Why this is here
Craigery just sent me a two-paged single-spaced e-mail concerning the discussion today which I responded with two single-spaced pages. I felt like the discussion should not be limited to us so without the consent of Craig, King Tom, or anyone I else, I made a blog of the Duke Socratic Club. I hope I am not summarily executed.
posted by Unknown at 7:33 PM
1 Comments:
In discussions with Wilson and Derek, who both advocate similar concerns about the Eucharist, it seems there are a few questions that stand out as indicators of the way one views the meaning and role of the Eucharist within this thing TJ calls "church."
1. Is the Eucharist a thanksgiving or a dirge? Do we understand it simply as a Maundy Thursday meal - a Last Supper - that included just 12 disciples, or is the Eucharist a Thanksgiving - the Lord's Supper - that evokes the celebratory meals with which Jesus announced the New Kingdom (here I cite NT Wright's line in Victory of God)?
2. Should the table be "fenced" (Derek's phrase), radically open (Wilson's phrase), or closed in some other way? "Fenced" describes the Methodist/Anglican definition which I roughly describe as open to all the baptized who approach the table in faith and true repentance. "Radically open" describes something I have never seen, but I understands sees that table as open to all who breathe. An example of a closed communion might be one that Derek described, which inherits all of the properties of the "fenced" definition, but moves the fences closer in, such as when the Eucharist is accessible only to those in the local assembly to which one have made a substantive commitment of time, talents, money, watchcare, heart, etc.
3. Is there anything concrete in the connection between local assemblies of disciples (extra-local, as Derek calls them) that we can recognize as "church" that argues against closing communion to the local assembly of covenanted believers? Or is the idea that the church is bigger than the local assembly absurd and heretical because it lacks materiality/reality/is too much of an abstraction?
4. Should the Eucharist be associated with discipline in any way? I note that the Methodist and Anglicans both have a discipline rubric (perhaps rarely used) that envisions the priest/elder denying participation to the non-repentent, notoriously evil, etc.
I am sure there is more that can be added and what I have written may require amendment, but I will leave that for others.
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