An Awesome and Unbloody Sacrifice

This blog post takes its name from Chapter Two of The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, which my Bible study is reading and discussing this summer. Primarily the reason I am writing this post is because I will be out of town and will not get to discuss this remarkable chapter with the guys in my Bible study. It also gives me an opportunity to reflect on my latest theological struggles.

What is sound thinking? How do we learn it? Modern thought places emphasis on skepticism--if I can't prove it, I can't accept it. Yet even the most extreme skeptics will admit that we all develop most of our common beliefs based on experience. Not just individual experience, but communal experience. If we cut ourselves off entirely from the community to live with only the knowledge we could come up with by our own skeptical methods, we would hardly get anywhere in life.

Early Christian thinkers developed their deepest thought in and through the communal life of the Church, particularly through its worship. Knowledge of God through Christ was experienced regularly, not just through preserving ideas handed down from the Apostles. On this point I think Wilken contributes something not just historical, but epistemological; that is, he tells us something about how we can know what we know about God.

At the same time that it gives inspiration for all of us Christians, Wilken's chapter challenges us Protestants on three major issues of Christian practice: the sacraments, the tradition of the Church, and the communion of saints. I'll talk a little bit about each of these in turn.

Sacraments

As the title of the chapter suggests, one of the central topics here is the Eucharistic sacrifice. Wilken describes it as a genuine re-presentation of Christ's once-and-for-all sacrifice. He explains that the word anamnesis, usually translated "remembrance," really means "recall by making present." (p. 34) Wilken is not presenting his own theological opinion on the matter; he is presenting the understanding of the early Church, for he quotes the Fathers from the early 2nd century onward.

There is some theological wrestling to be done here with our Protestant reaction to Catholicism on this point. Although we have historically rejected transubstantiation, the idea that the bread and the wine literally become the body and blood of Christ, yet many people do not even realize that Calvin and Luther had their own views of the Eucharist that did not constitute mere memorial. They, too, accepted some "mystery" to the sacrament.

In 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 we read, "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." This is not an often-quoted text in Protestant evangelical circles, but this is straight out of Scripture. Don't think it proves transubstantiation? Fine, I don't either. But don't tell me it says nothing mystical about the Lord's Supper. "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body"? Something supernatural is going on, or at least something we can't understand with our rational minds.

Additionally, note the significance this verse has to what it means to be the Church. We are one body because we eat the one bread. Many people argue that they would prefer not to take the Lord's Supper more than, say, once a month, simply because multiple repetition makes it less special. Do people who make such an argument take this text into account? If we understand taking communion together as actually making us one body, then how can we think it wise to take it less often simply because we want to preserve the specialness of it? I can't prove that communion ought to be taken every week, but I do know that many Protestants just seem to be unaware of what all is really at stake in the matter.

Moving onto baptism, I find that here Wilken makes a couple of statements that are rather shocking for their total lack of comment. The first is on page 37: "Baptism was a ritual for adults, not infants..." and the second is on page 40: "Early Christians did not sprinkle or pour, they immersed." Wilken is a Catholic, and as such he must have been pleased to be able to demonstrate the Catholic view of the Eucharist appearing in the early Church. However, on the point of baptism, he seems to have no problem with suggesting that the Catholic Church has clearly veered early Church practice, and moreover he simply has nothing to say about it in this book. That's a testament to his faithfulness to his purpose: he is writing a book about early Christian thought, not about arguing doctrines.

Nevertheless, the uncomfortable thing that all Protestants, both baby baptizers and Baptists, are faced with in this chapter is the core meaning of baptism for early Christians. Wilken is pretty clear that the waters actually meant something. It wasn't simply a sign to let people know that you had converted--though it was certainly that. It was a tangible part of God's grace, which allowed the believer to actually feel the washing of regeneration. Something happened in that baptism, which the early Church would not have rationalized away as "just a symbol." Anyone who came into contact with the waters of baptism came into contact with something transformed by the work of Jesus Christ, filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit, and thus became something holy (see pages 40-41).

