Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

And if that means lifetimes of dead, sloughed-off skin cells being swept up from across the planet, so?

But here's a question: Is any of the seed that dies in sprouting new life present in that new life? Well, yes. So the seed is resurrected into new life.
 

Are you being transcendental or advocating reincarnation.
 

Not sure. Talk to me. Was Jesus's resurrection reincarnation?
 

"Deep'n as it come"
 

Resurrection in an incorruptible body.

Which is definitely not the one I currently have.

One cannot take this in a literal fashion as understood in our rationalistic epoch. Ancient religions (and Paul) did not know what the liver or the brain were for, how blood was oxygenated. Modern Christianity cannot find the soul with any instrument.

The point is not my body as anatomy, the point is my createdness. Nothing of creation is inherently evil or neutral. All of creation is a good as a whole, and each created thing is good as a holistic existent. I am a created being, body and spirit or body and mind or simply as a dying animal.

I am a good as a holistic thing. I should respect all aspects of myself and I should respect all aspects of the other self.

The clay is not to be disparaged, it leads to all sorts of wickedness by those who have power.

That is the point of resurrection of the body. That we should treat ourselves and others and all of creation well because inflicted scars will be eternally "known" in its salvation.

Weren't some just articulating a feeling that Riker's gift of love will mean something in heaven, and that Riker will find a dog-meaning in heaven?

Why do we rationalize ourselves out of that truth? Because of pride.
 

RE, "Why do we rationalize ourselves out of that truth? Because of pride."

Or out of ignorance. Or lack of thought, which is the same thing sometimes.
 

In other words, I think my mama, and Riker, and others who have deep meaning to me and mine, die -- and yet, like a seed that dies and spawns life, die, and spawn life -- are resurrected.
 

"Which is definitely not the one I currently have."

Which is not the seed.
 

The question, "what does it mean?" gets translated in modernity to "how does it happen?"

They are different questions but we moderns have a habit of eliding the first. Analysis alone is meaning for us.
 

As to your metaphor, I would count current creation as having more capacity for eternal life than a seed, which has a sacrificial role for a being which it holds the pattern but not the resemblance.
 

It's Paul's metaphor.
 

Paul was not exactly Updike with metaphors.
 

LOL. Yer right.

Good to see ya. Crashing hard now. Zzzz....
 

In Koine Greek resurrection is "anastasis" also translatable as awakening.
Literalist choose resurrection early church fathers read it as awakening as did the Gnostics. Flip a coin and come up with two very distinct different realities.

Of course if the story of lazareth is true then the literalist have a Biblical precedence for their belief. If it is metaphorical then not necessarily so.

There are resurrection stories of one or another kind for 5,000 years before Christ. None are exactly like his of course, that would make it too easy.

Ever since I discovered Whitman and Sagan I've been fond of transcendentalism. Physically of course it is a sure thing. Our physical being has been through at least three stars and God knows how many guts.

Spiritually, well maybe. I can't really buy physical resurrection, I mean what would that do to the people who have drank wine from the Gettysburg winery that grows vines where the blood of the Civil War soldiers bled? Not to mention cannibals.

Reincarnation may explain why I am tired all the time. It bothers me quite a bit, simply because that means I might not be through when I die. Getting reassigned because I didn't get it right yet is not appealing.
 

"Koine Greek" meaning the working stiffs' common language, not a carefully demarcated one.
 

"Koine Greek" meaning the working stiffs' common language, not a carefully demarcated one."

You mean like English?
 

There is of course the political aspect of all this in the internal warfare of the early church. One side believed it was spiritual and the other believed it was historical. The Literal/Historical side had to reject the spiritual argument because it was held by its opposition. Thus the dogma of the literalist today is that the resurrection is the main thing that make Christianity real. It is in fact the central truth of the Church. It is the pivotal point of Christian theology and apologetics of the Literalist.

Interestingly some of us buy half the loaf without knowing it. If Jesus had a physical bodily resurrection then all those other things such as "The Kingdom of Heaven" etc. have to be physical as well.

Of course, maybe, the physical resurrection just fit in better with the of the Pagan religions that the Church was seeking to replace.
 

Didn't Plato's characters in "The Cave" mock the common Greek for believing that Dionysus's' resurrection was physically real?
 

Now that you started this thinking, I have one other bone to pick with the body people. I don't believe that "resurrection" is something that happens in "Time", that it is part of a cosmic sequence. I believe that when we die here we simply change, or awaken, to our spiritual selves, that we have always been, within the Kingdom of God. Your mother , my mother, our friends who have died to this world are already awakened. There is no "Day of Resurrection" , there is no "Reign on Earth", it is all now. Only now touches eternity.
 

The thread seems to be dead but I can't resist one last comment:

Why is the literal resurrection the must be foundation of the Church?

Church authority comes from Apostolic Succession. Apostolic Succession requires that those chosen were chosen by those who were chosen by those who...all the way back down to the Apostles who were defined as those MEN who SAW The Bodily Risen Jesus.
(Not Mary Magdalene mind you, just the guys.)
No Literal Resurrection then no line of Apostolic Succession. Without the literal resurrection just any old person could claim divine inspiration, knowledge etc.
Because a spirit, you see can come to anyone. But Bodily Jesus only came to the 11 Apostles (discounting of course the 500 mentioned by Paul and MM).

No Body = No Apostolic Succession = No special authority for the Church = No Church = No Christianity

word verification: testous
 

Not dead. Been busy. More distracted, actually.

Word thing: "Merce."
 

DrLBJ should make better distinctions between the church that raised him and the church of antiquity.
He does constant battle with one but calls it by the name of the other - which is quite congenial to his spirit as it has developed, minus the undertone of resentments.

Apostolic succession is an aspect of ecclesial authority important for the governance of the catholic community. For this reason, it is the choice of catholic churches to live by "lex" or rule of apostolic succession. That this rule does not have an unbroken chain of signed and sealed, archived documentary evidence is no problem. Paul, himself, in defending his apostolic authority does not claim it rests on seeing a Jesus resurrected atom for atom. He did not examine the risen Lord to make sure that the liver was the same liver, the pancreas the same pancreas. In fact, seeing the risen Christ is not the sine qua non of apostolic authority.

1 Corinthians 9:1ff

"Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord."


[He goes on to mention real live witnesses to the actual Jesus that DrLBJ may not believe either, though he will enjoy the puncturing of contemporary Roman Catholicism: "This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. Don't we have the right to food and drink? Don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?]

