I’m part of a church community that takes communion (that’s the Eucharist for all you Anglo-Catholics) on the first Sunday of every month. As I understand it, this is pretty common practice in American evangelical churches. Even though I love many other things about my church, most of them being the people, I wish it were different.
I think I understand, from a historical perspective, why the focus of “low-church” services shifted (starting about the time of the Second Great Awakening) from the Eucharist to preaching the Word: Saving souls was the goal, and everyone agreed that couldn’t happen through a sip of wine and a nibble of bread.
At the same time, there was a growing emphasis on individual, rather than communal, discipleship; every person was recognized to be individually accountable before God—you couldn’t be grandfathered in, so to speak. The practice of communion began to reflect this new understanding. Rather than sharing a common cup and loaf (as in intinction), some churches began to parcel out the communion elements into individual servings. Communion meditations and homilies also changed. Instead of emphasizing the shared Life of Christ present in or symbolized by the bread and wine, pastors challenged their parishioners to personal spiritual reflection—each person needed to “get right with God” before taking communion.
[This short lesson in history brought to you by Charles Finney: New Divinity at Its Finney-ist.]
I get why these shifts took place—in large measure, they were a needed corrective to a lifeless, cultural Christianity that was more about paying social dues than about spiritual renewal—but I think that something vital to the life of the Church got lost in the process. Whether or not one believes that the body and blood of Christ is, in some essential way, present in the Eucharist, I think believers can all agree that he is present in the collective Body of Christ, the Church. Taking the bread and wine—together—should be a celebration of that Presence.
And we should celebrate more often! I’d like to suggest that the guys (they were almost all guys) who thought that saving souls couldn’t happen through a sip of wine and a nibble of bread got it wrong. Any time we recognize and celebrate the Presence of God among us, salvation leaks out all over—it’s one thing to hear a preacher talk about the Life of Christ, and quite another to experience that Life lighting up the whole place.
Filed under: church, theology Tagged: | communion, consubstantiation, Eucharist, Second Great Awakening, transubstantiation
Agree.
To Catholics, consuming the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is the most spiritually renewing thing we can do as Christians. The whole Mass is set up to revolve around our partaking in the Eucharist so that we can reflect and meditate on our own spirituality as well as confess our sins and worship Almighty God. Catholicism is in no way shape or form a cultural and lifeless Christianity, it is just the opposite.
see:
http://pauliscatholic.com/2009/07/episode-8-paul-on-eucharistic-sacrifice-and-transubstantion/
http://shmuelson.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/proclaiming-the-l-rds-death/
In the peace of God’s Messiah,
Steven
Hi, Steve! Thanks for stopping by. I did not at all mean to imply (and I don’t think I did, actually) that Catholicism is a cultural and lifeless Christianity. I’m a big, big fan of Catholicism—I mean, even we Christians who are not practicing Catholics today share in the spiritual heritage of the RCC, and it’s a heritage to cherish and (mostly) be proud of.
The Great Awakenings, so far as I understand, had very little to do with Catholicism; the dominant forms of Christianity at that time in U.S. history were a quasi-deist mainline Protestantism at the top of the social ladder and a hodge-podge of Puritan/Anabaptist leftovers for everyone else. (Of course, there were some Catholics, too, but Catholicism didn’t really gain a substantial foothold until the tidal wave of lower-class European immigrants in the mid-1800s.)
The point I was trying (perhaps unsuccessfully) to make is that, at the time, there was widespread spiritual malaise and indifference, and the Great Awakenings were a needed shot of adrenaline to the spiritual lives of many Americans.
I would LOVE to see the evangelical church, of which I am a part (somewhat by default), return to a celebration of the Eucharist similar to that of the Anglo-Catholic church. (I believe I implied as much in this post.) When we share the body and blood of Christ, we not only share in his Life, present in the bread and wine; we also celebrate the ongoing Incarnation present in the living Body, the Church. That, as you said, is one of the most (if not THE most) spiritually renewing things we can do as Christians.
Ah, I see