We live in a remarkable time in Western Christianity, in which some Christians want to maintain a religion based mostly on truth (by which they mean nothing more than words) while others want to know God through experience. But the experience they pursue is most often through whatever new innovations they can dream up (such as you can see here). Here is a challenge for us Protestants: why not return to the Sacramental vision of the early Church, and embrace those very ancient and tangible parts of God's grace which help us to experience him?

Church Tradition

If there is one word that American evangelicalism can't stand, it's "tradition." And yet at the same time, there has been a growing number of evangelicals in the past several years showing interest in ancient Christians traditions. Why? I suppose it's because many of us are realizing how ridiculous it is that we spend so much time trying to think of new ways to worship God when the wisdom of hundreds of years of Christianity has preserved many traditions that can lead us in the way we ought to go.

When Wilken is discussing baptism, he mentions that new initiates into the Church had to memorize "the creed." At least as Presbyterians, we have heard of this. In many Presbyterian churches, it is not uncommon to hear the Apostle's Creed recited at every worship service. At our church, we recite it at every baptism. The early Church took the creed seriously enough to make all initiates memorize it.

In describing worship on p. 43, Wilken describes the formation of a lectionary of Scripture readings, and then a liturgical calendar year. This was meant to preserve the Christian story by telling it in its entirety through the year-round worship of the Church. But it wasn't just about the story, the ideas, the words. It was about actually experiencing the presence of Christ. "As Christian thinking was grounded in the events recorded in the Bible, res gestae, the things that had taken place, so it was nourished in worship by the res liturgicae, the things enacted in the liturgy." (p. 44)

Tradition was not for the sole purpose of preserving truths, but also for preserving the experience of Christ in the Church. One thing I so often feel I am missing in my Christian life is a sense of organic connection with Christ. Protestants are constantly stressing personal prayer life, personal devotions, personal Bible study. But what about the rhythms of corporate worship that the Church took time to construct those many centuries ago? Maybe we could give the ancients another look.

Communion of the Saints

One aspect of tradition that troubles most Protestants is the idea of actually being connected with those who have gone before, as well as with the supernatural angels in heaven. I admit I don't know what to make of it, myself. I'm a bit of a rationalist by habit; I don't really know how to embrace this kind of connection.

Yet on pages 45-48, Wilken explains quite emphatically that the Church believed that the Church was called to worship alongside both the angels in heaven and the departed saints. This idea is simply dead in all the Protestant churches, and it probably isn't coming back any time soon. That's one of the things that hit me as I was reading about it. We can wrangle over the meaning of communion, but all Christians have communion. The same is true for baptism, preaching, singing, prayer, and most other Christian practices. But praying with and on behalf of the departed saints, as well as with the angels in heaven, is simply gone from Protestantism, so much that you'd never know it ever existed in Christianity unless you learned about Catholicism and/or Eastern Orthodoxy.

Nevertheless I hesitate to make any sort of recommendation on the issue, since I feel I know very little about it.

Seeing Ourselves in the Early Church

Despite all the things that I have to wrestle through while reading about the practices that shaped early Christian thought, I still find I have a lot in common with them. As in the first chapter, Wilken emphasizes the extensive use of Scripture in early Christian thought. He emphasizes the importance of Christian preaching, and the way in which is presents Christ to the believer. And in spite of all of our current doctrinal confusions and disagreements in the modern era, communion and baptism are still very dear to all Christians and constitute a crucial part of our worship.

In terms of intellectual life, Wilken did a good job in this chapter of emphasizing how the practice of worship shaped early Christian thought. But there is also the other side of the coin, which is illustrated by many examples in his writing, namely that early Christian thought did shaped Christian worship. It was not good enough for Christians to simply follow the traditions; the Fathers also explained the traditions so that people could understand. And this is one tradition the Reformation picked up on, and we Reformed have always believed that this is crucial.

As we seek a way forward as Christians struggling with a multitude of complex issues in the 21st century, I'm fairly convinced we ought to pay attention to what shaped the thought of the early Church, which faced a world every bit as complicated and hard to understand as ours is today. I'm not convinced that early Christians were necessarily right about everything, but I do know that their voice is all too easily completely lost. Surely it counts for something that these Christians lived far closer to the time of the Apostles than we do. At the very least, let's look back on the best of early Christian thought and ask ourselves if there's anything we have badly missed.