Apostolic authority is a communally agreed to thing, a socio-cultural rule that is taken on, ascribed to, as believed to be helpful to organize our common life in the church. As such it reflects the epochs of the church's life. In the Anglican communion, there was a difficult transition to consecrate bishops in this country during and after the American Revolution. Scottish bishops ordained the first American Anglican bishop, from Connecticut. And now, of course, we have troubled ourselves in that certain dioceses elected (both lay and priests vote in each diocese for their bishop) an openly gay Bishop (thought not the first gay Bishop outright, by a far stretch).

If DrLBJ does not want to belong to such a community, then what is his worry?

If, rather, he wants to engage in some discussion about how the other half lives their religious lives, then he should bone up on his reading and read more from within the tradition and less from solo artists who sell books by scandalizing shallow popular notions born of an old anti-Catholic paranoia and the illuminati.

As for resurrection, again, the tradition does not know from atoms, much less the Victorian concern with how they can all be swept back up to put all our Humpty Dumpties back together again. I'm sure DrLBJ is familiar with the argument that distinguishes between "bodily" resurrection and exact physical resurrection.

The fathers and mothers of the tradition were no less speculative than we are, but, when on actually reads them, one finds that they are a little less dogmatic when they take flight... or read a new, fun book until half past midnight.
 

As an aid, let me provide one basic approach from the Roman Catechism that clearly presents the relative priority and function of apostolic authority in relation to belief in the "One" Church of the Apostles Creed:

I. THE CHURCH IS ONE
"The sacred mystery of the Church's unity"
813 The Church is one because of her source: "the highest exemplar and source of this mystery is the unity, in the Trinity of Persons, of one God, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit." The Church is one because of her founder: for "the Word made flesh, the prince of peace, reconciled all men to God by the cross, . . . restoring the unity of all in one people and one body." The Church is one because of her "soul": "It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those who believe and pervading and ruling over the entire Church, who brings about that wonderful communion of the faithful and joins them together so intimately in Christ that he is the principle of the Church's unity." Unity is of the essence of the Church:

What an astonishing mystery! There is one Father of the universe, one Logos of the universe, and also one Holy Spirit, everywhere one and the same; there is also one virgin become mother, and I should like to call her "Church."

814 From the beginning, this one Church has been marked by a great diversity which comes from both the variety of God's gifts and the diversity of those who receive them. Within the unity of the People of God, a multiplicity of peoples and cultures is gathered together. Among the Church's members, there are different gifts, offices, conditions, and ways of life. "Holding a rightful place in the communion of the Church there are also particular Churches that retain their own traditions."263 The great richness of such diversity is not opposed to the Church's unity. Yet sin and the burden of its consequences constantly threaten the gift of unity. And so the Apostle has to exhort Christians to "maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

815 What are these bonds of unity? Above all, charity "binds everything together in perfect harmony." But the unity of the pilgrim Church is also assured by visible bonds of communion:

- profession of one faith received from the Apostles;

-common celebration of divine worship, especially of the sacraments;

- apostolic succession through the sacrament of Holy Orders, maintaining the fraternal concord of God's family.

816 "The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. . . . This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (subsistit in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him."

The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism explains: "For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the People of God."
______________


"This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world..."

While I may disagree with how Roman Catholicism concretizes this truth -- disagree as if a citizen of an aligned and allied nation -- my disagreement is one of kinship.

DrLBJ, surely, has deeper disagreements, though less than he thinks, not having availed himself of investigating catholicity with objectivity.

But authority in any body is necessary for governance, and complete agreement in the authority of any body is an impossibility.

Does DrLBJ not disagree with the President? Does he not disagree with Congress? Does he not disagree with the Supreme Court or the governor of Oklahoma?

And yet, we live within laws, raising protest to unjust laws and decisions, but all the while living within them. We can change them by persuading the majority.

This is our current political life.

For me, it is the current life of the church as well. While not confusing the order needed to be "a body of Christ organized in the world" with the spiritual truth of eternal communion, I nonetheless do not mislay the truth that one is a sacrament of the other, making partially visible what is invisible, putting into praxis the grace that is claimed.

To throw it away is to retreat to the authority of just myself. And that is a kind of pride that -- if lived out with thorough honesty as a rule of life -- leads either to anarchy or madness.
 

Re, "Why is the literal resurrection the must be foundation of the Church?"

The Resurrection -- and I leave it at that, usually -- is the foundation of the faith, not the Church. I raised the body questions after reading some Beuchner.


Blame my Baptist upbringing, but apostolic succession means nothing to me. I mean, I just don't see why it's critical, but I won't disparage those for whom it is. It does intrigue me that, my Greek Orthodox friend says, the HQ of his church is on the "street that is called Straight." The old "Trail of Blood" claims of some of my fire-breathing Baptist forebears also intrigue me.


"Disagreement" of kinship. I like. Which is why is galls me when some of my fictive kin inh the faith reject me so totally! (HWMNBN)
 

What are the bonds (or bond) of unity for the Baptist church? And the UCC for that matter.
 

UCC:

http://www.ucc.org/ministers/manual-on-church/moc.pdf

Starting at page 5.
 

From the "Baptist Faith & Message" (Southern Baptist Convention):

http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp#vi
 

UCC: " to walk together in all his waies, according as he is pleased to reveal himself unto us in his blessed Word of truth."

The Baptist church puts together a description drawn from a series of biblical texts: Matthew 16:15-19; 18:15-20; Acts 2:41-42,47; 5:11-14; 6:3-6; 13:1-3; 14:23,27; 15:1-30; 16:5; 20:28; Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 3:16; 5:4-5; 7:17; 9:13-14; 12; Ephesians 1:22-23; 2:19-22; 3:8-11,21; 5:22-32; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:18; 1 Timothy 2:9-14; 3:1-15; 4:14; Hebrews 11:39-40; 1 Peter 5:1-4; Revelation 2-3; 21:2-3.


In other words, a generally agreed upon reading of scripture that is either conservative of some NT structures (the church is to be "A New Testament Church") or liberal with some of its themes ("When do we see the church being faithful? When the
Word is rightly preached").

Sola scriptura. The Apostolic succession would not make sense in a protestant church because the protestant church long ago threw out all other bonds of unity except for how groups could agree to read the scripture.
_______

Apostolic succession makes sense only in sacramental worship and then only derivatively as the Catholic Catechism suggests.

The bond of unity is first God and God's love. The UCC and the Baptists have language that acknowledges these truths. But instead of finding the vision of that love in scripture, the sacramental church finds it in The Eucharist, primarily, and in the other sacraments which are related centrally to the presence of Jesus Christ and the offering of Love he extends in it.

Scripture, as I labored to say elsewhere, derives its own authority from this central community-organizing bond of sacramental worship. This is what we have directly from Jesus along with baptism: "do this in remembrance of me." So it is prior to scripture itself, both temporally and theologically.

