I have been blogging about religion for quite some time now
and have run into some issues that are historically very significant but this
latest one takes the cake…for now.
Today’s Wall Street Journal had an article by Valarie
Bauerlein titles: VIRTUAL SACRAMENT OR SACRILEGE?...North Carolina Church’s
Plans to Offer Communion Online Run Afoul of the United Methodist Hierarchy.
Let me first explain what this all entails.
This particular Central United Methodist Church near
Charlotte will launch a “virtual” or online campus that would include church
services, Bible study classes and counseling services all online.
This does not sound too bad since many people tune their TVs
to religious services being performed at other locations and have for many
years. My mother regularly watches Mass being televised from all sorts of
places including the Vatican.
What caused a stir is the plan for this North Carolina
church to offer Holy Communion on a virtual basis. What this means is that
people sitting in front of their computers and listening to the virtual church
service being performed would have some crackers or wafers as well as some
grape juice or wine which when blessed by the pastor, would become “Communion”
and once ingested would signify your receipt of the sacrament of Communion;
kapish?
Some say that this is a “sacrilege” or desecration among other
definitions or is it.
The Gospels tell us that Jesus turned wine and bread into
his blood and body and instructed the apostles to do this (the same) in my name
and so priests have been doing the same for thousands of years. Why is doing it
online different.
We still have a church setting but in this case the people
attending the service are not in the pews but online.
A priest still blesses the bread and wine (host) but he does
not physically give the host to the recipient…so is that the issue? Why?
I will not get into the centuries old debate about whether
the Communion host is the actual body of Jesus or symbolically so because that
will just get us into a very absurd area but I will watch closely at the
arguments that are made for and against this proposal.
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