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Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Tearing down walls > (No Subject)
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/28/2007 8:31 PM (GMT -6) |   | | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/29/2007 6:56 PM (GMT -6) | | "We" (at a Christian Reformed Church) will have communion this Sunday.
It will be OPEN "to all those who have professed Christ publically in a Christian church." (to quote the pastor's ussual call)
To those kids in the church who have not made public profession of faith it remains closed.
If kids make "junior profession" at a young age -- say elementary school or junior hish -- they don't need, at that time, to sign-off on all the Calvinistic particulars. (Canons of Dort, catechism, etc.) But if they do so older, or as is sometimes the custom, they do so while home on vacation from college, THEN they have to agree with all those other documents as being "faithful representations of what the scriptures teach. Some kids leave to to to a mega-church without ever, ever, ever taking communion in the church they grew up in, and were baptized in!
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/29/2007 7:08 PM (GMT -6) | |
Sahid said...Yeah. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but if a non-excommunicated would-be communicant is denied, I can only see this as extra-biblical tradition which corrects the teaching of Jesus. Are we taking the meal in remembrance of a man who excluded people from his table until they had met his standards? The meal we eat is a foreshadowing of (and in a way a participation in) our future banquet. Parables of this great banquet teach us that God sends his servants to search the streets for people who will come. With the curtain being torn, it is strange to me that a deacon would shout, "The doors, the doors!" This tradition may be early, but it also seems opposed to the teachings and work of Christ.
As we both agree, Christ warns us all to not come to the table without discerning the divisions between us, and making them right as far as we can by ourselves, with each other, and with the Spirit's help. Liturgy reflects and continues this.
As to "the doors, the doors" THAT is part of keeping the service secret in a time of danger. And it was a way to guide people into real, genuine faith. Smith Wigglesworth, a Pentacostal evengelist from England once said "If you talk them into being a Christian they can be talked out of it later." (or something like that) Application here is that the LEARNERS/CATECUMINS were warned to leave for good reason: they were sent off to not look on at what they could not participate in. Good thing -- avoiding an un-intended message. Yes, Christ does want them, and wants to have communion with them. But the thing is they still have pagan habits, fears, and trappings from their sinner-life that need untangling. Time is necessary. It was a good thing.
But as to your being Baptist/Mennonite (my mother's Evangelical Mennonite church in Berne, Indiana practiced foot washing.) that and the non-intercommunion with Orthodoxy today CAN'T BE COMPARED.
Blessings on you. And go to a Vester's service -- in English -- somehow.
B.
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Sahid
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Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 11/30/2007 3:50 AM (GMT -6) | | POW said...
As we both agree, Christ warns us all to not come to the table without discerning the divisions between us, and making them right as far as we can by ourselves, with each other, and with the Spirit's help. Liturgy reflects and continues this.
I think this is another good way of framing the issue. The Orthodox Church Liturgy fails to heed this warning of Christ. It is the division which is placed first rather than the reconciliation Jesus commanded. If I've understood correctly, first divisions are made between people and then gifts are offered. I've found no member of the Orthodox Church that will first be reconciled to me, a brother. Apparently, this is the official and practically uniform practice. I want to be reconciled to my brothers, but the Orthodox Church will not be reconciled to one who seeks reconciliation.
Somebody said...
But as to your being Baptist/Mennonite (my mother's Evangelical Mennonite church in Berne, Indiana practiced foot washing.) that and the non-intercommunion with Orthodoxy today CAN'T BE COMPARED.
I am confident God works powerfully in the Orthodox Church. And perhaps the Orthodox experience something far greater in many ways. My Orthodox friends are some of my closest. The are Christlike, hospitable, and loving. But I think I've found my answer. I don't see any reason why the two practices of communion cannot be compared.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/30/2007 7:12 AM (GMT -6) | | Zach, wasn't it obvious that the divisions Christ spoke of are offenses committed against or offenses unforgiven each other.
Looks to me like you warped this to mean "communion not passed." (I found most of your post to be...hard to follow.)
.
You wrote "I've found no member of the Orthodox Church that will first be reconciled to me." Yet you also wrote "My Orthodox friends are some of my closest. The are Christlike, hospitable, and loving." What are you holding against them? Or they against you. What did either of you do that was not reconciled, and caused either of you to sit-out that Sunday's Communion at your own church?
That's what Christ said.
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 11/30/2007 6:16:57 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/30/2007 5:43 PM (GMT -6) | | Well, I beleive that Christian communion should be *closed* to Moslems, Budhists, Animists, etc.
Probably few here would argue with me.
.
Another thought is that growing up around an evangelical college I came away with a partial notion that communion was something that could be done individually while together. My thinking on that has changed.