But if the bond of unity is how the community worships together, then functions are necessary. But they are not only functions. They are spiritual gifts, as St. Paul would say, given by God for the health and nurturance of the body. So everyone has their spiritual gift that serves the sacramental life of the church -- primarily centered around The Eucharist -- and their mission which is gained from such community life.

This is how the church has always been the body of Christ since Jesus himself sat down in the upper room. This is meaningful to those of us in the catholic church. Meaningful on so many levels.

All of our spiritual gifts are to be recognized as contributory to the community and, even more, constituent of the nature of communion itself. Bishops, Priests, deacons, lay. Adults and children, men and women, white, black, latino, asian, and indian.

The Bishops have two tasks: represent the Apostolic faith as the Church has always in every time received that faith from the Apostles themselves and to preside over the administrative functions of the church's life.

But while the Bishops are the figurative representatives of Apostolic succession (and so fill that role in the Church's most sacred sacramental moments), in full fact, the whole order of the church's organization is to be seen as the unity and witness of the Holy Spirit within the christian church from the Last Supper until now.

Apostolic succession, then, refers to how we have organized ourselves that has never centered on scripture but on the sacramental way the church has always worshipped, centrally seen in The Eucharist.

This is not only our bond of unity with each other, but our bond of unity with the whole host of saints from the very beginning.
 

So DrLBJs scientifically paradigmatic equation:

No Body = No Apostolic Succession = No special authority for the Church = No Church = No Christianity



is answered by the spiritual truth grounded in the sacrament:

bread + wine + people + prayer = body and blood of Christ = presence of Christ = Church = one + holy + catholic + apostolic = Christianity
 

The heart -- one of the hearts, anyway -- of the Reformation: how to perceive the Lord's Supper, and whether scripture or the received tradition and learning of the Roman church -- received through apostolic succession.

I'd say that the modern SBC and the modern UCC have widely divergent views on the meaning of this, however: "as he is pleased to reveal himself unto us in his blessed Word of truth."

The Baptists give lip service to the idea of "the priesthood of the believer," reserving it now almost totally to mean no one or nothing save Christ himself is required, or allowed, to intervene between God and humankind, leaving almost nothing of the other aspect of the "priesthood of the believer" having to do with interpretation of scripture.

And, Baptists would say that the Bible itself is the Word of God.


The UCC says, I think, that God is "pleased to reveal himself unto us in his blessed Word of truth" in different ways to different people, and that "God is still speaking."

And the UCC quite plainly asserts that the Bible gives witness to the Word of God (that is, Christ), but that the Bible is not the Word of God per se. (Of course, being congregational, and the churches being autonomous, most UCC'ers today would not impose that on anyone; about the only imposition of doctrine is "Christ is the Head of the Church."
 

And how does "Christ is the Head of the Church" operate to bind each other to each other?

How is it a structuring experience as a community?
 

I'd say, I guess, that any binding comes in the willing and overt horizontal covenant with other individuals, church and groups who profess a covenant with God through Christ.

I confess that I'm just learning what the UCC and its parent denominations meant by "covenantal relationship" when they forged it in 1957.
 

(Amusing, to me, aside: I almost type apostolic "secession" every time. Which is what some Protestants might claim. But I don't think any congregationalists do, whether Baptists or not, since there since, in their [our] view, "the New Testament church" means one thing: a local community/congregation of followers/believers in Jesus. And they are all, I suppose, like individual congregants, born from above, not connected temporally or sacramentally directly to any congregation that came before, or at present.)
 

Check this out, if you have never:

"The Trail of Blood . . ."
Following the Christians Down Through the Centuries . . .
or The History of Baptist Churches From the Time of Christ,
Their Founder, to the Present Day
by J. M. Carroll

http://trailofblood.com/

My inner redneck unreconstructed Baptist likes this idea. Most modern Southern Baptist, I'm pretty sure, think it's over-the-top, even most of the fundies and fire breathers.
 

It's Alive.
Looks like I put a burr under F's saddle.

Well gee, let us see.
I was raised a liberal Southern Baptist. An animal that no longer is procreated in the current SBC. I believe in the Priesthood of the Believer. Therefore I believe that no-one or no-thing stands between a soul and God Therefore I do not believe or credit an Apostolic anything. I do not believe that the Pope, Apostles, Bishops, Priest, etc. of any persuasion have any authority. I hold that the Church is a building in which a congregation of like type believer voluntarily associate together as a congregation. I hold "The Church" as a political or a spiritual entity of any god as an Anathema.
I will be led by the Holy Spirit, the breath and wisdom of God, and honor the opinions and teachings of those who I believe are led by the Holy Spirit. I question the source of everything that comes from the flesh and test all that comes from the spirit.

I believe that modern and early Christianity has obscured the presence of God by making the Bible and Jesus artificial Icons and by submerging his Holy Spirit into ephemeral ghost like nothingness.

I believe that there are many pathways to God, including the "Roman Catholic Church". Some or easier than others and some take longer.


I believe a whole bunch of other stuff that would irritate most religious people so I'll stop with this dose.
 

First, fat paragraph: Me, too. But, re: "I hold 'The Church' as a political or a spiritual entity of any god as an Anathema" -- I see "the Church" as the great cloud of witnesses to God's grace from ancient days to the present and, in our Christian faith tradition, it is the same thing as the Body of Christ.

On this, I need some splaination of what you're saying about "early Christianity" and I am with you, more or less, on what yer saying about "modern" Christianity, if you mean basically most organization from about the year 90 or so to the present.


On many pathways ... I want there to be, but I also want Jesus, or the yearning for a Jesus, to be part of it.
 

ER: "early Christianity"?

The dichotmy started just as soon as Peter questioned Mary Magdalene's "Apostlehood" and elected another man to be the 12th guy. Then there is Gnostic/Literalist thing that got into gear about 60 A.D..
 

A Bishop doesn't come between you and anything, much less God.

You lose more freedom to a Governor than a Bishop and you need both to govern the entity that provides the nourishment and privileged space for their respective realms.

Otherwise, one is without a country.

DrLBJ is operating with a caricature of an idea of men and women in robes.

Not even close to what orders of ministry is about.
 

Dan Brown is apparently now in the house.
 

DrLobo wears his Gnostic tendencies out for all the world to see.

Re, "Not even close to what orders of ministry is about."

Then explain them.
 

[I don't think you two have been reading.]

