When/ how did Zwingliist symbolism/ memorialism enter mainstream evangelicalism?

I didn't bail out for lack of evidence, or supporting SCripture. I demonstrated conclusively that those who are honest with the text are memorialists. I bailed out because I was repeating the same thing over and over in response to those who repeated the same thing over and over. We haven't had anything different for more than 5 pages now. There is my side which leans heavily on teh words of hte text and their normal meaning, and there are those who insist on reading otherwise. Have at it ... Ultimately, memorialism is right, so no matter what you think you are still only partaking of bread and wine. Your mind does not have the power to make it more than it is.

 

Matt Black,

Interesting comments about how memorialism got such a hold among Protestants. I think you're right, in large part, about its rise during the Victorian era. I would only add that the Victorian attitude toward the the power of rational thought was itself an outgrowth of the Enlightenment.

As I think it about more, I think the prevalent belief among many Protestants includes 'receptionism', so that the 'memorial' aspect is operative only during the moments when the Eucharist is celebrated and the elements received by the communicant. After that's over, the attitude of the memorialist is to throw the 'left-overs' in the garbage. So the 'memorial' aspect seems to be operative only when the recipient is thinking about it. When he stops thinking about it, the elements are just common bread and wine again and can be disposed of like left-over scraps from the dinner table!

In any event, there is evidence that some denominations are re-capturing the knowledge of the Real Presence. The United Methodist Church here in the U.S. has completed a study of both Baptism and the Eucharist and the results are moving that church to reclaim the catholic and apostolic teaching regarding the nature of those sacraments. A good thing!

Alexander

 

Larry, as has been demonstrated ample times now, your side is emphatically not the one that "leans heavily on teh[sic] words of hte[sic] text and their normal meaning". Ultimately, the real presence is the truth regardless of what you may think.

 

I am still trying to find where Jesus calls it bread and wine. In addition, I am still waiting for a satisfactory answer to my question; if the body and blood are not present why is Paul so worried about people profaning them?

 

That is not true, as the "hidden spiritual stuff" is Christ living in US. Any age has some error that can be linked to any doctrine we think was added later. The question is what doctrinal movement in the early centuries could have led to the spiritual presence of Christ being extended to something else where it did not belong? (e.g. Eliminate any discernment by deliberately bypassing the human mind through mystical proposition, so no one can possibly challenge it. That is an age old tactic, that has resulted in much of the dissension and schismatism you all criticize).

 

"we think" is a rhetorical statement, that actually referred mainly to your position. You think that this so-called "memorialism" was added later, and try to link it to Enlightenment, or whatever, and you don't know so; it's just a typical quick, easy guilt by association plug like everyone else does with every doctrine they don't like, and the universal scapegoat of enlightenment, and human rationality independant of almighty organized Church control. I was simply warning that we can make the same claim with mysticism and the prevailing climate in the early centuries, and no, it does not by itself prove anything either way.

 

I'm not necessarily denying that therewas any connection between the Enlightenment and the Zwinglian position. The false assumption is that this proves that it is wrong, or simply "made up" by them. The Dark Ages Churh had had the entire world in shackles so long; it provoked a ratioonalistic revolt. Ma's mind was not intended by God to be held in such bondage like that. So there was revolt. In this revolt, some truth (suppressed by the Church) was rediscovered, but then people also went too far, and rejected God altogether, but that does not prove that there was no truth at all uncovered by the movement.

What exactly is "receptionism"?

 

Yeah, everyone just throws around "rationalism". Once again, just a big scapegoat of mind-controlling Churches.

Anyway; I would say Receptionism is close enough to what I and many others would accept. I would say that "memorialism" is nothing but a receptionism reworded, in order to emphasize the spiritual and not physical presence, to the point that many later Baptists and other evangelicals would just say "it's a memorial". That would explain the change from that earlier Baptist position and the later one, rather than anyone just taking it from rationalism.

 

I would like to offer correction. Consubstantiation is a misunderstanding of the Lutheran Position. We are closer to the Orthodox on this issue.

 

Matt Black,

Thank you for your summary of the four main ways modern Christians think about the Holy Communion.

As far as receptionism being the 'official' position of Anglicanism: Although that is a reasonable interpretation when one reads the Thirty-nine Articles, the influence of those of those on modern-day Anglicanism, at least in the U.S., is somewhat murky. I would say that in practice, most Anglicans think more like the Orthodox, and would say that the way in which our Lord is present in the Eucharist is a mystery, but real nonetheless. There are those of course who regard the sacrament is a quaint ritual, but there are people like that in all groups.

Perhaps the Anglican belief is most readily seen in our practice (of course - - - that's one thing that makes us Anglicans!) of reserving the Eucharist in a tabernacle or aumbry with a sanctuary lamp burning before it. That is the norm, rather than the exception. The other groups you mention as believing in receptionism (Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.) do not practice the reservation of the Eucharist (to my knowledge) and would be very unlikely to do so.

But another thing about Anglicans is our diversity (just look at recent events!). I heard a comment about the Orthodox but I think it applies to Anglicans as well: "I don't believe in organized religion. I'm an Anglican." !!!

Alexander

 

I am not familiar with that analogy for the Lord's Supper. I have read this analogy in reference to the Human and Divine natures of Christ in Origen.

Receptionism also appears in those who believe in the physical presence in the form of the idea that the body and blood are present only upon reception of the sacrament.

 

That's interesting; because "fire" is not actually present in the molten lead; it's the heat that remains present. Fire is just a release of energy from heat, that generates more heat.

Once agian, Baptists would not express it that way because they are so used to emphasizing how different they are from anything Catholic, so they shy as far away from anything sounding Catholic until it is completely different.

 

I am not familiar with that analogy for the Lord's Supper. I have read this analogy in reference to the Human and Divine natures of Christ in Origen.</font>[/QUOTE]I read this today in one of Luther's works. I'm not sure which one (I researched from several of them). It may be in "Babylonian Captivity."