Significantly, my Orthodox friends consider communion to be a JOINING of a service that in progress all along in heaven, and described in the book of Revelation. From *that* consideration we can see that it is not *our* party, but one that we are invited to. Certain people may be put in-charge of administrating the gatekeeping, but ALL are *royal priesthood* in helping each other prepare for and enter into communion. So ALL are interested that everyone participating be prepared and preparing for joining into communion, partaking AND BECOMING the very Body of Christ.
Bruce
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Sahid
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Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 11/30/2007 5:44 PM (GMT -6) | | It is only the communion itself which divides us. We disagree on various issues, but not to the point of there being a division in relationship between us. The only "sin" which I commit in their eyes is to take communion with the wrong group. The only disunity that results is their refusal to take communion with me.
On the day to day level, they are among my closest friends. They often invite me over for dinner. We thank God for our meal, remembering Jesus, and then we eat. And then, out of left field, I'm told that I'm not welcome to participate in worship with them. I say, "Too late." Then they try to explain to me how the ritual meal is in some way essentially different and more exclusive than a meal where two or more are gathered (and therefore Christ is present).
For my own part, I didn't realize there was such a hard and fast division in place until I had already asked about participating. I continue to take communion among those who accept me (last week at my Baptist church we even referred to it as sacramental and we did so with no tongue in cheek). They continue to partake as well. They are convinced that it is I who am doing the dividing, and they are seeking to be reconciled.
As far as I am concerned, we can be reconciled this very day. It is my belief that all life is sacramental and wherever two or more are gathered in his name Christ is with us. When we eat together, thanking God for the food and remembering his Son, it is happening. Whenever I eat with them we are reconciled, and whenever they refuse to eat with me we are divided.
Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/30/2007 6:01 PM (GMT -6) | |
Sahid said...It is only the communion itself which divides us. We disagree on various issues, but not to the point of there being a division in relationship between us. The only "sin" which I commit in their eyes is to take communion with the wrong group. The only disunity that results is their refusal to take communion with me. On the day to day level, they are among my closest friends. They often invite me over for dinner. We thank God for our meal, remembering Jesus, and then we eat. And then, out of left field, I'm told that I'm not welcome to participate in worship with them. I say, "Too late." Then they try to explain to me how the ritual meal is in some way essentially different and more exclusive than a meal where two or more are gathered (and therefore Christ is present). For my own part, I didn't realize there was such a hard and fast division in place until I had already asked about participating. I continue to take communion among those who accept me (last week at my Baptist church we even referred to it as sacramental and we did so with no tongue in cheek). They continue to partake as well. They are convinced that it is I who am doing the dividing, and they are seeking to be reconciled. As far as I am concerned, we can be reconciled this very day. It is my belief that all life is sacramental and wherever two or more are gathered in his name Christ is with us. When we eat together, thanking God for the food and remembering his Son, it is happening. Whenever I eat with them we are reconciled, and whenever they refuse to eat with me we are divided.
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/30/2007 6:12 PM (GMT -6) | |
Sahid said...
POW said...
So ALL are interested that everyone participating be prepared and preparing for joining into communion, partaking AND BECOMING the very Body of Christ. Agreed. Now what does this have to do with excluding people? How do we move from this to excluding those who claim to have prepared themselves and desire to partake and be and become the very body of Christ? How does the Church's desire that communicants be prepared, become the practice of excluding those who will not exclude newcomers? Either there are quite a few unspoken premises, or this is just does not follow.
I don't think that it does "have to do with excluding people." That's not it's nature -- as Tom pointed out.
Yet we do help each other prepare, and we ourselves prepare. And without doing so we do poorly. (And even at our best we remain unworthy!)
I don't think that churches with Elders have "unspoken premises," I just think there are practiacal unavoidabilities, like trying as best as possible not to let people fall through the cracks. And that includes trying to bring them along into united communion.
When in the presence of your friends, just consider yourself as a maybe-later-orthodox, and in part of a process. Look at the good and benefitial things, which actually do help YOU prepare to take communion in your Baptist church. (Btw, I was baptized BGC.)
And don't sweat the little problems. They are NOT, as Tom showed, a real part of the nature of this thing.
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 12/1/2007 12:06 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Zach, I don't want to deal with the matter of "you" in absstract; I will only address "you" in concrete, your firneds in concrete, and their parish and diocese in concrete. Maybe with that much "concrete" we can pave the way to something. 
Btw, remember that I will be taking communion in a Christian Reformed Church tomorrow. So, that puts me EXCACTLY in the same place as you. So I won't have any "holier than thou" business from you. Nor will I accept any martyr-complex. YOu sound like you are drifting towards a politically-correctness arguement, and may choose to join the writer's strike.
Zach the Baptist: I understood Tom's words entirely differently.