But if the bond of unity is how the community worships together, then functions are necessary. But they are not only functions. They are spiritual gifts, as St. Paul would say, given by God for the health and nurturance of the body. So everyone has their spiritual gift that serves the sacramental life of the church -- primarily centered around The Eucharist -- and their mission which is gained from such community life.

This is how the church has always been the body of Christ since Jesus himself sat down in the upper room. This is meaningful to those of us in the catholic church. Meaningful on so many levels.

All of our spiritual gifts are to be recognized as contributory to the community and, even more, constituent of the nature of communion itself. Bishops, Priests, deacons, lay. Adults and children, men and women, white, black, latino, asian, and indian.

The Bishops have two tasks: represent the Apostolic faith as the Church has always in every time received that faith from the Apostles themselves and to preside over the administrative functions of the church's life.

But while the Bishops are the figurative representatives of Apostolic succession (and so fill that role in the Church's most sacred sacramental moments), in full fact, the whole order of the church's organization is to be seen as the unity and witness of the Holy Spirit within the christian church from the Last Supper until now.

Apostolic succession, then, refers to how we have organized ourselves that has never centered on scripture but on the sacramental way the church has always worshipped, centrally seen in The Eucharist.

This is not only our bond of unity with each other, but our bond of unity with the whole host of saints from the very beginning.
 

Clearly I'm not hiding anything either; I've even copied a small part of the RC catechism regarding apostolic succession and how it comes at the very end of a lot of beautiful commentary on the unity of the church.

But nothing DrLBJ says suggests he's considered any of this material or my remarks.

Instead, he presents biases with little fact. This isn't sleeve wearing, it's chip wearing.
 

Sorry, Feodor. This not being part of my thinking, the words don't have the deep resonant meaning they do for you. I see now. But I have to look. Twice apparently.
 

DrLobo is entitled to his chips, I think. I have a few myself.
 

As do I.

As long as chips can undergo scrutiny.
 

"You lose more freedom to a Governor than a Bishop and you need both to govern the entity that provides the nourishment and privileged space for their respective realms."

Not if one is Presbyterian. Somehow we've been functioning more or less OK in the US for the last 200 or so years, without bishops, popery, or other such romish notions. ;)

Once again, reality trumps. One may ask, hypothetically, how a church remains a church without bishops. But, in fact, it happens, and has happened for quite a long time. I suppose it's an interesting question, "What keeps these denominations together?" but clearly the answer is not "Nothing. Because they don't have Bishops and the notion of apostolic succession."

Might be easier to actually examine some denominations that don't pay any mind to apostolic succession and see, in reality, what they really think and do and believe. Seems like that route might be more useful than just hypothesizing.
 

I suppose Alan's solid hold on "presbyterianism" overlooks the 59 schisms occurring among Scottish and American versions of presbyterianism in the last 180 years? Many rejoined only to split again. It's why the nickname is "the split Ps."

If you call that functioning more or less OK, I'd hate to visit a Presbyterian psychologist.

MIght be easier if Alan examines his own church before stepping out on faith.

And should we tell him that the Greek for Bishop and Presbyter is the same word? An elder serves the Bishop's function in a different ethos. Every community needs organization. Just because an elder doesn't wear robes doesn't mean authority isn't demarcated.
 

Let's talk about what *is* rather than what any of us thinks the other thinks for a change.

Question: "Every community needs organization."

I guess, if you see democratically operated autonomous bunches of Christians as "organized." When I was young, the church I grew up in, figuratively speaking, had the Bible i one hand and Robert's Rules in the other. They started losing me when they picked up the newspaper -- because it was the world news page (Middle East), not the local-community oage (who among our neighbors could we help).
 

There is organization and there is good organization.

I'm suggesting that Apostolic Succession is an holistic attempt at good organization that is badly misunderstood by some -- cheaply characterized by the others.

The corollary is that protestant America has not reflected upon, and therefore stand ignorant of, the principles of authority operating in their own denominations.
 

Meh. Yeah, we've split, and reformed, and split.

And? There have been no arguments or disagreements in the Roman Catholic church over the last 2000 years? (I can think of at least a couple.) The fact that some people disagree and move on is hardly evidence that the church doesn't work, nor that their new church is somehow not a church. Sorry, I assumed we were having a real conversation here, not just trying to reenact the Counter Reformation.

Elders are not Bishops, and it isn't just the robes we've done away with. For someone who constantly accuses me of being stupid, Feodor, I'm a bit surprised that you make such a weak argument.

I'm only saying that there are indeed other ways to structure a church that also work just as well. Various polities have their strengths and their weaknesses. But the existence of such weaknesses in Protestant churches hardly means that we're crazy and in need of psychological help. And the well-known problems with an ensconced bishopric do not mean that the RC is completely broken either.

My point is that what is really going on in these churches is probably a more useful point of departure for a discussion than hypotheticals that ignore the fact that those of us without bishops function quite well, in fact.

Any time a group of people get together, the first question is, "Who's in charge?" and the second question is "Who says it's you?"

For some churches, the answer is found in apostolic succession, for others it's in nomination and election. For some, it's a lifetime appointment, for others it is a specified term of service.

One can argue that the Protestant churches simply don't work, I suppose, because they threw off the notion of bishops. That might be an interesting case to try to make hypothetically. But out here in the real world, I think it would be tough to convince anyone.
 

BTW, as an elder, Feodor, I know pretty much exactly what sort of authority I have and do not have, as compared to the rector of our sister congregation or her bishop, for example.

The fact that I disagree with you doesn't actually mean I'm stupid nor uninformed, no matter how often you'd like to make that characterization.
 

Alan, you've again stepped into a conversation without absorbing it.

1. The discussion of Apostolic Succession arose because DrLBJ was mischaracterizing it. So the task has been to delineate what it means. You are the one who introduced a fuzzy, factless counterargument.

2. When I describe Apostolic Succession, I'm not talking about Roman catholicism. I did paste a small section of the Roman catechism to show that even there Apostolic Succession comes late in a discussion of the unity of the church.

3. In the Episcopal church, Apostolic Succession is married with "nomination and election." We have also married perpetual orders with "terms of service." (Much like the American presidency and constitutional democracy.)

We have a Vestry just like a session, a diocese just like a synod, a province just like a synod, and a General Convention just like a General Assembly.

We have the benefit of including lay people in the decision making at each level along with Bishops (Elders), Priests, and Deacons. I don't remember the PCUSA including lay people. Has it changed? Or do Elders count twice? This would seem odd since Elders are ordained to serve as Elders, thus a lay person would not be represented.

4. As to the question of the "bonds of unity" in the church, Bishops are more representative than prescriptive in the "Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America" (still our legal name). Not least because each Bishop is equal to each other Bishop. We have no magisterium such as the Vatican or the college of Cardinals.

