconsistent with any plain reading of the Anglican XXXIX Articles, but here he simply chose to reinterpret them to suit his beliefs. Pusey could not bring himself to convert, and, having proved to his own satisfaction that the Anglican Church was catholic, he saw no need to. Not all of us have been able to do that, so, however much we admire Pusey, not all of us have been able to follow his path – even if we have followed his beliefs and found they led elsewhere.