A Bloody Sacrament

In the midst of all the recent debate on health care, I've realized that conceptually in our culture we have started to lean toward creating a new state religion. This religion has hospitals instead of churches, and doctors instead of priests.

The goal is not to inherit eternal life, but simply long, hopefully comfortable life; faithful obedience certainly has its rewards. Instead of a church treasury, we have insurance companies, and all are required to tithe regularly.

Doctors are entrusted with the salvation of our people. This is clear from the fact that no one asks for the price of health care before going to get it. If you thought you were going to the doctor just to receive goods and services, you'd want to know the price ahead of time.

No, it's not goods and services you go to your doctor to receive. You are not a customer. You are a sinner in need of baptism--you need to be made whole again. Your life is incomplete without it.

(I'm convinced this is why natural market mechanisms have failed to keep health care costs low. It is why every transaction between you and your doctor has to go through your insurance company, and for that reason costs are uncontrollable.)

(Ironically, actual religion has become more market-based, as evidenced by those obnoxious church billboards I see advertising such perks as "great worship, great fellowship." For some reason I see these mostly when I'm in Texas.)

Every Sunday I go forward to receive the Lord's supper at my church. It is "an awesome and unbloody sacrifice," a sacrament to make me whole again, to feed me with the life of Christ.

Someone once referred to abortion as a "bloody sacrament" of our culture. I can see why. Who is in greater need of being made whole than a woman who finds herself in the position of carrying in her womb a human being she cannot care for?

What I hadn't thought about was how the priests themselves, the administrators of this bloody sacrament, actually see what they're doing. A remarkable article on LifeSiteNews.com gave me a lot to contemplate.

The article reports on an abortionist who wants to take seriously the moral dilemmas that come with actually performing abortions, yet does not want to conclude that there should be any legal limits on abortion. In the end, both her stance on the issue and her tone become quite religious.

This excerpt caught me as particularly striking:

To answer the questions, Harris notes that the "violence" of abortion must be acknowledged, and relates a "bizarre" experience she once had of observing a premature baby struggling to survive immediately after dismembering an unborn child the same age:

The last patient I saw one day was 23 weeks pregnant. I performed an uncomplicated D&E procedure. Dutifully, I went through the task of reassembling the fetal parts in the metal tray. It is an odd ritual that abortion providers perform - required as a clinical safety measure to ensure that nothing is left behind in the uterus to cause a complication - but it also permits us in an odd way to pay respect to the fetus (feelings of awe are not uncommon when looking at miniature fingers and fingernails, heart, intestines, kidneys, adrenal glands), even as we simultaneously have complete disregard for it. Then I rushed upstairs to take overnight call on labour and delivery. The first patient that came in was prematurely delivering at 23-24 weeks. As her exact gestational age was in question, the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) team resuscitated the premature newborn and brought it to the NICU. Later, along with the distraught parents, I watched the neonate on the ventilator. I thought to myself how bizarre it was that I could have legally dismembered this fetus-now-newborn if it were inside its mother's uterus - but that the same kind of violence against it now would be illegal, and unspeakable.

Harris then goes on to explain that she rationalizes the bizarreness of the situation by the "location" of the baby, whether it is "inside or outside of the woman's body," and "most importantly, her [the mother's] hopes and wishes for that fetus/baby." However, she says, "this knowledge does not change the reality that there is always violence involved in a second trimester abortion, which becomes acutely apparent at certain moments, like this one. I must add, however, that I consider declining a woman's request for abortion also to be an act of unspeakable violence."

See with what reverence the abortionist treats the life she is destroying! It is like a priest handling the very body and blood of Our Lord, carefully consecrating it and feeding it to his congregation, who eat gratefully (sometimes ungratefully).

Does the priest ever wonder how he could possibly perform this act on the body of Christ? Jesus had to die on a cross for this. How can such unspeakable violence be justified for the sake of you who want eternal life? Do you sinners actually think your gratitude is enough to justify this?

But the priest knows that nevertheless his flock needs to be made whole again. He cannot withhold the body of Christ, for it is offered even to sinners.