In fact, doctrine does not serve as a formal bond of unity apart from how it is unrolled in our liturgical language in worship as found in the Book of Common Prayer. We have not document of unity other than that. None.

4. You could also enlighten us as to the various issues at the center of the many presbyterian schisms. Not many of them are very noble. Hardly any like the equality of gender and sexual identity. There are currently what, at least twelve presbyterian denominations? Again, if you think that is functioning well as an ethos, I'm glad you're not in government work.

5. Protestantism has a host of problems, radical protestantism has profound trouble. Intelligent people among the main lines of American protestantism are all talking and writing about how we can envision communion with each other. The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America share sacramental understanding, worship, and in many places the same priest/pastor under the rubric of the document, Called to Mission, for which, by the way, disagreement over Apostolic Succession did not prove debilitating.

Should I repeat that last line?

And talks are ongoing all around with others, including how elders and bishops function in similar roles of governance. Perhaps you could investigate the nature of these conversations that have gone on for some time now.

You could start by looking into Churches Uniting in Christ.

No need to remain stupid, after all.
 

Sorry... the ECUSA has diocese similar to the PCUSA presbyteries.

So,

Vestry like Session
Diocese like Presbytery

(Province like Synod; neither of these designation participate at the next level:)

General Convention like General Assembly


However, in the ECUSA lay people have a voting voice at every level.

- Clergy and lay representatives elect the bishops of the diocese.

- The House of Deputies (priests, deacons, lay) and The House of Bishops elect the Presiding Bishop. Both Houses must agree.

Pretty damned democratic for Apostolic Succession.
 

Whatcha got there is a democratic republican form of goubment.

What Baptists and Congregationalists have is confederacies.


Local church has deacons who seek and call a pastor -- or who designate a committee to seek a pastor subject to a call by the deacons, confirmed by a vote of the peeps in that local church.

That church may or may not choose to associate with other local churches of "like faith and order" in county, regional, state, interstate and national associations.
 

A priest is called to an Episcopal parish by the parishioners, usually in the form of a search committee elected by parishioners.

The Bishop can approve or disapprove. Disapproval is almost always based only on inside knowledge of a priest's background and is quite rare.
 

The priest who is the Rector can then assemble his or her clerical and lay staff with consultation from the Vestry (board of governing lay people who usually rotate off after three years in staggered terms).

Deacons are of three kinds. They assist the Bishop with various pastoral/administrative needs around the diocese. They are hired by the Rector to serve on staff. They have secular jobs of all kinds and serve the parish avocationally.
 

"You could start by looking into Churches Uniting in Christ."

Actually we have been a CUIC congregation with the Episcopal congregation that shares our building since before CUIC was CUIC (back when we started this it was COCU.)

But then, what would I possibly know?

Meh.

Was thinking that maybe, for once, we could have a decent conversation.

Guess not. Oh well.

ER, I'll be happy to contribute on your next cat post. LOL
 

BTW, if only it were true that there is an exact match between the polity structures of Episcopal churches and PCUSA churches. I guess the complex legal agreement *required by both the Presbytery and the Dioceses* which governs the interactions between our two churches (not just who owns what, but more importantly, how decisions get made and who has authority to speak for each church, etc.) was completely unnecessary. It's to bad that over the years of this partnership, the second oldest such partnership in the country, the 3 bishops, three rectors, 4 pastors, and at least 3 presbytery stated clerks didn't figure that out sooner.

If only we'd known to consult Feodor first. Drat.
If only we'd had Feodor to consult and tell us that we're all just the same.
 

Definition of getting off on the wrong foot and not really intending to "have a decent conversation":

"Might be easier to actually examine some denominations that don't pay any mind to apostolic succession and see, in reality, what they really think and do and believe. Seems like that route might be more useful than just hypothesizing."
 

Meh.

Several folks here have already described how things work differently in the SBC or the UCC. That is the reality.

Reality trumps hypotheses, in my view, every time.

I'm not sure how saying that gets me off on the wrong foot, except that I didn't kiss your ass, apparently.
 

Notice how Alan inflates similarities to "exact match" when asked to follow tossed off comments with thought.
 

You're the one going to such pains to paint the two as the same. I actually think they're pretty different.

So yeah, I thought it was pretty stupid too, but I bow to your superior intellect.
 

Asking you to rethink "Not if one is Presbyterian. Somehow we've been functioning more or less OK in the US for the last 200 or so years, without bishops, popery, or other such romish notions..." is hardly asking for ass-kissing.

ER asks for what "is". I do, too. But having stepped in shit first, you don't take a step back, you go on like it's a stage.
 

Who's not superior to such shiftiness?

And "like" is hardly "exact match." In fact, "like" is pretty much the basis for CUIC.

Have you been missing meetings?
 

You're remind me so much of Bubba.
 

And just so we don't this too often at ERs, you could see me at my moribund new blog: Artifice of Eternity.
 

F: "But nothing DrLBJ says suggests he's considered any of this material or my remarks.

Instead, he presents biases with little fact. This isn't sleeve wearing, it's chip wearing."

Feodor they are not chips they are personal beliefs, yes carefully considered personal beliefs.

Is bringing up Dan Brown an insult by you? Don't you like a good Mystery book?

You see I like my religion like my politics, unorganized. That is why I belong to the Democratic Party and the Disciples of Christ denomination.

Although in the case of the Democrats it may be just dis-organized.

F: "DrLBJ is operating with a caricature of an idea of men and women in robes."

F: "DrLBJ, surely, has deeper disagreements, though less than he thinks, not having availed himself of investigating catholicity with objectivity."

F: "This is how the church has always been the body of Christ since Jesus himself sat down in the upper room. This is meaningful to those of us in the catholic church. Meaningful on so many levels."

Well F it seems that you have little respect for my positions and disdain my disrespect of the political Churches. But in the end you proved my point. A physical resurrection of Jesus so as he was able to sit down in the upper room is essential to the existence of the Church as you see it.

Now isn't that great that we see this point as a truth?
 

Actually you'll notice the little wink after that sentence.

Because, see, I have a sense of humor. I thought the use of the terms "romish" or "popery" from someone living in the year 2009 would be obviously seen by anyone with half a brain as a humorous nod to the sorts of language that was once used between protestants and catholics (and is still amusingly contained in some of our confessions. I also particularly enjoy phrases like "the pernicious and damnable heresies of the papists.")

But now that the playful word-play has to be explained, alas, because humor cannot enter conversations between Feodor and anyone else.

Instead, Feodor sees anything as a challenge, even humor. He steps in shit, then tracks it around blaming the mess on everyone else.
 

