What's that rumbling I hear? Could it be... oh no! The wrath of Bill Donohue!

Posted by: neuro_nurse | January 8, 2008 2:10 PM

In all my years as a practicing Christian and a religious journalist, I have never encountered anyone who thought they were actually committing cannibalism as part of their Sunday ritual.

Wasn't that one of the accusations the ancient Romans made of the early Christians?

D

Posted by: Don | January 8, 2008 2:42 PM

[quote]In all my years as a practicing Christian and a religious journalist, I have never encountered anyone who thought they were actually committing cannibalism as part of their Sunday ritual[/quote]

1.1 billion Roman Catholics believe the bread and wine of the Eucharist are literally the body and blood of Jesus. It's not [i]called[/i] cannibalism, but. . .

Posted by: Dean Barnett | January 8, 2008 3:27 PM

[i]1.1 billion Roman Catholics believe the bread and wine of the Eucharist are literally the body and blood of Jesus.[/i]

Plus 260,000,000 Orthodox Christians though without the more western explanation of transubstantiation.

And yes, Christians in the Roman empire were persecuted on the charge of cannibalism. Even on pain of death they did not deny their belief in the literal transformation of the elements of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.

Posted by: A. | January 8, 2008 4:31 PM

You're too kind, Cads. In your attempt to bend over for Bill, you say things like, "the common Christian belief that God lives in the heavens above". I suspect that the vast majority of Christians don't think God is living somewhere in outer space. It's not a "common" belief. And though Becky used the word "cannibalism, I have a feeling that the majority of people who heard Bill try for a witty remark, also thought the word, "cannibalism". Granted, this is only my opinion.

Bill is indeed like the liberal Ann Coulter. And like Ann, what makes his humor and hers rather disgusting is that in the midst of their "hilarity", you begin to realize that they really mean what they say. Jonathan Swift was a true satirist. His article about the need for eating Irish babies was intended to make a point in a humorous way. But it was satire, and in no way did he believe that this "answer" was basically truth. I'm afraid that Coulter and Majer believe their own rhetoric.

Posted by: janible | January 8, 2008 4:34 PM

"Maher a liberal Ann Coulter."

Didn't they date each other at one time?

Posted by: neuro_nurse | January 8, 2008 5:07 PM

Who in the heck is Bill Maher?

Posted by: joekc | January 8, 2008 6:00 PM

"Didn't they date each other at one time?"

Yep.

I have never found Maher to be funny. I think Jon Stewart and South Park have finally brought about a much needed renaissance in political and social satire.

Posted by: kevin s. | January 8, 2008 7:03 PM

The bread/whine ritual is meant METAPHORICALLY. But both religious and secular fundamentalists tend to take Scripture very literally. I don't care for Maher, nor do I like Dennett, Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. I don't think much of any of them as people (Harris is for waterboarding and Hitchens supports Bush's disastrous wars). They are bigots. They all seem smug and condescending. Doesn't the fact that Maher once dated Coulter tell you all you need to know about him as a person?

Posted by: Allison | January 8, 2008 9:03 PM

Sure, Maher's candor may be shocking, but he's in show biz and isn't popularity/ratings what that game is all about? I suspect there are tens of thousands more North Americans who would agree with him altho they would never admit it and would never state what they don't believe in such a crude way. It never hurts for believers to consider how they and/or what they believe comes across to those who don't share the faith.

Btw, did anybody see the Opus color cartoon in last Sunday's paper spoofing religion in U.S. politics? Twas quite cute.

Posted by: canucklehead | January 8, 2008 9:39 PM

In all my years as a practicing Christian and a religious journalist, I have never encountered anyone who thought they were actually committing cannibalism as part of their Sunday ritual.

Do you even read the NT?

Many people turned away when they heard Jesus say this (John 5:52-66). This passage ALWAYS gives me cause to ponder...how can this be? It has not caused me to turn away, but I wonder if Maher is put off as many were then.

And so I ask: how do you reconcile this passage?

Posted by: Jenelle | January 9, 2008 12:35 AM

"The bread/whine ritual" Does this Freudian slip (I presume) say something about the tone in which the presiding minister at Allison's church offers the Great Thanksgiving?

Posted by: Tony Dickinson | January 9, 2008 4:38 AM

We Lutherans believe that the body and blood of Christ are sacramentally present in Holy Communion. Though the bread and wine remain bread and wine, the bread and wine are "VEHICLES" of Christ's sacramental presence.

