Posted on 12/06/2005 3:32:33 PM PST by franky
This Christmas, no prayers will be said in several megachurches around the country. Even though the holiday falls this year on a Sunday, when churches normally host thousands for worship, pastors are canceling services, anticipating low attendance on what they call a family day.
Critics within the evangelical community, more accustomed to doing battle with department stores and public schools over keeping religion in Christmas, are stunned by the shutdown.
It is almost unheard of for a Christian church to cancel services on a Sunday, and opponents of the closures are accusing these congregations of bowing to secular culture.
"This is a consumer mentality at work: `Let's not impose the church on people. Let's not make church in any way inconvenient,'" said David Wells, professor of history and systematic theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical school in Hamilton, Mass. "I think what this does is feed into the individualism that is found throughout American culture, where everyone does their own thing." The churches closing on Christmas plan multiple services in the days leading up to the holiday, including on Christmas Eve. Most normally do not hold Christmas Day services, preferring instead to mark the holiday in the days and night before. However, Sunday worship has been a Christian practice since ancient times.
Cally Parkinson, a spokeswoman for Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., said church leaders decided that organizing services on a Christmas Sunday would not be the most effective use of staff and volunteer resources. The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday was 1994, and only a small number of people showed up to pray, she said.
"If our target and our mission is to reach the unchurched, basically the people who don't go to church, how likely is it that they'll be going to church on Christmas morning?" she said. Among the other megachurches closing on Christmas Day are Southland Christian Church in Nicholasville, Ky., near Lexington, and Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, outside of Dallas. North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Ga., outside of Atlanta, said on its Web site that no services will be held on Christmas Day or New Year's Day, which also falls on a Sunday. A spokesman for North Point did not respond to requests for comment.
The closures stand in stark contrast to Roman Catholic parishes, which will see some of their largest crowds of the year on Christmas, and mainline Protestant congregations such as the Episcopal, Methodist and Lutheran churches, where Sunday services are rarely if ever canceled.
Cindy Willison, a spokeswoman for the evangelical Southland Christian Church, said at least 500 volunteers are needed, along with staff, to run Sunday services for the estimated 8,000 people who usually attend. She said many of the volunteers appreciate the chance to spend Christmas with their families instead of working, although she said a few church members complained.
"If we weren't having services at all, I would probably tend to feel that we were too accommodating to the secular viewpoint, but we're having multiple services on Saturday and an additional service Friday night," Willison said. "We believe that you worship every day of the week, not just on a weekend, and you don't have to be in a church building to worship."
Troy Page, a spokesman for Fellowship Church, said the congregation was hardly shirking its religious obligations. Fellowship will hold 21 services in four locations in the days leading up to the holiday. Last year, more than 30,000 worshippers participated. "Doing them early allows you to reach people who may be leaving town Friday," Page said.
These megachurches are not alone in adjusting Sunday worship to accommodate families on Christmas. But most other congregations are scaling back services instead of closing their doors.
First Baptist Church in Daytona Beach, Fla., led by the Rev. Bobby Welch, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, will hold one service instead of the usual two. New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., led by the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, will hold one Sunday service instead of the typical three.
" ???? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. I take a slightly different POV."
John 1:14, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."
That's His birthday.
Luke 2:6-7
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
That's what happened on His birthday.
If the presence is "physical" then 3 questions: What does it look like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like?
The greatest proof of transubstantiation is staring everyone on this board in the face. The transubstantiation of the Eucharist was foreshadowed by the greatest act of transubstantiation ever know:
When God...
took on all the outward appearances of a man...
on Christmas day.
And a happy Advent to you!
Or you could cite :
Mark. 12:28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.
Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer,
he asked him,
“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
Mark. 12:29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this:
`Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
[Or the Lord our God is one Lord]
Mark. 12:30 Love the Lord your God
with all your heart
and with all your soul
and with all your mind
and with all your strength.’ [Deut. 6:4,5]
Many believe that Mark was Peter's scribe
b'shem Y'shua
You aren't going to get me to budge. But that's ok. Love you anyway.
Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.
Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:
How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;
What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth himself speaks truly or there's nothing true.
On the cross thy godhead made no sign to men,
Here thy very manhood steals from human ken:
Both are my confession, both are my belief,
And I pray the prayer of the dying thief.
I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see,
But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he;
Let me to a deeper faith daily nearer move,
Daily make me harder hope and dearer love.
O thou our reminder of Christ crucified,
Living Bread, the life of us for whom he died,
Lend this life to me then: feed and feast my mind,
There be thou the sweetness man was meant to find.
Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican;
Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what thy bosom ran---
Blood whereof a single drop has power to win
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.
Jesu, whom I look at shrouded here below,
I beseech thee send me what I thirst for so,
Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light
And be blest for ever with thy glory's sight. Amen.