"You're remind me so much of Bubba."

I'm sure everyone who disagrees with you does. That's the irony, really.
 

DrLBJ, I'm pretty sure the Last Supper preceded the crucifixion much less than the resurrection.

Unless you have some gnostic insight into the true dating?
______

I have a dim memory from my first year in divinity school and prior to my leaving the Churches of Christ of reading some history in the Restoration Movement churches of a desire to establish a number of orphanages. A difficulty arose as to whose authority these orphanages should be under. Since there existed no apparatus of authority larger than the individual congregation, an impasse was reached.

No orphanages were built.

Such non-organization is a problem for me.

And what, pray tell, is the significance of the St. Andrew's cross on the Disciples' insignia?

Perhaps Alan could tell us?
 

Come and see me some time, Alan. If your convictions, still consistently absent in any specificity and hiding behind all the dirty dancing, have any courage.
 

And no, Alan, it's just you.
 

FWIW, I think y'all are just wired for this.

Feodor, brother, you are always lookin' for a fight, assuming deception where it doesn't exist, not giving people the benefit of the doubt, taking offense too fast for a forum where, almost universally, people's fingers fly faster than their better judgment. I'm used to it now, pretty much.

Alan, brother, you're always ready to bring it when someone like Brother Feodor comes spoiling for a set-to. I'm about used to that, too.

And I loves ya both. Srsly. And y'all can take that or leave it. Just MHO.

What y'all need to do is get used to each other.

PEACE EFFING OUT!! :-)
 

Yeah, ER, you're right, I get dragged into it too easily. I'll confine myself to cat posts. They're more fun. :)
 

I'm still looking for what "is," as you called it. Otherwise known as a point.

Alan began by calling my offerings hypotheticals with no more specificity than that and then offers a glib and pristine history of presbyterianism as example?

After his first move crumbles he takes flight in a downward spiral.

And now we seem to have lost the chronology of the Last Supper.

Are these finger issues or other kinds of issues?
 

Alan doesn't get dragged in. He continually puts just one foot in by itself. And then calls it humor. As if the stick to the popsicle is sweet.

I'm out.

I'm beginning to mix wild metaphors.
 

For the record, though, I believe the reason a St. Andrews cross is in the insignia of the Disciples of Christ is to honor Thomas and Alexander Campbell who were two of major founders of the Restoration Movement in the early 19th century in what is now West Virginia.

The Campbells were from Scotland (St. Andrew is the patron saint).

And before founding their movement, they were...

... schismatic Scottish Presbyterians.


And what happened to the Restoration Movement? I think we can guess by now.
 

From the Resurrection to Apostolic Succession to My Denomination Is More Real Than Your Denomination. In 77 comments.

As a United Methodist, issues of polity always seem to arise. We describe ourselves as having a "mixed polity", because the local churches do, indeed, have some autonomy. Yet, increasingly, like American federalism in the wake of the Civil War and the post-CW constitutional amendments, this autonomy has shrunk to issues of ministry and mission in the local community. Everything from who will be the local pastor to statements about who is, and is not, a United Methodist, lie in hands far removed from, and usually seen as unconnected to, the local congregation. Our Book of Discipline becomes increasingly difficult to read and understand, being constructed as much by attorney as by faithful witnesses to Christ.

Yet, for all that, it stumbles along pretty well.

Feodor likes structure, and dislikes the fact that the Presbyterian and various offshoots have practiced Calvin's semper reformata dictum. Since the United Methodist Church, as it exists today, has split over racial and political lines, and been joined by other denominations with vastly different polity (The Evangelical Church) even if they shared a similar pietistic theology, and has spawned, among other denominations, the AME, AME Zion, the CME, the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, and indirectly even the Pentecostal movement, I for one fail to see where the flourishing of difference is a bad thing. Getting our ideas "right" about Apostolic Succession before we go about figuring out which church polity is best is a bit like forming a committee to do something before we actually have any idea what that "something" might be, or even if it is desirable. Remember, people complained the churches Paul planted in the eastern Med weren't really churches because he wasn't an Apostle.

Apostolic Succession as I understand the term, usually refers to the direct passing of authority back to St. Peter. Since the church is a human institution organized as a response to a Divine Act, it seems to me that any definition we use is the definition we have. The Catholics have theirs; even we UM have a theology of succession - it lies in the Holy Spirit which breathes life in to the Church - and it works OK.

I used to be in favor of ecumenism. Now, while I think local churches working together toward common ends is a good thing, the idea that the vast differences between, say, the United Methodist Church and the ELCA (which, a few years back, agreed to recognize the orders of those in the other denomination and the sacramental practices of one another) can be bridged misses the question of whether or not there is any reason to do so. To my mind, denominationalism is a wonderful human response to the prodigal love and grace and variety of human experiences of God.

Baptist Churches, the left-wing of the Reformation (the Mennonites, for instance, or Friends) are as disorganized as one can imagine, yet they do pretty well. I, for one, am comfortable with Bishops, etc. Others aren't.

It's all good, as far as I'm concerned.

BTW, the word verification is "quized". I hope I passed.
 

Protestants have a hard time getting Apostolic Succession because protestantism was formed from a largely juridical approach to theology.

It is not that I prefer structure (remember, I chose an ethos that has no doctrinal confession, compact, or covenant) nor do I have a problem with Presbyterianism, the cradle sensibility which fostered the Scottish Enlightenment.

I have problems with mischaracterizations, misrepresentations, and generalized avoidance of specificity.

Know what you are talking about before you criticize.

How hard is that?
______

The following is from the Roman Catechism on "Christ's work in the liturgy." Notice how the media by which Apostolic Succession operates in the church is the Holy Spirit and the sacramental life of the church. There is no concern for some kind of physical magic or centralizing of passing on some kind of "authority." The concern is spiritual, i.e. the sanctifying power of worship.

And, GKS, notice that Peter is nowhere mentioned.

"Accordingly, just as Christ was sent by the Father so also he sent the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit. This he did so that they might preach the Gospel to every creature and proclaim that the Son of God by his death and resurrection had freed us from the power of Satan and from death and brought us into the Kingdom of his Father. But he also willed that the work of salvation which they preached should be set in train through the sacrifice and sacraments, around which the entire liturgical life revolves."

Thus the risen Christ, by giving the Holy Spirit to the apostles, entrusted to them his power of sanctifying: they became sacramental signs of Christ. By the power of the same Holy Spirit they entrusted this power to their successors. This "apostolic succession" structures the whole liturgical life of the Church and is itself sacramental, handed on by the sacrament of Holy Orders."