In the same way, the abortionist reveres the aborted fetus--the awesome and bloody sacrifice--as a little Christ, one who has graciously lost his life to make his mother whole.

And this priest of this holy religion continues to preach the good news to all the nation: that enshrined in our Constitution is a bloody sacrament that can never be taken away. Once we were under the law, but now we are under "choice."

The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.

It is no small thing that an abortionist would be honest about what abortion is. But on the other hand, should Judas take the credit for the salvation of the world?

Hat tip: Thanks to Sarah and Krissy for this article.

Dualism

Yesterday I started writing about John Calvin's view of the sacraments with a view in mind to somehow view the natural world in a decidedly Christian way, emphasizing the importance of both the physical reality and the meaning or purpose of things.

As much as I love the passage I quoted yesterday, equally do I dislike the following passage (from the Institutes, Book IV, Chapter 14, Section 3):

From the definition which we have given, we perceive that there never is a sacrament without an antecedent promise, the sacrament being added as a kind of appendix, with the view of confirming and sealing the promise, and giving a better attestation, or rather, in a manner, confirming it. In this way God provides first for our ignorance and sluggishness and, secondly, for our infirmity; and yet, properly speaking, it does not so much confirm his word as establish us in the faith of it. For the truth of God is in itself sufficiently stable and certain, and cannot receive a better confirmation from any other quarter than from itself. But as our faith is slender and weak, so if it be not propped up on every side, and supported by all kinds of means, it is forthwith shaken and tossed to and fro, wavers, and even falls. And here, indeed, our merciful Lord, with boundless condescension, so accommodates himself to our capacity, that seeing how from our animal nature we are always creeping on the ground, and cleaving to the flesh, having no thought of what is spiritual, and not even forming an idea of it, he declines not by means of these earthly elements to lead us to himself, and even in the flesh to exhibit a mirror of spiritual blessings. For, as Chrysostom says, (Hom. 60, ad Popul.) "Were we incorporeal, he would give us these things in a naked and incorporeal form. Now because our souls are implanted in bodies, he delivers spiritual things under things visible. Not that the qualities which are set before us in the sacraments are inherent in the nature of the things, but God gives them this signification."

With all due respect to both Calvin and Chrysostom (pictured to the right), I disagree with the words I've italicized in a fundamental way.

I can't deny that this is the classic Christian position, which most Christians today would probably agree with--"our souls are implanted in bodies." But I have two fundamental problems with this. First, I see no scientific reason to agree with this statement. Second, I see no theological reason to agree with it.

Scientifically, we are constantly discovering more about the brain, which explains in deeper and deeper ways how it is that we have the capacity to do all those things which seem to distinguish us as "human."

This is an exciting thing, and it hasn't been until probably the last century that we've understood so much about the brain, intelligence, emotion, and consciousness. We should be celebrating this progress of science, but instead I constantly hear (and even used to make) abstract philosophical arguments designed to block classic Christian doctrines from being affected by science.

As I said yesterday, science can have theological consequences; why wouldn't it? But those theological consequences don't have to be frightening to Christians. Indeed, I see no theological reason to believe in the "soul in the body" picture.

The brilliant Reformed pastor and scholar Greg Bahnsen wrote a great article on the mind/body problem from a Christian perspective, in which he defends the idea that "man is a substantival monism, a material body which is special for reason of its capabilities (not its added substantival ingredient)." In other words, a person isn't a soul in a body, but that doesn't make him or her any less important in a theological sense.

I agree with Bahnsen, and moreover I think it's sad to see Calvin reason that God "accommodates himself to our capacity, that seeing how from our animal nature we are always creeping on the ground, and cleaving to the flesh, having no thought of what is spiritual," as if being physical beings distracts us from being spiritual.

In Genesis, God created the physical universe, including human beings, and there is no reason to believe he didn't create us as physical creatures. Our physical nature was no result of the fall. Therefore, what business does any theologian have in saying that God "condescends" to give us physical signs of His promises? Would He not rather rejoice to give us physical signs? Does He not love created things?

