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Today in church we sang a hymn that said "As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." That is really apropos of nothing, except for the fact that it was really cool. I may have been going somewhere with that, but I'm not sure now so we'll move on.
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A while ago I attended a training seminar for my summer job and they constantly emphasized that they do what they do because they "love the church." While I support their foundation of love for the church (because I do love the church) it started me thinking about what it means to really be the church. This is an issue I've been wrestling with for a while. I think I started to think about this during my time at Houghton and then it really started to take off since I started going to St. Athanasius. I know that many of my Orthodox friends will have ready answers for these questions as their tradition has a well developed ecclesiology, but I'm sure I'm not the only protestant who lays awake at night and thinks these thoughts (don't laugh because I really do lay awake and think stuff like this).
So here are some of the thoughts I jotted down while in my seminar.
- Is the church primarily institutional?
- If the church is institutional is that institution contingent on a constant line of Apostolic Authority (i.e. The apostle Peter lays hands on Jim, who lays hand on Bob, who lays hands on Jeffy, etc.) or is it primarily tied to the apostolic tradition and teaching?
- How big of a role to authority play into where the church is? If Apostolic succession and authority are necessary for one to be in the church then are all of us in the west outside of the church because of the rebellious act of inserting the Filioque ('and the Son') clause into the Nicene Creed?
- To be part of the visible church does one need to celebrate the sacraments? If so then are we forced to eliminate the Salvation Army and other non-sacramental groups from "church" status?
- Does one need to affirm all 7 ecumenical councils to be part of the church? If so what about the groups that are ignorant of the councils or don't accept one or more of them, but are still orthodox in their teaching?
- Is the church primarily visible or invisible? If it is invisible then what is the point of visible sign acts like the Eucharist and baptism?
- Does one need to be baptized in order to be accepted into the church? (Necessary for salvation? - Talk amongst yourselves).
- If we assert that celebrating the sacraments are a necessary action for the visible church (and I think they are) does authority then also become essential? (cf. St. Ignatius of Antioch [ca. 150AD] - "Do nothing without the Bishop")
- If the sacraments are given to the visible church can they be celebrated and acted outside of the church? (i.e. can they be separated from the Liturgical and Authoritative acts of the Church proper?)
- What doctrines are essential for one to be the church? Is Trinity (I think yes)? What view on predestination or other disputed theological matters?
- If correct doctrine is essential then is correct action essential? Can action and doctrine (orthopraxy and orthodoxy) even be separated? (I doubt they really can.)
One may ask how we can truly love the church if we have so many "if" statements. I content that even if we're not sure (as I'm still working through this) we can still love the church by loving the people of God, or rather, loving those who call upon God in Trinity and profess to be the "church."
So there are some thoughts on the church. I hope this doesn't cause anyone to have an ecclesiological crisis but these are some things to think on for sure. I'm sure we could even add more to the list, but we'll let that simmer for a while.
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Laying aside my questioning I will not turn to some asserting. But first...a back-story.
When I went home for my Grandpa's funeral a few weeks back I was outside with my 10 yr. old cousin and we were talking away. He asked me if I was seriously going to be a Catholic priest like I had told him I was a day or two prior (I like to mess with him like that). I told him no, but asked him why he cared. Oh and I should note that he's a fairly smart 10 yr. old. He proceeded to tell me that all the problems with the Catholic church and how they didn't believe like "we" (i.e. protestants) believed and thus they probably weren't Christians.
Now, I don't want to pick on my little cousin, because he is after all only 10 and that's not really a fair fight (he'd probably own men). But I am fairly certain that these thoughts didn't originate within himself. In fact, to be honest, I had many of the same thoughts in myself before I went to Houghton.
I tried to tell him that Catholics really don't believe some of the things that he claimed, but the big question that came to my mind is why protestants have such a beef with Catholics. I'm sure they'd have beef with Orthodox too, if they actually knew what they were. As I thought about this I came to a few conclusions. I think that many of the protestants who rail against catholics have had very minimal interaction with catholics, catholic services, and catholic writings. I also think that protestants have unfairly characterized catholics. I believe this characterization stems from not knowing what they believe, but also from being intimidated by the authority structure that is in place within Catholicism. I am willing to contend (and to be fair I would need to do much more research) that much of the negative reaction to Catholics by protestants is not really concerning beliefs (because most protestants don't really know what Catholics believe) but because they don't understand authority and have been taught that to have any priest other than oneself is of the devil.
I say this because one of the most common critiques of Catholicism that I hear is against confession. I am absolutely befuddled by the number of protestants who will go to their small group meetings and share that they are struggling with "sin A, B or C" and ask for prayer to help them, and then turn around and condemn Catholics for seeing a priest and confessing to him. What an absurd hypocrisy.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that much of protestantism has a sever problem with submitting to authority. It's sort of appropriate considering we still define ourselves as "protest-ant" (i.e. one's who are protesting against something - namely authority). Yes, authority can be taken too far. Yes, there have been some bad Popes, Bishops, and Priests. But there have also been some very godly and saintly Popes, Bishops, and Priests. In fact, one of the most saintly men that I have ever had the chance to meet was Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa. Fr. Cantalamessa visited Asbury in the fall and is the preacher to the Papal Household. Yes, that means he preaches to the Pope. Granted my interaction was limited, but I could tell from my limited interaction that this was a Saintly man who loved and served the Lord with great zeal. It was my delight to receive a blessing from him before he left.