Would that Western rationalism (primarily here seen in protestantism and the counter-Reformation) could assign the appropriate, healthy role for power. The history of the last four hundred years might have been more merciful.
 

Mennonites disorganized?

You're joking, right?
 

F: "Would that Western rationalism (primarily here seen in protestantism and the counter-Reformation) could assign the appropriate, healthy role for power. The history of the last four hundred years might have been more merciful."

Indeed.
As merciful as say the 400 before that and the 400 before that? "Kill them all , God knows his own," for example.

As a decendent of Palatine Anabaptist farmers from the Zurich area I do read that they were killed by order of the Popes edicts, the various Protestant edicts, and low and behold even Anglican edicts.

Keep your apostolic succession, and litergy, and sacraments, and special understandings of the priest and bishops, and go through the Church for your salvation.
What ever floats your boat.

I will dip my dingy into the tsunami of my ignorance (which you have noted is vast and deep) and I will in my ancient-new age-gnostic-proequality-individualist-non joining way, worship and function as my own bishop priest elder deacon pastor translator and listener to the Holy Spirit. Looking to my inner light and past into the infinity of everlasting dazzeling darkness beyond, I will feel the breath of God from his holy wisdom and be led by the hand of my brother Jesus towards mysteries that I can not understand.
If I drown, then I drown.
Selah
 

DrLBJ

I have no problem with your radical presbyterianism, freshly framed like a sufic robe as it is.

Your trail is a blaze of glory.

But don't present tired old shit about a theological approach with which you are not familiar.

It's beneath your dedication to knowledge.

As is putting words in my mouth like Alan, simply because your feelings are hurt.
_______

And if the blood of history cancels the living, then to what corner of identity do you think we can go?

Referring to the uses of rationalization in the modern West, I had in mind how it served to increase the body count a thousand-fold.
 

Liturgy

λειτουργία

"work of the people"

Not some Bishop. Nor of a one man island.
 

The Pope is the latest in the line stretching back to St. Peter, according to legend and tradition. While the Roman Church makes a lot of noises about the Holy Spirit, but in truth their tradition is highly rationalistic, tied to a linear succession of authority based upon the initial witnesses, as testified to in Scriptures.

My comment on the Mennonites was a relative statement - compared to, say, the Roman church, the Eastern churches, even the Anglican and UM churches are more formally organized. That was all that was meant by my comment.
 

I'm assuming that GKS does not mean to suggest that one billion Christians only make noise about the Holy Spirit and that what he wants to refer to is the administrative leadership of the Pope, Cardinals, curia, vatican, in effect, the whole magisterium.

Otherwise, GKS can now join me on the podium of arrogance.

Even still, GKS has his story and he seems to be sticking with the rote prejudices regardless of what official material is posted.

Good thing he doesn't treat the US Constitution this way.

Wait a tic, I think he does indeed treat the US Constitution this way. Another post, though.
 

Obviously what I want to refer to is the way things actually are, rather than the way we pretend they are.

The catechism of the Roman Church notwithstanding, in fact the authority of the Pope lies in traditional, European-style monarchical ideas, not some folderol about the Holy Spirit. The polity and structure of the United Methodist Church, in many ways, reflects the ebb and flow of American federalist Constitutionalism, regardless of the theological spin we give it every four years at General Conference. Would that it were different, but it is what it is.

As for the Constitution of the US, I'm not even sure what the comparison means here. Obviously, it would be nice if the US actually abided by an understanding of the language of the Constitution; it is more aspirational than anything else. If this were not the case, most of the senior leaders of the Bush Administration would still be in prison, precisely because of the multiple violations of the law they have clearly done.

The Church, like the United States, is an imperfect work in progress. Theology describes where we hope to be, some day. As does the Constitution. In that sense, I suppose you are right, Feodor.

I would hardly call that an arrogant position.
 

Pope or European monarchies. Which came first?

By almost a thousand years.
 

So GKS seems to think 1 billion Christians are without the Holy Spirit.

Pretty ballsy.
 

I never said that anyone was without the Holy Spirit. I don't even know what such a sentence means.

Of course, you are correct, in a technical sense, about my comments on the Pope. I was speaking more of the current Papal status as, among other things, the Head of State of that phony nation-state Vatican City, the last vestige of the Papal States. The Papacy, like every other human institution, has changed much over human history.
 

F: "So GKS seems to think 1 billion Christians are without the Holy Spirit."

Well their access is through the "whole magisterium" is it not? Or is that just one of my tired old uninformed opinions? Am I wrong that, that seems to mean that once again the Holy Spirit works through the Apostolic succession to deliver through the hiearchy its truth to those billion people?

Feodor sometimes you seem to jump and sizzle like holy water on a hot skillet.
 

While I can understand why he would write what he did, my guess is he was being provocative for provocation's sake.

We can certainly claim the guidance of the Holy Spirit; we definitely pray for it. Since the results are always mixed, I tend to put as much weight on the human element as the Divine, rendering unto God what is God's (grace) and unto Caesar what is Caesar (sin). The results we have before us - a mixed blessing to say the least.
 

OMG! Sot to speak.*

THIS is gonna be the name of the short story I write about the year the one Catholic I grew up with moved to our school district!

"holy water on a hot skillet"

Greeat!


* A typo but a keeper, for its accuracy
 

As a matter of fact, in Roman Catholicism, each parish is considered catholic in and of itself as it participates in communion with the presence of Christ.

Don't ask me when this was understood. I don't know if this is post Vatican II or older.

The magisterium is not a gnostic illuminati. The way you present it, DrLBJ, is indeed much more like how ancient gnostics thought of themselves: the "true" knowers of the "true" mystery. That's how they got the name, "gnostic," right?
 

"As a matter of fact, in Roman Catholicism, each parish is considered catholic in and of itself as it participates in communion with the presence of Christ. "

This means, just to be clear, that the Holy Spirit reigns where ever two or more are gathered. Contrary to opinion here, Catholics know how to read the Bible. In fact, Catholics have, if divided up by denomination, been the best of exegetes in the last fifty years, lead by Raymond Brown.

In addition, Catholics are far from monolithic. Appropriate to the other discussion, Catholics -- at least in this country -- are as divided on the current leadership and interpretation of the magisterium as Americans are on the Second Amendment. It's just that their opportunity for regime change turns much more slowly.

So, just as we live as Americans under Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Bush, Catholics live out their life in faith by and large undeterred in their relationship by the Bishop of Rome. Their parish environment may be more or less affected according to the style of the parish and the will of the Bishop. But the sacrament of communion, the centerpiece of Catholic spirituality, is available to each one's spiritual truth.