Though we cannot understand fully the mystery, Lutherans take very seriously Jesus' words, "This IS my body. This IS my blood."

QUOTING FROM LUTHER'S SMALL CATHECHISM: What is the Sacrament of the Altar? It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus,under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.

Posted by: John | January 9, 2008 1:14 PM

"I know, that's a tough one to swallow."

Yes it is.

p

Posted by: payshun | January 9, 2008 2:34 PM

This is not a new rant from Maher. He has aimed bigoted statements at Christians for years. If someone I respected said this I would be offended. I won't waste any energy being offended when a bigot says something bigoted.

Jeff

Posted by: Jeff | January 9, 2008 3:13 PM

"What I want to know is, how's Maher so sure any of us is sane during the rest of the week? "

Church is the SANEST part of my week =]

Posted by: Hali | January 9, 2008 5:04 PM

Posted by: canucklehead

REMEMBER WHAT YOU SAID HERE THE NEXT TIME SOMEONE IS RUDE AND OBNOXIOUS ABOUT SOMETHING IMPORTANT IN YOUR LIFE .

Posted by: spec | January 8, 2008 11:51 PM

Happy to, isn't that a good part of the essence of CHRISTianity? Cf the Sermon on the Mount

Posted by: canucklehead | January 9, 2008 7:33 PM

I know that Lutherans are allowed to save the leftovers till the next communion, but Catholics are not. At least that's what I've been told.

Well, sort of yes and no. In my (Lutheran) congregation, we do save the uneaten wafers. The leftover wine in the common cup is either consumed or poured out on the ground. But we also distribute wine in the little cups for those who are squeamish about drinking out of a common cup. And we offer unfermented juice in a few of the little cups, for those who have concerns about wine. We usually save the wine in the little cups by pouring it back. And whenever I've cleaned up after Communion, I drink up all the unfermented juice;

But that's our own practice. Different Lutheran parishes have different practices. But in general, Lutherans do tend to be a bit less picky about how they treat leftover Communion elements than, say, Roman Catholics or even Episcopalians. My father-in-law was an Episcopal priest. He was a little stricter about care of the leftover Communion elements. Anglican beliefs about the body and blood are similar to Lutheran beliefs (See John's post above [January 9, 1:14 PM]. And when his parish church built a new sacristy, they added a special drain so the leftover wine could be poured out onto the ground right from inside the sacristy.

Peace,

Posted by: Don | January 10, 2008 6:31 AM

We non-Lutherans who have been barred from celebrating eucharist at LCMS churches but welcomed at ELCA churches tend to be befuddled by all this. What's going on?

Good question! Often, we Lutherans don't know what's going on. And I don't know if I can explain it without further confusing you. But I'll try.

The LCMS just reasserted its closed Communion policy, although one can find individual congregations that ignore it. But a retired pastor of ours, whose son teaches at a LCMS seminary, cannot take Communion at his own son's (Missouri) church. And he's a pastor! (We're ELCA, by the way.)

Lutheranism in North America is made up historically of many different groups, often originally comprising different nationalities (German, Slovak, Danish, Swedish, etc.) In the early days, each ethic group had its own organization. For example, Lutherans in Ohio were mostly German, and they formed the Ohio Synod. Lutherans in Missouri were also mostly German and they formed the Missouri Synod. Norwegian Lutherans in Minnesota had their own organization, and so forth. Over time, especially as the various immigrant groups assimilated and began worshipping in English, they began merging. The eventual result, over a century or so of mergers that hardly anyone can keep track of, was the ELCA, which was chartered in 1988. The Ohio Synod was on of those groups that eventually merged with other groups, but the Missouri Synod did not. (Another group that didn't merge with anyone is the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, which is smaller than the Missouri, and even more conservative.)

I'm not sure why the Missouri Synod didn't merge, but they have always been somewhat separate, as illustrated by their practice of closed Communion. After a 1960s seminary row at Concordia Seminary (the issues were biblical inerrancy and 'higher' criticism), they began looking at the more 'liberal' Lutherans, the ones that eventually became the ELCA, with skepticism. They are wary of the ELCA primarily because of its perceived theological liberalism, not because of any differences in their understanding of the Eucharist. But the official LCMS position is that only members of those churches in full agreement with them are welcome at their Communion table. In North America, that limits it to the Lutheran Church-Canada (not the same group as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, which is in communion with the ELCA through the Lutheran World Federation) and a small breakaway US denomination called the American Association of Luheran Churches (AALC).