I think there's this false notion of spirituality that slips so easily into Christianity. It says that through the practice of religious activities (whether it's worship, prayer, or even good works) we can somehow transcend the physical universe and find some deeper truth beyond the created world. Many Christians, of course, emphatically believe this is true, but I disagree.

The picture of true spirituality I get from the Bible and from reason is that we ought to help care for the created world around us in such a way that there is harmony--that is, so that all things fulfill their purpose in God's sight.

In the Old Testament, sin polluted the land, not just our souls (as in Num 35:33). In the New Testament, it is the creation that longs for God's salvation, not just our souls. (Rom 8:19)

I think these ideas matter. Classic "soul in the body" Christianity will constantly seek to improve people's souls. But this could be damaging, especially if it's nothing more than an illusion. If humans are, after all, simply physical beings (which is not to say unspiritual) then it is frankly a waste of time to try to think of ways to improve one's soul as if it is distinct from the body.

On the other hand, if human beings are physical creatures created by God for a physical purpose, namely to care for His creation and to know Him more intimately through His creation, then we ought to be thinking of ways to do this.

In religious life, this may have something to do with the use of the sacraments, but I'm thinking in broader terms here. I'm thinking of a Christian spirituality that focuses in large part on the environment, living modestly (not consuming too many of the earth's resources), creating art and music, and thinking seriously about economic questions (as economics is the study of how to allocate the earth's resources).

The separation of these seemingly "secular" issues from "spiritual" issues is, for me, a contradiction, because these are all spiritual issues. They deal with the nature of things and the purpose for which they exist, and as such they are inherently spiritual.

I think this could have all sorts of practical consequences, but this is just one post, and I have to continue thinking about the details much more than I have. But I also think there is something just inherently more beautiful about not despising the body.

God created us as physical beings, and it is a good thing. Every tasty meal, every beautiful song, every breathtaking experience in nature, and every feeling of accomplishment after a hard day's work acts as a word from God's mouth, just as I feel that also mathematics and science are windows into His mind. If nothing else, this philosophy of life just makes life more satisfying.

Dualism probably appeals to most Christians in that it appears to separate us humans as unique. But I think the uniqueness of human beings lies in our purpose, and not in our substance, and I truly believe that if humans stop looking inward at an imagined soul in the body, we will be delighted to look outward at the world we truly live in, and discover in it a purpose for our lives that is beautiful, dignified, and even sanctified by the God who created this world.

God and Nature, or, Calvin on the Sacraments

I haven't written much in a while, but I am happy to say I am now taking a two-week vacation, so I am much freer to write more often. Hooray for more thoughts that are probably only interesting to me.

Indeed, this post might be on the more esoteric side, but hey, anyone who reads my blog knows my interests are a little out there. Math, science, theology, and politics are usual fare here, so what can you expect?

I was reading through John Calvin's chapter on the sacraments in Institutes of the Christian Religion, originally because I was having a heated discussion about infant baptism. Being the good Presbyterian that I am, I decided to look to Calvin for some wisdom.

But then I got interested in Calvin's general idea of sacraments, and I couldn't help but look at it from the point of view of a mathematician interested in the relationship between God and nature.

Here's a rather long excerpt from the Institutes, Chapter 14, section 18:

The term "sacrament", in the view we have hitherto taken of it, includes, generally, all the signs which God ever commanded men to use, that he might make them sure and confident of the truth of his promises. These he was pleased sometimes to place in natural objects ...