DrLBJ, I would really recommend, if you need to consider Catholicism in your comings and goings, your thoughts or public commentary, that you find someone or some material that can represent it for your benefit.
 

Sorry, I don't mean to suggest that the majority of Catholics oppose the Vatican.

The majority support the Vatican.

But a large, healthy, and vocal percentage oppose, and there are theologians of all kinds scattered in academia doing work that will stand as witness, support, and prophecy for a liberal and democratic move in Roman catholicism in the near future.

It's just a matter of generational time.

Not that I'm waiting.

I can't take the Roman Catholic church. But I value its theological and spiritual contributions by Rahner, von Balthasar, De Lubac, Aidan Kavangh, Henri Nouwen, Shawn Copeland, Margaret Farley, Bernhard Lonergan, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, etc.
 

F: "DrLBJ, I would really recommend, if you need to consider Catholicism in your comings and goings, your thoughts or public commentary, that you find someone or some material that can represent it for your benefit."

Feodor, sometimes you are so very easy. I'm actually ashamed of myself.

Congratulations ER, your thread has become a rope. So what did you learn about the bodily resurrection of Christ?
 

"Feodor, sometimes you are so very easy. I'm actually ashamed of myself."

DrLBJ, at your age your using the "I know you are but what am I?" chorus?

Whatever door you need to take to get out, I suppose.
 

F: "DrLBJ, at your age your using the "I know you are but what am I?" chorus?"

sweet


Feodor, I always leave by the "black door". the one that I painted.
 

Speaking of Doors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYRajKfZYb0
 

I thought I would grab 100 for the hell of it.
 

I've learned that the tendency toward asshatness is way down on the list of things that God is able to change about any of his young'uns.
 

Re, the Stones: fairly well played.
 

DrLBJ is now demonstrating the southern charm of defusing a argument on ideas that got beyond one's grasp.
____

But on the serious question of what we have learned about bodily resurrection, I'll offer the synopsis of what I have tried to suggest. As always one can skip it, take it, leave it, change it, or obfuscate it.

One, the downside of a protestant styled approach to the resurrection stems from the grounding of protestant theology in sola scriptura. The resurrection can only be known by textual witness and today protestant readings can be grossly divided between holding on to the literal truth of the text or completely spiritualizing the text as a genre and then needing to fill in the empty content of "what actually happened" with one's own recipe.

Two, a sacramental approach (not just a Catholic one) approaches the bodily resurrection primarily not by scriptural witness but by entering into the Eucharistic liturgy where Christ is present. This may seem to protestants like simple spiritualizing. (Which raises the question, why DrLBJ would oppose it if it is a thoroughly spiritual encounter.) And probably many worshippers approach it just like that. But theologically, the sacrament of the Eucharist is understood as a true joining with the living Christ in the whole "people's" work of the liturgical consecration of bread, wine, altar and people. In this way, the Christian truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ found in the whole passage of Incarnation, Ministry of Love, Suffering, representative Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost is not "what actually happened" but IS HAPPENING in worship, in the Divine Communion, outside of time, among the body of Christ gathered.

This is believed by faith and not by the faith of the individual alone but together with the faith of the whole church, both living and precedent. This sacrament, this truth in faith, is not a privatized, individual experience or truth and can never be so.

We are incorporated with all the host of saints, all angels, all creation, and with God in Jesus Christ in spiritual actuality. That this ritual necessitates elements, two people and prayer is recognition that we are made from the ground, have full relationship with God in the context of commonality, and approach the divine with both language and silence. In extreme circumstances, where bread and wine cannot be gotten because Christians are imprisoned or under the threat of genocide or trapped somewhere indefinitely, even the very earth can be consecrated and eaten as the body of Christ; a priest is not absolutely needed for any sacrament if circumstances are urgent enough; and even hermits receive the sacrament from others as they dedicate themselves to solitary prayer for the world.

This spiritual unity in the sacrament of The Eucharist with Christians all over the world, throughout time, and with Jesus Christ (present in any communion of two or more people in a unique and true way) is a reliving, a mimetic representation, a re-experiencing of the witness of Jesus Christ first lived out in the Apostolic church centuries before the Christian Bible was codified.

So we worship in unity with what we consider to be the Apostolic faith -- a timeless faith NOT a first century faith -- by mimetically participating with and in Christ's bodily resurrection, which already works our own bodily resurrection.

Compared to this, atoms an unanswerable mystery, and an ultimately meaningless one at that.


Now you can only take it, leave it, change it, or obfuscate it.
________

I can't teach DrLBJ anything about geography, geology, geometry or many other things that he can teach me about. Even how to reach a highly successful retirement.

We can teach each other about love and salvation.

But DrLJB can't Amazon his way to rich and supple theological understanding. It's why there must still be teachers in the world.
 

Also meant to say that Apostolic Succession is grounded in and constructed by this eternal participation with Christ and the Apostolic witness of all the saints, present in The Eucharist.

Bishops, Priests, Magisterium, faith itself means nothing if Christ is not present to us and lives in "us-as-a-body", altogether raised with him in his resurrection as we enter it each and every time we break bread.

Notice that "body" here does not refer to the atoms of the liver, but the "corporate" (corpore) identity of Christian reality.
 

Why does the YouTube video have so many misspellings?
 

F: "But DrLJB can't Amazon his way to rich and supple theological understanding. It's why there must still be teachers in the world."


I like that one. That's good.

But seriously,
from my world, Roman Catholic litergy, sacrements, and the eucherist although deeply meaningful to the participant can look a lot like "magic". Not that Oral Roberts pounding someone on the forehead and "healing" them, or taking orders from a 900 foot Jesus doesn't also qualify as such.

But of course now I'm commenting on something, "...that got beyond one's (my) grasp."
 

On a scale of 1 to 10 how disturbing are mis-spellings ?
 

So we're done chasing this ball around, I guess.
 

When Oral Roberts, or any charismatic movement, produces a movement like Catholic socialism and labor union concerns, or can claim to have formed persons like Dorothy Day, Simone Weil, César Chávez, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Bruce Babbitt, Tom Harkin, Dave Brubeck, James Carville, Waker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, Phil Donahue, etc. etc., then perhaps we can reevaluate it.

Until then, let's judge concerns by their works. Catholicism gets a mixed review. But the review comprises how enormous a network of activity in the world? And could we have afforded to do without all the stupendous influence for good from the Roman Catholic ethos?

And the impact in the world of Oral Roberts?

Any movement draws bad actors.

Not many movement has gained the opportunity to shake the foundations and has done so many, many times.
 

F: "So we're done chasing this ball around, I guess."

Hell no, it's just an interlude.