(translation of Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.)
Bread. Bread. Bread. Did Jesus's appearance as a mere man make Him not God?
SD
That could be. Peter must have taught him, at any rate.
It was not an "appearance" of being a man. The Word became Flesh! That was literal and physical and not merely some kind of mystical change in substance.
Using your analogy, Jesus must have become... bread.
I'm not trying to change your thinking nor do I question your faith. Just trying to understand the basis for the theology of transubstantion. By the way, Hopkins is one of my favorite poets. I have used his poems as illustrations in the classes I teach.
So now God has taken on all the outward appearances of... bread.
I don't think so. Jesus did not merely come and make an outward appearance as a man, he became a man. The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. Your analogy is somewhat akin to Gnosticism which claimed that Jesus really didn't have a body of flesh, he just took on the appearance of having a body of flesh. I think you may wish to reconsider your comments.
All those front loaders look blued to be.
What happened to Browning ?
My Thompson/center barrel is browned.
It starts with the words of Jesus, then we trace it through St. Paul then toa whole line of what people actually taught from the end of the first century through.
Between the continuity of teaching (very important to me, and probably one of the biggest factors) and the eucharistic miracles, and some of my own personal experience which I will not get into here, with that being personal between me and God, I don't have any trouble with believing it.
Sing, my tongue,
The mystery of the glorious body,
And of the precious Blood,
Shed to save the world,
By the King of the nations,
The fruit of a noble womb.
Given to us, born for us,
From a stainless Virgin,
And having dwelt in the world,
Sowing the seed of the word,
He closed in a wonderful way,
The days of his habitation.
On the night of His last supper,
Reclining with His brothers,
The law having been fully observed
With legal foods,
He gives Himself as food with His
Own hands to the twelve.
The Word in Flesh makes true Bread
His Flesh with a word;
Wine becomes the Blood of Christ,
And if sense is deficient,
To confirm sincere hearts,
Faith alone suffices.
Then let us prostrate and
Venerate so great a Sacrament,
And let the old law yield
To the new rite;
Let faith stand forward to
Supply the defect of the senses.
To the Begetter and the Begotten,
Be praise and jubilation,
Health, honor, and strength,
And blessing too,
And let equal praise be to Him,
Who proceeds from Both.
Amen. Alleluia.
Would your vaunted scientific tests have found anything in Jesus other than regular humanhood?
Don't try to twist words around once we have pained to define them for you. Jesus "appeared" as a man. Yet His substance was that of man and God hypostatically united.
Do you believe that?
Is it observable? Is it testable?
Was God present on earth in Jesus even though our senses told us otherwise?
SD
Yes, the language is sloppy to say Jesus took on the "appearances" of man. I grant you that.
But you know we know what the Incarnation is all about and our Christology is solid. So address the issue I outlined in my last post.
If you can grant that things may not be what they appear, then you can grant that transubstantiation is a possiblity. The substance of Jesus was not what the accidents (better word than appearance for this argument)would have you believe.
SD
The black oxide produced by bluing is harder and looks nice, so that's what I've used.
I think your analogy of Jesus becoming flesh and bread becoming flesh becoming Jesus breaks down do the fact when Jesus was here on earth He was who He said He was, the Son of God. When He was conceived He was God. When He was born He was God. When He lived here He was God. When He died in the flesh and was resurrected in the glorified flesh He was God. There was no mystical change in His person nor was there one when the Lord's Supper was instituted. For the elements to be changed into His actual flesh and blood would have been a gross violation of the Mosaic law that even Paul and the Jerusalem Council did not countermand in the letter to the Galatian churches.
And when He gave the Bread of Life discourse and when He instituted the Eucarist, He was doing what He said He was doing. The analogy only breaks down if you lack faith that He meant what He said.
For the elements to be changed into His actual flesh and blood would have been a gross violation of the Mosaic law that even Paul and the Jerusalem Council did not countermand in the letter to the Galatian churches.
Sunds ghastly, doesn't it? That's why so many left Him after the John 6 discourse. He did not correct them in takng Him at face value.
SD
T/C kits only came in raw mill blank barrels
one needed to flat file and brown the barrel.
Any Rendezvous camp that I was in anyone with
a blued gun would be treated as a "Pilgrim" and
ridiculed.
"And when He gave the Bread of Life discourse and when He instituted the Eucarist, He was doing what He said He was doing"
This won't be the first time that I appear obtuse but I still don't understand why it was necessary for Jesus to eat His own flesh and drink His own blood at the Lord's Supper. He said to the disciples that if they did not participate they had no part in Him and yet He participated in the same supper. It seems more logical that this was a memorial meal and He was the host rather than the main course, and I don't mean that to be sarcasm.
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