Duh comes to mind through my tears.
Thank you for framing this for us. I totally concur with your statement.
I am heart sick of feasting Christians with all the ultimate answers to the universe
in their back pockets, while lounging on the bed of empire dripping with blood,
complete with huge footprint sullying Mother Earth and working families.

One tool to deal with the exclusivity and arrogance of Christianity, is to start this
dialogue in a serious way, on many levels, and living it. Shine the light of research
and scholarship and allow it to strip away the dross in our religion. In process,
we will be forced to create new symbols and sacraments that struggle to portray
the essence of the teachings of Jesus.

I have found in my own struggle for change, in striving to become a practicing vegetarian,
one really has to draw some lines, and make extra efforts and provisions. To my
surprise, I have found I have many creative and wonderful opportunities to align with
others and bear witness to the idea, in the process of trying to live the ethic.

My heart is broken as I think of all the pain and mutilation and wasted energy
of millions, perhaps billions of beautiful human beings, while the world is moving
forward at an evolutionary pace.

Thank you, Eugene for your ministry. You have touched tender, 'thin' places,
crying out for healing. I want to lift my heart and hand in the healing.

Sandra Stutzman-Youngblood

Sandra, What a lovely poem you wrote. I agree with what you said so eloquently. Like you, I hope this forum develops into a group of seekers, working deeply on many levels. Thank you for your first entry to it.

Email: mhlandlbl@msn.com

What a good place to start the new year! Looking boldly at barbarisme and brutality practiced upopn the helpless in the name of what(?). God? Certainly not! Sexual purity? Certainly not! Cleanliness? Certainly not! (Unless the modern answer to the problem of parts of the body that get dirty, as they all do, is to be amputation, rather than hygiene.) Disease control? Well, I suppose we moderns could irrefutably reduce the incidence of testicular cancer by 50% by amputating one testicle at birth! Same for ovarian cancer. What about diseases of the eye or kidney? Why not amputate one of those as well. I mean, as long as we are about the business of "correcting" God's crreation!

Quite the contrary in the area of disease control, as Eugene so aptly points out. Unclean methods of genital mutilation, male or female, spread disease. Recently in Brooklyn, NY, there was the accusation of murder against a rabbi who had caused the deathe of an infant by infecting him with herpes by sucking blood from his freshly circumcised little penis. Cold sores are capable of fatal infection in infants. What a totally ghastly image that presents to the mind!

I have been on the soap box about the evils of circumcision my whole life, having been quite fortuitously spared that barbarism myself, thank God. (A wildfire incidence of impetigo in the neo-natal unit of the hospital where I was born had suspended all such surgeries, and I was sent home "intatct.") As I say, praise God!

Primitive tribal "markings" of the body involving genital mutilation or other mutilations such as tatooings or piercings are cruel and horrible. Particularly since they are always practiced upon the helpless. There is no modern way to justify them, to euphemize them, or to render them metaphoric or symcolic of anything other than man's capacity to inflict pain and horror upon the weak and vulnerable.

I'm not sure that I would put the Eucharist in the same sentence with circumcision when considering the aptness of religious symbology or sacramental practice. I agree, Eugene, that cannibalism--eating flesh and drinking blood--is indeed a strange idea to find itslef sacramentalized and at the the core of so much of Christian worship. But the Eucharist causes no harm and does contain withnin it the symbolic idea of "Him in us and we in Him." The intermingling of spiritual essences, so to speak. The "urge to merge," as one of my profs in college used to jokingly call the dsire of Buddhists for Nirvana, but in Christian terms. I still can find a great deal of meaning in symbols and metaphors that point to the indwelling spirit. Emmanuel. God with us and within us.

A really good start to the new year's discussions, Eugene.

Email: rclarsen@otponline.net

Yes, Bob, you hit a profound point. Holy Communion symbolically points towards our dwelling (through the Holy Spirt) in Christ and Christ in us. Eating is a perfect symbolic action to carry this meaning---we 'take in',when we eat.

