The Craw

Bread and Wine Anyone?

Actually, in the Reformed churches the Holy Communion is in most cases only the exceptional appendix to what is called “ordinary” worship; that is, the service of the word in which preaching has the central place. The error in this Reformed custom is not so much in splitting the service into two quasi-independent parts as it is the downgrading of the second section – the sacrament – to the rank of an occasional appendix to the first – the word – considered as normally complete and sufficient. This is a lamentable rejection of the apostolic custom of celebrating Holy Communion every Lord’s Day, a practice no church of the “Catholic” type has ever abandoned.

Richard Paquier, Dynamics of Worship: Foundations and Uses of Liturgy, pg. 158

So, Holy Communion is put off to a monthly, quarterly, or even yearly event in Reformed circles because we want to keep it “special.” Pfft! Every single Lord’s Day is special because it is the day the Lord meets with us, speaks to us, and feeds us. It is on Sunday because it the first day of the new week (when set off against the Sabbath Day of old). In other words, it is God’s day that he has set apart for the grand task of re-creation. Are we going to make things more special than that?

The Puritans and Sacraments III

Was there a unified Puritan view of baptism? Some wish there was, but again, this is the theological milieu in which the Westminster Assembly met:

Presbyterians fought among themselves, as did Independents. The debates did reveal the imprecision in the earlier definition of the sacrament as a covenant seal. Most agreed that baptism was the seal to an external covenant, but some rejected the distinction between external and internal, and others insisted that baptism was a seal to the act of faith as well as to the covenant promise.

E. Brooks Holifield, The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, 1570-1720 , p. 107.

What if...

The Catholic Reformers in Switzerland did not capture the day. Had they won out, there would have been a Reformed Catholic Church. There would have been weekly communion, so that excommunication would have meant something real. There would have been Reformed church courts, with elders and ministers sitting as real judges over matters pertaining to the spiritual government of the church.

James B. Jordan, The Sociology of the Church, 1986, p. 146.

For those who are baffled by the idea of “Reformed Catholicism” there was even such a thing as a Puritan Reformed Catholic.

The Pulpit Ministry

In a comment that should cause us to pause in our sometimes, over-emphasis of the pulpit ministry and the all-encompassing centrality of the sermon in the Divine Service, Richard Paquier writes:

It was only during the Middle Ages, at the instigation of the preaching monks, that pulpits in the modern sense of the term were put in the churches, and these were fixed to the pillar of the nave…It is, therefore, a rather curious paradox that the pulpit of the medieval monks has become the proper place and the symbol of Protestant Reformed worship.

Richard Paquier, Dynamics of Worship: Foundations and Uses of Liturgy, pg. 129

Our preaching should be hefty and vigorous but we must always remember that we are ministers of Word and Sacrament.

The Puritans and Sacraments II

Here is some more from Holifield on the Puritans that clearly demonstrates the variety of baptismal views that were present in Puritanism going into, present at, and flowing forth from the Westminster Assembly, particularly in regard to what exactly baptism does:

Some of them said that the sacrament sealed both faith and a conditional covenant; others claimed that it sealed not faith but a conditional, external covenant containing “a promise of the spirit.” Within this spectrum of divergent views, each theologian presented his alternative as authentic Reformed baptismal doctrine, in perfect harmony with predestination, divine sovereignty, and the spirituality of the Christian life. After 1630 Puritans seeking a viable doctrine of baptism had a wide selection.

E. Brooks Holifield, The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, 1570-1720 , p. 76.

The Puritans and Sacraments

With debates raging all around about the nature and effect of sacraments, Reformed folk, particularly those who trace their lineage to English Puritanism, should perhaps be more circumspect in declaring their sacramental positions as the only true one. This is particularly acute when the lens is taken back to encompass the entire “Reformed” or even “Protestant and Reformational” universe. Here is what one scholar says on the subject of historic Puritan Sacramentology:

The pastoral and practical thrust in Puritan sacramental reflection, with the accompanying disposition to concentrate on the spiritual subjectivity of the communicant, produced a certain imprecision about the issues that divided earlier Reformed theologians. About such matters as the relationship between the res significans and the res significata, the ministers were often indifferent and sometimes curiously inconsistent. They agreed that the sacrament held forth a genuine spiritual reality – the true “spiritual presence of Christ.” Yet they frequently combined, with no apparent sense of congruity, sacramental themes that had once been considered incompatible.

E. Brooks Holifield, The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, 1570-1720 , p. 57.

A Little Ice Cream

We spent the last few days in the Central Valley and made a trip over to the town of Hanford for a visit to Superior Dairy Products. This is a dairy that has an old-time ice cream parlor in the front. All the ice cream is made fresh in the back. You've got stop by here if you're in Hanford, CA. Here are my wife and oldest daughter sharing a banana split.

Here's my son enjoying a 1 scoop sundae (that's the wee 2 scoop sundae in the foreground) . They actually have a 3.5 lbs., 7 scoop sundae. Alas, I had a protein bar and a cup of coffee and lived vicariously.

232nd Marine Corps Ball

I attended the Marine Corps Ball tonight with my wife at the Reagan Presidential Library. I went as a former Marine and as the chaplain for Marine Corps League Det. 597. We sat right under President Reagan's Air Force One and enjoyed a wonderful evening of comraderie, making new friends, and catching up with old friends. It was a party as only Marines can put on.

I was honored to lead the invocation with a room full of Marines and their families. There are a lot of vets who are seeking peace these days. I pray the Lord will use me among them.