I wish it were different. I don't think any Christians should be denying Communion to other baptized Christians, but the reality is that they do. And of course, LCMS isn't the only denomination that does it.

Peace,

Posted by: Don | January 10, 2008 12:10 PM

Do you mean Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minnesota? They are affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS), a small and very conservative group that has its origins in the old Norwegian Synod of the northern states. The ELS congregations didn't participate in the mergers that the Norwegian Synod entered into, and it is now affiliated with the WELS, about the only other group that the WELS recognizes.

There were three ELS churches in northwest Ohio that I remember from when we lived there. Very conservative.

The AALC, by contrast, has its origin in the 1988 merger between the American Lutheran Church (ALC), the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) and the Lutheran Church in America (LCA)-- the three groups that formed the ELCA. The AALC was formed as an alternative for ALC congregations that didn't want to merge with the (reputedly more 'liberal') LCA. The AALC's affiliation with the Missouri Synod is very recent--I think it happened just last summer.

The AELC, by the way, was organized out of the Missouri Synod during the 1960s theological controversy I mentioned in my earlier post. The AELC is often credited with being the catalyst for the formation of the ELCA.

D

Posted by: Don | January 10, 2008 2:45 PM

I think it is sad that you can't just "not believe in God" without trying to ruin it for the rest of us. I am not Catholic, but I do think it was rude and mean. With all the suffering in the world, why do it? I just never understood people who got enjoyment out of hurting other people. With all that said, I think "angry atheists" are not just people who don't believe in God. They are people who at some point have been hurt by someone in their religious past and feel the need to strike out and hurt others too. Unfortunately, this is a very emotionally unhealthy way to deal with people. And he calls us irrational...

Posted by: Millie | January 10, 2008 4:24 PM

I think that these comments are excellent and of much greater import and more thought-provoking than Mr. Maher's initial sound bite.
I'm a Roman Catholic -- and I literally LOL'd at Cern's question. No, Cern, not like chicken ... like a thick piece of paper, but thinner than cardboard ... come to think of it ... maybe like chicken served at some banquets ....
That said, allow me a non-facetious attempt at a metaphor. As noted above, in the Roman Catholic faith, Holy Communion is one of the seven sacraments (basically, "holy things"). Matrimony is another sacrament -- not just the wedding but the marriage as a whole. When two are married, they are considered to "become one" but of course two people do not literally merge into only one person physically, spiritually or emotionally. Yet, in many ways, they do merge and become closer in temperament and outlookas time goes on, as in the cases where one of a long married couple knows what the other will say next or can complete their sentence.
So I would propose that transubstantiation is similar to a marriage in that it is a merging/blurring between the literal nourishment of the bread and wine and the spiritual nourishment offered by Christ. So while Communion is not transformed into a piece of flesh and a swallow of blood in a physically literal fashion it is nonetheless transformed into/transfused with the Spirit to such an extent that the consumption of the physical Communion wafer and/or wine fills its consumer with the Spirit and real presence of Christ.
Thanks for letting me attempt to explain this a little beyond a typical Catholic way of explaining a difficult concept -- "It's a Mystery" hee ... *hugs* and blessings to all -- VickiB.

Posted by: VickiB. | January 10, 2008 7:15 PM

So while Communion is not transformed into a piece of flesh and a swallow of blood in a physically literal fashion it is nonetheless transformed into/transfused with the Spirit to such an extent that the consumption of the physical Communion wafer and/or wine fills its consumer with the Spirit and real presence of Christ.
VickiB, I think most Lutherans would agree with this description of Communion!

Canucklehead, I'm not very familiar with the ELCC, but probably the same issues are of concern as with the ELCA: human sexuality; the Middle East, especially the plight of Palestinian Christians, etc. Their Web site might contain news releases that express some of the areas of concern.

Sorry I can't help more.

D

Posted by: Don | January 11, 2008 7:58 AM

Ditto to I and I. The last 3 churches I've attended (spanning my adult life, btw) were either Pentecostal or Reformed, and the exact details of communion and why the internicene warfare has always baffled me.
Blessings,

Posted by: Witness for Peace | January 12, 2008 7:05 PM

Look I have news for you. If you are a Christian then you believe in human sacrifice. Jesus (a fully human AND fully GOD) paid for your sins (the whole apple thing - remember?) with his life.

Savage, childish and YOU believe it.

Of course, saying is offensive, but that false sense of hyper-sensitivity is how you guys get by these days among people not victim to your particular lunacy.

Posted by: Thomas | March 13, 2008 5:15 PM