I cannot resist quoting from Bishop Spong's book THIS HEBREW LORD which I am currently reading. Please excuse the length of this quote, but it does such a good job of defining what CHRIST means--at least in Spong's view.

"the key to the Fourth Gospel , I believe is our ability to distinguish between Jesus and Christ. They are not the same. Jeus was a person;Christ is a title. Jeus was a history; Christ is beyond history. The name of our lord was not Jesus Christ, as so many of us suppose. He was Jesus of Nazareth,about whom people made the startling and revolutionary claim; "You are the Christ." Time after time in historic episode after historic episode, the claim has been made that through Jesus,God was revealed---fully....
ANd who is God? God is the source of life. God is the source of love .God is the ground of being. In Jesus of Nazareth, men and women saw the fulness of life being lived, the depth of love being shared,the courage to be being revealed.He revealed God, and whenever God is seen in human life, that power is called Christ( or the one,annointed with this power).
To be in this Christ is to come alive. It is to dare to love ,to dare to be.The pathway to such a life,however,lies in opening ourselves to all that Christpower means."(145-147)

Being instilled with this Christpower is at the heart of the Holy Communion. What symbols better convey this than bread and wine ,based on Passover which celebrates freedom and new life?

Email: mhlandlbl@msn.com

In my opinion, in the "Vast Supper" of the historical Jesus, eating together is the most helpful symbol. In the Last Supper of later tradition (Spong's Christ part), the bread and the cup become the most helpful symbols. Eating together focuses on the group. The bread and the cup focus on the individual. I think Jesus would have preferred that we had stayed with the group until all people on the globe could eat together in peace. The bread in the Didache is the symbol of the group and not the body of Jesus. For me that is closer to Jesus of Nazareth.

Email: d2mryan@verizon.net

It's the violent attonement doctrine that I find disturbing and makes the connection between the Eucharist and other blood practices like circumcision. Did you see Mel Gibson’s “Passion” movie, oh my god! The blood sacrifice was barbaric but the theaters are filled with weeping Christians and alter calls bring droves to their knees. This grotesquely kitsch movie has set us back a thousand years! The fact that the movie is a record breaking success is proof that the bloody atonement theory somehow appeals to a primal survival instinct.

So, do we have the courage to throw out the baby and the bloody bathwater? Or do we take a chance that our metaphorical interpretation will filter down to the great unwashed? The United Nations is begging us to take the lead in rejecting barbaric rituals, not just creating fancy theological footwork to ease our consciences. I agree with David that the Didache presents a much healthier symbol base for communion.

David, that is one of the most beautiful things you have ever said in the time we have been communicating! "Eating together as the prevailing symbol of inclusion and helping, until such time as we can ALL eat together in peace." if I my paraphrase you. Separating the breaed and the cup from their purpose and function, as is done in all the "con" versus "transubstantiation" theologizing that has supervened over the centuries, does take the earthy pith out of the symbol. The coarsemess of the bread and the tang of the wine, the sensations of swallowing and nourishment and looking into the faces of those in the group. At our Eucharist, everyone is individually called by name and looked at in the eyes as the elements are distributed.

Recent sermons at my church have on several occasions been about how often Jesus ate with people--all kinds of people sinners, publicans, you name it.

In France, where the forms of "politesse" are rigorous and subtle, the ultimate compliment, the ultimate acceptance, the ultimate act of friendship is being invited into the home to sit at the family table for a meal. Often, initial social invitations are to eat a meal out at a restaurant where the host foots the bill. To be invited home is to have "arrived."

Email: rclarsen@otponline.net

Bob, I love what you said about the meaning of French hospitality when invited into 'the home' . When that happens you have 'really arrived'

Eugene, remember when Borg said that the Atonement doctrine only came into theological dominence about nine hundred years ago. For the sake of creative faith, why don't we let that go, and focus instead on David's notion of shared bread and wine and Bob's notion of hospitality. Put those two together, and we come up with something more akin to a marriage banquet which symbolizes the joy of the Kingdom of God. Holy Eucharist has often been seen in this light also, as the prototype of the Kingdom's banquet where all are joined together,and commune with God. Why don't we go back to this notion? What do you think?

