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Consider this a sneak preview of my inevitable longer review of Lyndal Roper's excellent Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet (which I already extenstively shitposted about on Tumblr), prompted by this interesting post about "wait WHY do so many churches use those bland wafers instead of actual bread for communion" (spoilers: the poster thinks they are Theologically Incorrect lol).
OKAY, SO. When I first dropped in on an Episcopal church service this past summer (the shit I do for fanfiction research...), I thought it was basically like any other Protestant church but with a fancier choir, right?
That is NOT THE CASE. Their order of service is very Ornamental™ and Ritualistic™ and Catholic-ish™—lots of standing and sitting and kneelin', lots of people doin' the sign of the cross over themselves, lots of relic-lookin' things getting toted about, the works.
Luckily for my rasied-southern-baptist-wtf-is-going-on-here ass, they gave me a little program that explained everything, and when it came time for communion, this bit from the program stood out to me:
"If you do not wish to drink from the common cup, please cross your arms in front of your chest as you pass by the chalice. The full grace of the sacrament is received with only the bread."
I thought to myself, "oh, that's nice, a little nod to recovering alcoholics." Like, it would suck if you were quite religious and were forced to choose between "receiving the full grace of the sacrament" and "violating the No Alcohol thing I'm desperately clinging to," right! Good thing the bread alone confers the full blessings and all that.
And, well, that probably is still nice if you're a recovering alcoholic, but the actual origin of that bit of doctrine has nothing to do with AA-sensitivity and everything to do with the very earliest battles of the Protestant Reformation.
( Read more... )
OKAY, SO. When I first dropped in on an Episcopal church service this past summer (the shit I do for fanfiction research...), I thought it was basically like any other Protestant church but with a fancier choir, right?
That is NOT THE CASE. Their order of service is very Ornamental™ and Ritualistic™ and Catholic-ish™—lots of standing and sitting and kneelin', lots of people doin' the sign of the cross over themselves, lots of relic-lookin' things getting toted about, the works.
Luckily for my rasied-southern-baptist-wtf-is-going-on-here ass, they gave me a little program that explained everything, and when it came time for communion, this bit from the program stood out to me:
"If you do not wish to drink from the common cup, please cross your arms in front of your chest as you pass by the chalice. The full grace of the sacrament is received with only the bread."
I thought to myself, "oh, that's nice, a little nod to recovering alcoholics." Like, it would suck if you were quite religious and were forced to choose between "receiving the full grace of the sacrament" and "violating the No Alcohol thing I'm desperately clinging to," right! Good thing the bread alone confers the full blessings and all that.
And, well, that probably is still nice if you're a recovering alcoholic, but the actual origin of that bit of doctrine has nothing to do with AA-sensitivity and everything to do with the very earliest battles of the Protestant Reformation.
( Read more... )
