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Meta:
Whine, wine and juice
07.25.2006 by Tim Reed
From Josh:
Yes, drinking wine is required. He said “Do this in remembrance of me,” not “substitute something else for the wine if you like, and do that in remembrance of me.” Drinking wine, eating bread, and getting wet are three things commanded by God. Or can we go about substituting cheese sticks for the bread and baptizing with sand now?
The Restoration Movement has in its history phrases like “where the Bible speaks I speak, and where the Bible is silent I am silent” and has at its basis for existence a unifying principle of trying to make the current church look like the early church. So why has our un-denomination insisted on strict adherence to the example of the early church when it comes to baptism (immersion anyone?) but has felt free to substitute grape juice for wine when it comes to the elements of communion? And, this just gets even weirder, our un-denomination has also insisted on practicing communion every week because it seems that’s what the early church did. So why do we see an exception made when it comes to the use of wine?
Well the easy answer is that in the culture of the middle 1800s (the era when the Restoration Movement got rolling) alcohol was a no-no. And so in an area where the early church clearly had a practice of using an alcoholic drink we decided to substitute grape juice, despite our uniting principle of doing what the early church did.
A lot of Restorationists have accused members of European denominations of placing tradition on the same level as scripture, but we’ve done the exact same thing in this case. I’m not suggesting that our founding, guiding principle is wrong, but I am suggesting that there are cases where we rely on tradition in leiu of, and sometimes instead of scripture. Something about a splinter, a log and eyes is coming to mind right about now.
Note:
For those of you just itching to type up a big rejoinder about how it was unfermented wine and the feast of unleavened bread and you even want to break out your Greek lexicon just save it. Because if you’re right somehow people were getting all loopy on grape juice and Paul had to let ‘em know that’s not real cool in the 11th chapter of 1st Corinthians (and notice he didn’t tell them to start using grape juice, he said stop with the drunkeness). It was alcoholic and if you’re going to use scripture as a source of authority then you need to deal with it sincerely.
July 25th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
Is there any historical (biblical or otherwise) reference to grape juice at the time of Christ? I don’t care if churches use wine (although I doubt the early church used some of the stuff today’s ecumenical churches use. That’s some nasty stuff. I’m sure they have some argument as to the taste of the wine reflecting something about the death of Christ. Have you ever tasted your own blood? Like when you cut a finger and tried to get it to stop bleeding? It doesn’t taste all nasty like some of that stuff they use. And I think some churches use white wine. What’s that all about?) I digress.
I suppose the difference between baptism and communion would be that we believe in baptismal regeneration (don’t want to mess that up) but not in transubstantiation (wine, from the grape, grape juice, from the grape) therefore some of us still concede so as to provide no stumbling blocks for our brothers (alcoholics or morally driven teetotalers).
So back to my first question. Did they even drink grape juice in the Greco-Roman world at the time of Christ?
July 26th, 2006 at 12:07 am
I don’t want to miss the larger point that often Restoration churches act like parts of their tradition come from scripture itself. For example, the moving of pulpits, the specific way communion is done, dare I say… worship songs.
Onto this specific issue. Communion and baptism are remarkably similar in that they have the same basic components. The first being the question of what is exactly going on (ie symbolisim v. actual) and the second being mode (immersion/sprinking/pouring v. wine/grape juice).
On the first question our movement has been pretty consistent with scripture (this is me cringing as Presbies, Lutherans, Catholics and EOs get out the knives). On the second question we have been faithful in regards to baptism when it comes to the example of the early church, but not with communion.
July 26th, 2006 at 12:21 am
Parts of our tradition do come from Scripture itself. Weekly communion. That’s all I got. Point taken.
I still want to know about the grape juice though.
July 26th, 2006 at 9:12 am
I didn’t mean the timing of communion. I was thinking more along the lines of a recent incident in a church nearby here where a family left a church because they began to serve communion from the back rather than the front.
July 26th, 2006 at 11:19 am
I find that often people like that are looking for something to get offended over. Maybe somebody did something that they felt they couldn’t say anything about but something as public and corporate as communion gave them what they needed. There’s a hundred different reasons, but people that just leave because of something like that probably were never really a part of that congregation.
There are others who may get upset over such things (probably for the reasons mentioned in your post) who remain and either fight for what they believe, or concede for the sake of the body.
My personal opinion (held since I was in High School and which would probably upset a lot of people) is that people who leave churches because there are problems or concerns are cowards. They are often also complainers and I have no respect for them.
July 26th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Someone needs to come up with a more retarded reason to leave a church, because I can’t think of one. :roll:
July 26th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
I’ve never met the guy that did this, but I have met some of his family. They are… very tradition oriented, and not in a good way.
When people like this finally leave a church the minister is relieved.
The really hilarious part is that they left for a church that only does quarterly communions.