Attended today a worship service of a church today and was struck by what I will call it's American individualist Zwinglian Christianity. They probably don't think that much about what they are actually saying, though the Pastor and leadership of the movement the church is part of might.
What brings me to describe the church in this way is first that the worship songs said nothing about Jesus in any specificity, the name of the Trinity was never said, not even in the form that tries not to use father (but I am certain that such issues are not important to this church.) Then there was a celebration of "communion". A table with bread and grape juice was brought to the front, and a passage from Izaiah was read by the pastor, and we were encouraged to remeber that Jesus had died for our sins, then we were invited forward to take little waffers and little cups of grape juice. Then we all returned to our seats holding the waffer's and grape juice. The pastor than prayed a prayer sort of thanking Jesus for taking our sins or something like that. Then we were told to eat the bread the symbolizes Jesus's body and thento drink the juice that symbolized Jesus' blood. We were not enjoined to see that Jesus was present to us in any way, let alone in bread and wine. We simply were to reflect on what Jesus did for us individualy. I was actually relieved, as I realized what this church was doing really had little or anything to do with what I believe about Christianity and the church. There is no ecclessial or sacramental pretense with actually Zwinglian disdain for the mysteries. There were no mysteries, just some individual communion with God based on Jesus' death 2000 years ago. Odd though, that they even practice communion since it is a pretty pittiful and empty ritual. The pastor preached a nearly unintelegable sermon (to me at least), and then we were dismised with "Have a great week." Jesus was mentioned three times, the Trinity was never invoked, God was called most frequently "Lord", and once as "Creator". Oh, and the "Name" of God was praised in almost every song sung but that the name would be "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit", or "Jesus Christ" seemed not to have been a connection that was made. I recognized only remenants of the faith I have and known my whole life.
I wonder if this is a future of American Protestantism, more an American individualistic Gnostic and iconoclastic belief system than anything recognizable as orthodox Christianity. Though, they would still claim to be trinitarian and believe in the incarnation, though their worship denies both.
But I was impressed by the honesty though it was shocking that the only symbol in the worship space was an American flag. (though it is a rented space so the flag may have just been already there, though I think it was intentionally left in the space if it was already there.)
Well, we have a long drive home, tomorrow from North Carolina, I will post again on Tuesday, and check out the comments on my Historicity and Continuity post, when I am back in Chicago.
Your very funny.
ReplyDeleteBut then my post should answer the question really. or simply reading my sermon the past few times I preached.
So what's behind the joke?
Actually, I got the part about pulling my leg over our interactions, and that it was alos probably a joke on yourself.
ReplyDeleteSo, I wasn't asking you to explain the joke but i felt there was something else behind it
Which I think you answered when you said that the Zwinglian way of celebrating communion does not seem antithetical to you.
But you began to bring the ecumenical view: There are of course a variety of ways to view ecumenism, one would be that all views that claim to be Christian are so because of the claim and we have no way of arbitrating between competing claims so we try to make sure we all get along. Or similarly if there is a claim to be church in someway and Christian and willing to work with other Christians then we accept those claims and seek to work together. Hopefully you realize being at Reconciler that this is not where I am at nor where Reconciler is coming from. Rather there is a type of ecumenism that seeks to recognize that something is broken that division and the multiplicity of, often contradictory voices, not only weakens the witness of the Gospel but shows that there needs to be some form of return, so we engage in dialogue to be mutually renewed in the faith that was once delivered to the Saints. From this POV at least then the claims that Christian worship form us and show us what we believe then the long consistent practices and orientations of orthodox christians has logical priority over a veiw of worship that emerged 500 years ago at best. Thus just as I think you would agree that Jehovas Witness' and Latter Day Saints while welcome would not be considered part of the ecumenical vision of Reconciler, so I am arguing here that in it's overall worship practices the above church failed to affirm the faith once delivered to the saints, in it failure to name God as Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit, in its failure to emphasize the works of God in history beyond the individualized ways God was supposedly working in their lives and finally and this reinforces and is reinforce by the others, Jesus' death and resurection is reduced to what God did for me, missing entirely the cosmic significance that transcends and makes possible any personal appropriation of what God did in Jesus death and resurection. Given all this while I wouldn't put them in the camp of JW's or Latter Day Saints, it does push them beyond the reach of my understanding of ecumenism since it is clear they are unconcerned that what they do conforms to the faith they profess, since I think If I pushed them they woudl say yes I believe Jesus is God, and that they believe in the Trinity, and even that in some sense Jesus' death has cosmic significance and even maybe that they want the presence of Jesus in their worship. But their worship in fact is antithetical to all those things.
Now I said more than you probably intended to invoke from me.
BTW as far as posting their are three options blogger, other and anonymous. If you chose anonymous as I have done here you do not need to sign into blogger, only need to type the code provided. I have done this because I had been getting insane amounts of spam.
PS. that was me, Larry, which you probably know but I wanted to say that you could also post as yourself as "other" putting in your name and blog or webpage (which is optional actually) and put in the code.
ReplyDeleteNow if you try to log in to blogger as I am now doing you will only be able to log in if you have a blogger account. Also, I have noticed that sometimes you will put in the code and it will not post the comment and give you another code to type. If you type the new code you will then be able to post the comment. I am not sure why there is this quirk at times.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry for the inconvenience.
Oh, and the sermon you are looking for, though it is not what you think it is, is yes on Reconciler's blog and is here
ReplyDeleteI was, of course, joking that I had writen it explcitly for your friend, and I think one would judge the sermon as not all that practical at least not by the definition we were talking about "practical" in our conversation at the party.