Bruce the Reformed: Oh, let's clear that up first. I'm looking at where Tom wrote, "It makes me laugh. Those two words together? Closed?...Communion? How funny." I see in Tom's remark the focus on irony on how contradictory the two word's are. They can form an oxymoron.
Zach the Baptist: It is the Orthodox Church which closes doors and refuses to invite me to the table.
Bruce the Reformed: I think that they DO invite you. The problem is not theirs. and perhaps it is not your's either. They offer to let you "Come and see" but you can't schedule it.
Zach the Baptist: To my knowledge the only sticking point preventing me from becoming Orthodox is that I must accept this practice of excluding baptized, confessed, and Spirit anointed Christians from the table
Bruce the Reformed: To the best of my understanding, here, Zach, you shift here away from the concrete and into the abstractnesses of PC politics. Back on the sidewalk, young man! YOu wrote here " I must accept this practice of excluding baptized, confessed, and Spirit anointed Christians from the table." NO, if you were Orthodox you would be INVITING PEOPLE, NOT ECXLUDING THEM. You would be telling people to "Come, see" and then letting them make the decisions you are making. And the decision would be THEIRS and not yours. YOU would not exclude them. they would make that decision for themselves.
Your friends do not exclude you. You choose to exclude yourself. and that is your, AND MY (!) decision. Remember that I am making the SAME decision as I am. Same. No posturing as a martyr with me. I won't have it!
Zach the Baptist: (simply for the reason that they themselves do not accept this practice of exclusion.)
Bruce the Reformed: Your friends DON'T offer Communion. And yet you write as though they themselves can offer it. THEY CAN'T. Are they Bishops? No. They can't offer communion; neither can they deny it. Be clear on that, in concrete. This is not CP abstractions.
Have YOU approached the Bishop? Or one of his Presbyters? No, you haven't. So you are still opperating in the comfort of abstractions.
I suggest that you either drop the matter, or do something about it.
Same goes for ME.
Zach the Baptist: Somewhere along the line, the Orthodox Church has chosen to exclude non-Orthodox Christians from the table by default. At some point or another the value of exclusion (or feared cost of inclusion) came to trump the "first go be reconciled" teaching.
Bruce the Reformed: You are presuming. No, their practice for dealing with those who have been excluded is concrete, formalized, and not a "default" in abstraction you you are thinking. Reconciliation would be easy for you. You have been baptized, and you would only need catechesis and Christmation.
As to "fear cost of inclusion", THAT is a corporate things of those who are WITHIN the congregation, handled by Confesion, Unction, etc.
REMEMBER, I AM IN THE SAME PLACE AS YOU ARE!
Bruce the Reformed: I'm trying to understand what you've said about not letting people fall through the cracks and bringing them along into united communion.
Zach the Baptist: "Falling through the cracks" denotes people either members in a parish coming to communion without effectively preparing in confession and reconciliation, or people not coming to communion -- in both instances it pertains to parishoners.
Zach the Baptist: I feel like I am being forced to fall through the cracks and refused united communion.
Bruce the Reformed: Get over those PC feelings. You are NOT without a local ocngregation of Christ's Church to go to! YOu have said that. And you take communion THERE. Stop all this PC wimpering, this self-inflicted martrydom, etc. Stop it! It is not healthy. It's really not healthy.
Zach the Baptist: United communion is what I'm asking for and what I've been denied. The only disunity that exists between us is that I desire unity.
Bruce the Reformed: It your firned are you family, then I suggest that you do ALL things necessary to join that parish.
I am a member of a Christian Reformed Church. I'd rather be part of an OCA church. But I stay in the SAME parish as my *conrete* wife and two boys.
I SUGGEST THAT YOU FOLLOW MY EXAMPLE!
Zach the Baptist: United communion is what I'm asking for and what I've been denied. The only disunity that exists between us is that I desire unity.
Bruce the Reformed: You have said that you alreaady have a local parish to take communion with. THAT is the extend of your responsibilities. Let the respective hierarches work the rest out. YOU ARE ALREADY DOING ALL THAT YOU CAN DO. Continue Christian fellowship with your Orthodox friends. Go attend some of their services. Forgive their over-zealousness as converts. (Thgey would be equally annoying if they were Pentacostal converts!) It sounds like they are over-zealous. Forgive them. Perhaps talk to some ethnic or craddle-born Orthodox too.
Forgive everyone.
Zach the Baptist: I have a hard time imagining hypothetical reasons why the Church would hold this view.
Bruce the Reformed: No, I think you did imagine abstract reasons.
Work things out in the concrete.
Stay in your Baptist congregation.
Go to church sometimes with your Orthodox friends.
Forgive the over-zealousnessof converts.
And talk to some cradle-orthodox
who have suffered being minorities.
.
Forgive us all.
(o)Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 12/1/2007 11:09:57 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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