Ist, ist, ist! (My heart is in Rome but my feet are in Erie)

Many denominational tensions stem directly from the role tradition continues to play in doctrine and worship.

The Good News was for nearly 2,000 years an audible experience. For much of that, the church was the center of town, geographically and socially. You could see and hear it from miles away. You started life being baptized at the altar and ended it being buried in the churchyard. Of the few printed bibles available, the one in your church was probably chained to the dais. The lectionary, stained glass windows, and hymns connected you to others and to the faith.

Since we like to discard constraints that protect us, then go looking for them again when we realize how important they actually were, we might someday see something like the village parish again, after a devastating natural disaster, perhaps; an asteroid, say, or plague. And if it isn’t a church, it’ll function just like one, and people will go there to find hope and to cry and die.

The earliest churches read the Gospels, Epistles, and Apostolic Fathers aloud, like we might read letters from missionaries today. That’s becoming less common, but I recall as a child, before the Internet and photocopiers, hearing missionary letters read from the pulpit, so I know what that sounds like and can imagine one of those letters being from Paul or Clement or Ignatius.

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Sola Scriptura

Any doctrinal role of tradition is obviously incompatible with sola scriptura, one of Luther’s three solas and pillars of the Reformation still observed by most Protestants, though most Protestants probably don’t know what they are. (Learn more >)

But even Luther didn’t suggest that Church tradition was irrelevant. Quite the opposite:

“It is dangerous and terrible to hear or believe anything against the unanimous testimony of the entire holy Christian Church as held from the beginning for now over fifteen hundred years in all the world.” (Source >)

Luther also believed in the Real Presence, saying (apparently in exasperation), when questioned if he believed that the Host really truly was Jesus, "Ist, ist, ist!" (It is, it is, it is!). Lutherans use the term Sacramental Union and say Jesus is "in, with, and under" the Host, and though they treat the bread and wine as really Jesus, they don't believe the elements are converted, but rather coincide (I *think*; the issue is complicated by the fact that Lutherans themselves disagree on these matters and, indeed, you can see very different treatments of the elements among congregations).

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Real Presence

You can tell how sincerely Real Presence is believed by how the elements are treated after the words of institution (which in all mainstream Christian traditions are variations on Paul’s account, "Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me," etc.)

Catholic priests will consume leftover bread and wine or put it away in a tabernacle. Some is reserved for the homebound and hospitalized. Some churches preserve a wafer for what’s called Eucharistic adoration. (A place for you to pray or meditate in the presence of the uncovered Host.).

Lutherans will also consume leftovers (I saw my minister smile broadly one Sunday when he drank an obviously large amount), or discard it in a sacristy, which goes straight into the earth and isn't connected to church plumbing. Catholics also have a sacristy, but Lutheran’s have no tabernacle. And some is reserved for the homebound and hospitalized. As far as I know, Lutherans don’t practice Eucharistic adoration.

Baptists put leftovers back in the fridge or cupboard for later use.

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Either the elements are really Jesus or they’re really not.

As I’ve said elsewhere, Baptists and Catholics are much alike (extremes often are), even when they differ.

How so in this instance?

Either the elements are really Jesus or they’re really not. And both Catholics and Baptists comport themselves accordingly. It’s the in-between I don’t understand.

And FWIW, Catholics would agree with Baptists that Jesus isn’t in their communion service in the same way he’s in theirs, because Baptist ministers aren’t ordained by a bishop in apostolic succession.

And Baptists, for their part (if they were compelled to use the term), would regard apostolic succession as doctrinal continuity guided by the Holy Spirit and the Bible.

I like both ideas.

I'm currently ELCA Lutheran, but my heart is in Rome and my feet are in Erie, PA, in a little GARB church called Bethel Baptist, where I grew up and learned to love the Lord. It's hard to explain, but I am at home in all three, and I think that is because Jesus is in all three.

Imagine that.

[2016.08.03]

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