...[W]e have an example, in his giving the tree of life to Adam and Eve, as an earnest of immortality, that they might feel confident of the promise as often as they ate of the fruit. Another example was, when he gave the bow in the cloud to Noah and his posterity, as a memorial that he would not again destroy the earth by a flood. These were to Adam and Noah as sacraments: not that the tree could give Adam and Eve the immortality which it could not give to itself; or the bow (which is only a reflection of the solar rays on the opposite clouds) could have the effect of confining the waters; but they had a mark engraven on them by the word of God, to be proofs and seals of his covenant. The tree was previously a tree, and the bow a bow; but when they were inscribed with the word of God, a new form was given to them: they began to be what they previously were not. Lest any one suppose that these things were said in vain, the bow is even in the present day a witness to us of the covenant which God made with Noah, (Gen. 9: 6.) As often as we look upon it, we read this promise from God, that the earth will never be destroyed by a flood. Wherefore, if any philosophizer, to deride the simplicity of our faith, shall contend that the variety of colours arises naturally from the rays reflected by the opposite cloud, let us admit the fact; but, at the same time, deride his stupidity in not recognising God as the Lord and governor of nature, who, at his pleasure, makes all the elements subservient to his glory. If he had impressed memorials of this description on the sun, the star, the earth, and stones, they would all have been to us as sacraments. For why is the shapeless and the coined silver not of the same value, seeing they are the same metal? Just because the former has nothing but its own nature, whereas the latter, impressed with the public stamp, becomes money, and receives a new value. And shall the Lord not be able to stamp his creatures with his word, that things which were formerly bare elements may become sacraments?

The emphases in the above quotation are mine. They point to an idea that is near and dear to my heart, the idea that there are two dimensions of creation that are firmly intertwined. The first dimension is physical existence, and the second is what I usually think of as meaning, though perhaps one could even call it spiritual existence.

I think these two dimensions are sufficiently intertwined that one cannot exist without the other. For instance, in the Lord's supper, Christians always use bread and wine (or grape juice), even though some might say the meaning of the Lord's supper can still be conveyed through other elements. Christians still insist that using bread and wine is important, not least because it's just intuitively wrong to use, say, chips and coke, as if such things could ever represent as faithfully the body and blood of Jesus. It would be as if a man offered his fiancee a necklace instead of a ring to signify their engagement--the meaning of the thing and the physical nature of the thing cannot be separated so easily.

The reason all this is important to me is that we live in a scientific age, and I fancy myself something of a scientist. As a Christian, I have to grapple with the question, does science have any theological consequences? If so, do those consequences hurt or help Christianity?

I think the idea I've just described implies that yes, science must have some theological consequences. Learning about God surely cannot be separated from learning about His purposes in the world, and if what I've said above is correct, then learning about purpose cannot be separated from learning about the physical reality of nature. So science should have theological consequences.

But also this Christian way of understanding the natural world should give a powerful integrating framework for science, so that scientists need not find themselves studying the world for no particular reason. With a "sacramental" view of nature, we have a theological motivation for doing good science, and doing it carefully under sufficient ethical constraints.

This ability to integrate science into a broader framework also acts as a natural argument for the existence of God. I have read plenty of authors talk about how the Judeo-Christian view of nature laid the foundations for doing modern science, and I whole-heartedly agree. Is this not a testament to the strength of a belief, that it can open up greater understanding of the world we live in?

But it seems Christianity has been so obsessed with the "spiritual" as a separate category from the physical that it has lost ground in the scientific world. Most scientists today are not Christians, and I think this is because Christians have simply thrown away the philosophical fruit of their own worldview: creation is good, and its physical nature and purpose fit together beautifully in God's world.

This failure on the part of Christians is evident in our lack of clear moral leadership on crucial environmental issues (climate change, sustainability, etc.) And on bioethical issues, where I believe Christians do show impressive moral leadership, the world is not willing to listen, because we have sacrificed credibility on more general scientific questions.

Personally, I think understanding the natural world deepens my understanding of God. And not only that, but just experiencing the natural world deepens my relationship with Him. Music, for example, is fundamentally just a collection of sounds; we hear sounds occuring randomly every day, but when they are placed together in rhythm and harmony, these sounds become a means of conveying meaning. The physical nature of the sounds and the meaning they convey are inseparable. Music to me has always been an experiential proof of God's existence. I think most religious people can attest that they, too, have something in the natural world that "proves" God's existence to them.

In the ongoing battle between science and religion, I find it necessary to call Christians to simply embrace their own theological heritage and incorporate scientific knowledge, by which I simply mean greater familiarity with the natural world, into an ever-expanding view of who God is and what He is doing in the world. We should not be fearful that a greater familiarity with nature will distract us from knowledge of God, because I think just the opposite is true--understanding nature will deepen our knowledge of God.

This is too big an idea to iron out in one blog post, so I'll let it sit for now, and maybe come back to it tomorrow.