Email: mhlandlbl@msn.com

Let’s not pretend that the Eucharist is some super sacred sacrament that’s been unspoiled by abuse and power mongering. Like it’s cousin sacrament, holy matrimony, Communion is still frequently denied "unrepentant" homosexuals. In fact many denominations forbid homosexual individuals from any involvement with the cup or bread including serving it. The Catholics forbid women from serving but allow gay priests to do so provided they keep their philandering a secret or let their Bishop transfer them to another parish. So I don’t have much awe or even esteem for the cup and wafer in any format. The hurt I’ve felt myself and empathy for others who have been destroyed by shame and guilt is symbolized in the denial of communion or “conditional” second-class status at the table.

I think it’s a bit more poetic in the high churches, but in the believers churches, there is little of David’s vast supper metaphor involved. Jesus died on the cross for your sins and Jesus asked us to drink wine and eat bread to commemorate his blood and body in death so you better do it or you’ll go to hell. And that’s probably where a big percentage of US Christians are at.

So, I’m at the point where I don’t want to partake of this ritual anymore. Not only because of the blood and violence but also simply because not all are invited to the table.

Eugene, I hear and understand all the bitterness and sadness in your response to the sacrament of the Eucharist. I'm gay, too! The withholding of a sacrament used as a punishment for the unrepentent "sinner" is much like a manipulative wife witholding sex from her husband in order to get that new hat! How petty and how unloving, and how ultimately un-Christian.

At my church we practice "open communion," where everyone, baptised or not, confirmed or not, believer or not, is welcome at God's altar. From the steps to the altar, everyone is unconditionally welcomed and fed. How different is that from your experience of the Eucharist?

Now, if we can get the same access to matrimony, or at least the blessing of same sex unions, we will be making progress toward inclusion and the fulfillment of the gospel of unconditional love. Here at St. Paul's in Norwalk and in the Episcopal Diocese of CT, we are working on it.

Email: rclarsen@otponline.net

Dear Eugene, I hear your bitterness and sadness,too. I more understand why you refused to receive Holy Communion when I invited you to do so on Christmas Eve at the Church of the Redeemer.

One minor correction. I attended a Roman Catholic church last October in New Hampshire. It did have women Eucharistic lay minister who were administering the host and the wine. But, in both Roman Catholic Churches and in Orthodox Churches , the Holy Eucharist is closed to all to do not belong to those faiths. Like Bob, I rejoice in an open altar invitation. I don't know any Christians who receive Holy Communion because they fear going to hell if they don't.Then, you are always telling me that many Episcopalians are more thelogically sophisticated than our more literalistic or legalistic bretheren or sisteren!!

I receive Holy Communion every week. Like you, Eugene, I no longer can believe in the bloody sacrifice of Christ for our sins. The whole imagery is repugnant to me. But, I receive it for the sake to the "communion" I experience. Every week I feel a sense of unity at that moment with the whole worshipping community.ANd I feel a loving union or "indwelling" of the Spirit in my soul.It is for me a real 'communion" It tenderly and beautifully dramatizes what the Kingdom of God on Earth should be. It does bring it to earth, if just for a little while.

Email: mhlandlbl@msn.com

In response to the latest collage...

All children of "The Book." Youthful faces full of promise, indoctrinated with Torah, Bible and Koran, which are mere episodes in "The Book" which informs all of the students in the "Sons of Abraham Academy."


When exaggerated, irrational claims are made for this "Book," when faith statements drawn from this "Book" are presented as geo-political strategy, as scientific or historical fact, then those shiny young faces become the faces of terrorism, oppression, and murder. Then poetry about God becomes a handbook for the most abject and evil brutality immaginable.

How many times must this situationa be made known to us before we place this "highly overrated Book"--Dr. Norman Pittinger's phrase--in a context where it can be inspiriationl rather than demonic?

Email: rclarsen@otponline.net