So all that to say that I hope my cousin and most of protestantism will come around and appreciate the good that Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) has to offer. I think that this move has begun, but let us hope that it continues as good dialogue with Christian traditions and doesn't move into dialogue with non-Christian religions such as Mormonism and Jehovah Witnesses.
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Book Review:
I finished St. Cyril of Jerusalem's Lectures on the Christian Sacraments a few weeks ago and it was great. The lectures are relatively short and one could easily read them all in one setting. Cyril writes his lectures around 348AD and so these lectures are a great insight into early sacramental thought. Cyril writes on beginning Catechism, The Eucharist, Baptism, and Holy Unction (not in that order).
There were so many good things allow me to just quote a few passages:
Speaking to catechumens concerning preparation for Baptism:
And what Solomon spoke of others will suit you also; for he said, There is a time to bear and a time to die; but to you, on the contrary, the time to die is also the time to be born; and one and the same season brings about both of these, and your birth went hand in hand with your death.
O strange and inconceivable thing! We did not really die, we were not really buried, we were not really crucified and raised again, but our imitation was but in a figure, while our salvation is in reality.
Concerning the Eucharist:
Since then He Himself has declared and said of the Bread, 'This is My Body,' who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has affirmed and said, 'This is My Blood,' who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His blood?
He once turned water into wine, in Cana of Galilee, at His own will, and is it incredible that He should have turned wine into blood?...
Therefore with fullest assurance let us partake as of the Body and the Blood of Christ: for in the figure of Bread is given to thee His Body, and in the figure of Win His Blood; that thou by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, mightest be made of the same body and the same blood with Him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us, because His Body and Blood are diffused through our members, thus it is that, according to the blessed Peter, 'we become partakers of the divine nature.'...
Contemplate therefore the Bread and Wine not as bare elements, for they are, according to the Lord's declaration, the Body and the Blood of Christ; for though sense suggests this to thee, let faith stablish thee. Judge not the matter from taste, but from faith be fully assured without misgiving, that though has been vouchsafed the Body and Blood of Christ.
I'm not sure what else to say concerning the book, except that it is a good read and sheds some very good light on early liturgical practice and belief in the early church in Jerusalem.
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St. Cyril serves as a nice transition into the next (and likely the last) topic: the Eucharist.
Since my senior and maybe junior year at Houghton I have been rethinking and reforming my sacramentology. Much of this formation has occurred in my view of the Eucharist since it is one of the most important things the church does. Since Houghton my view of the Eucharist moved from a strictly Zwinglian/memorialist view of Communion that holds that it is just a time where I remember Christ, to a more Lutheran/Methodist view of 'real presence' meaning that God is truly present in Spirit and imparts some sort of grace during the act.
I have continued to think on this over the past year and have pursued the issue in my research into early Church history. Although I am not sure if I am 100% committed, I do believe that I am leaning toward a sacramentology that posits not only real presence, but also real Body and real Blood. You may be asking why I believe I am coming to this conclusion. Here are a few reasons:
- As Luther wrote on the table when arguing with Zwingly: "hoc est corpus meum" or "It is my body." Jesus Christ said in the Gospel accounts that it was his body. While this could be metaphoric it seems to me that the evidence points that it is not.
- The evidence in the earlier sources suggests a very high eucharistic view and probably that of literal body and blood. We saw above that this view is fully articulated in St. Cyril in 348AD, but I believe we can see traces of this in St. Ignatius, and other second century saints.
- There is no biblical argument against it.
- There is no reason why we should not accept it. A paradigm that rejects the transformation of bread and wine into body and blood is likely entrenched in modernism and in the enlightenment emphasis on the scientific method. This worldview leaves no room for miracles and thus one might as well reject the resurrection if one rejects the miracle that is the transformation of the elements in the Eucharist.
- The emphasis in the earliest liturgies is that the Holy Spirit is the agent of change within the elements. This places the emphasis off of humans and back onto the gracious action of God for his people.
- Receiving grace in the eucharist is not juridical grace (i.e. salvific) but rather the grace of God's presence. A view that posits all grace as juridical is highly Anselmic and is not founded in the biblical worldview of grace.
- Even though it doesn't taste like it, as St. Cyril says, we must believe in faith. To help address this 'problem' one of my Orthodox friends says that it is more of a revealing than a changing. That is: Is it still bread - Yes. Is it still Wine - Yes. Is it real body - Yes. Is it real blood - Yes. It seems that this view posits that it is body and bread, and blood and wine all at the same time.
The reasons given above are why I am very close to believing that it is literal body and literal blood. I say 'very close' because it is a big move to change a whole paradigm and changing my mind to this is quite a task.
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Today was Pentecost Sunday. How many of your churches celebrated that instead of memorial day? Probably not many. That makes me sad. Just FYI.
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Well I think that is it. I can't think of anything else to write. I am leaving for Minnesota tomorrow to work for Youthworks for the summer. I will be living in Duluth, Minnesota and will return back to KY on August 17th. I will try to blog throughout the summer, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have. If you need to get a hold of me just call my cell (if you have it) or post a comment and I'll get it when I check my email.
Concerning the reading list: Kung, Dostoyevsky, JND Kelly, and Witherington aren't going to make the flight because the first three are too big and the last one is low on the priority list. Maybe I'll get at these during the time between the end of youthworks and the beginning of school.
Blessings to you all in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!,
Ben
