We are traveling this weekend and so visited a church that has weeknight services. Live by the cliche, die by the cliche. There was nothing wrong with it, really. Nothing much to be wrong about. They said "represents" for both body and blood at communion, so I guess that's wrong. I'm not sure even that is wrong, however - just a huge undersell. There was a symbolic moment during the closing music. On a huge screen behind the band, there was a projection of drone footage over an evergreen forest Off in the distance you could see a frozen lake that we were flying toward. It looked interesting and I wanted to have a look at it, to see if there were towns or camps of bobhouses there. After a couple of minutes it occurred to me that we weren't any closer. I looked at the nearer, moving footage and saw that it was on repeat, spliced and overlaying a still photo of the horizon. I nodded resignedly. I wanted to see the lake.
4 comments:
"represents" um... Put words in Jesus mouth, did they?
It would be strictly wrong at a Catholic service, but my understanding is that it’s technically correct from the perspective of many Protestant denominations.
Zwingli may have had it right verbally, but as Melanchthon pointed out, it's really not that simple. It depends upon how one views the relationship between symbols of holy things, on the one hand, and the holy things themselves on the other. It depends upon how you understand sacrament.
As a Lutheran/Methodist I can see why AVI winced. It would be nice to have fuller context but I think 'represents' would be considered strictly correct in only some Protestant denominations, the biggest being various flavors of Baptists, but many others as well as the Orthodox agree with Catholics the consecrated elements contain the Real Presence. They may disagree with the doctrine of transubstantiation, and often with each other, but they also disagree the bread and wine are just representations for the purpose of remembrance.
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