Our combox pal Irenaeus, who is an Evangelical Protestant and a professor, has started a blog in which he examines the two ancient traditions of Christianity, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, from the point of view of a seeker. He very kindly praises Your Working Boy's book in an entry today, and talks about sacramentalism, and what its absence in his own religious tradition means:
This rejection of things sacramental is most extreme in much of American evangelicalism. I've met many Evangelicals who sincerely believe that baptism and communion are optional, since (1) they're just "symbolic", and (2) it's all about having Jesus in your heart. Of course, American Evangelicalism is getting much of this from the American rejection of metaphysics; the American philosophy is an anti-metaphysical Pragmatism (Dewey, Rorty, etc.). It's no accident that American evangelicalism is pragmatic, as well.The end is a dramatic removal of God from all things, a broad, ugly ditch between creation and creator. Thus American politics takes it as axiomatic that God can have nothing to do with the political ordering of society. (It's also no accident that, philosophy abhorring a metaphysical vacuum, the capitalist Market has become the providential deity who directs all things and to which all must bow.) American religion is thoroughly deist or gnostic, by turns: God doesn't do much but take our souls away to heaven when we die, and Jesus is at best a moral teacher.
But right-thinking Christians who haven't had their minds raped and opiated by the AntiChrist of American ideology believe in the Incarnation, which is the sacramental instance par excellence. It's the ultimate invasion of the cosmos, precipitating the renewal of all things (Romans 8). And this is why I find Orthodoxy and Catholicism so compelling: celebrations of the Eucharist are real symbols (symbols which really and truly communicate that which they symbolize, that in which they participate) of the Incarnation. Christ is present here and there and everywhere, and the liberation of the cosmos proceeds apace, the culture of death suffers rout, and the creation groans for the unity of all things in Christ.
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I joined a trulty sacramental church (Lutheran) a long time ago. But I'm excited to see something like the book Liturgical Theology coming from a Pentecostal theologian, Simon Chan. Good changes may be in the wind.
But it's the very condition of the "American AntiChrist" ideology you disdain that creates the most free conditions possible to live in Christ. Secularism is our friend.
Friends, thanks for comments -- and Rod, thanks for the post.
Betty, I realize that Baptists take the act of Baptism seriously, as well as other evangelicals, but it still seems to be a "mere symbol", an ordinance, not a sacrament proper. Calvinistic Baptists might have a sacramental view, I suppose.
Simon, you raise a good question. I suppose for me it's because I consider Chalcedon decisive (although I did visit a Monophysite service some years ago -- it was beautiful). In general, I suppose it's because Catholicism and 7-council Orthodoxy are so much larger and thus visible in our culture.
Good point, Simon.
Part of the reason may be that many (in the US, most?) Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christians consider the rift between our two churches to be a historical anomaly, not an actual doctrinal difference. Thus, when many Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Christians speak about "Orthodox Christianity," we're referring to both traditions: Ethiopians and Armenians equally with Serbs and Bulgarians.
That's certainly true at ground level in my university's Orthodox Christian Fellowship. We have some officers and members who are Copts, some who are Indians, and others who are Eastern Orthodox. Although we don't participate in one anothers' sacraments, everything else is done in common. So to us, "Orthodox Christian" means Copt *and* Greek.
OTOH, speaking as a Catholic, the "sacramental" view of life can also foster dependence on rituals and on the institutions that provide them, rather than foster an intelligent, individual faith...and, in the long run, individual faith is all we have as Christians.
Yes, relationships are tremendously important. But loved ones die. Institutions change (or become more corrupt). People move from one place to another, thereby being forced to change the nature of their relationships.
God said that he wants us to worship "in spirit and in truth." How does one do that? Only by seeing everyday life and the decisions we make as acts of worship. That's not to encourage an impossible perfectionism but to try to "run the race with Jesus as our goal," to paraphrase St. Paul. It means trying to live as God would want us to live. Such an attitude transcends discussions about "sacramentalism" vs. "evangelicalism".
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