Thursday, May 5, 2016

Blog Black Out? [UPDATED re the Real Presence and the Real Difference]

UPDATE
Have a few spare minutes so a couple of interesting posts to draw your attention to.

The Real Presence of Christ at the Eucharist? Psephizo has a very stimulating post here, with lively discussion in the comments. Ever since someone pointed out that Memorialism means the Real Absence of Christ from the bread and wine while present everywhere else in the building I have leaned the Real Presence direction ... for which, I suggest, John 6 is the clincher.

ACC-16 the outgoing Standing Committee clarify the Real Difference between ACC and the Primates. Didn't someone significant once say that a house divided against itself  will not stand?


ORIGINAL
I have got a few things on over the next few days and I think the simplest way to handle the stress between off-blog commitments already made and this blog's "obsession" with General Synod and its business is to make a clear and firm decision to not blog until my diary clears.

Come back Wednesday 11th May!

Yesterday, today and tomorrow Christchurch Dio GS folk are sidling away from the fairest city of them all and heading to the (to be fair, rather pleasant) smaller city called Napier (east coast of North Island) where they engage with "IDC" (conference of NZ dioceses) and a bicultural conference (between Tikanga Pakeha and Tikanga Maori) before #GSTHW16 formally begins on Sunday afternoon.

That's the hashtag for Twitter by the way (and @petercarrell may be only greyed out on that medium between now and next Wednesday).

Anglican Taonga is the official site for news from #GSTHW16.

Taonga's preview of the GS is here.

Oh, and to any Americans reading here, I do not want to read any more handwringing stuff about Trump being the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse etc. Focus! The constructive response to Trumpism is very simple and does not involve handwringing or tears of despair. You know what it is.

VOTE CLINTON.

Yes, wasn't it an American, Fletcher, I recall, who invented "Situation Ethics" ... the lesser of two evils :)

7 comments:

Pageantmaster said...

Prayers for you and for your church Peter+

May God be glorified and the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit be triumphant.

God bless

PM

MarcA said...

Reading Ian Paul I wondered why ecumenists bothered during the last 50 yrs. They have achieved remarkable convergence that has cut through many of the Reformation problems relating to presence and sacrifice.Inter Protestant agreements like theLeuenberg Concordat, Max Thurian and Taize, the work of the Group des Dombes.The high powered Lutheran/ Roman Catholic dialogue and the various Anglican dialogues with the Reformed, Orthodox the Lutherans as well as ARCIC...the results of these have been accepted Synodically by the Church of England....has this passed IP by.....puzzling.

Anonymous said...

My friends, your horrified fascination with The Donald fascinates me more than he himself does. Democratic primary seasons-- especially this one-- are earnest policy seminars. Republican primary seasons-- especially this one-- are theatrical loyalty tests. What did you expect to see this year?

Trump is indeed more crass than others before him, but Republican candidates are almost always saying preposterous things to delight voters in their primaries and caucuses. Candidates do this because they know that, to the GOP's mutually suspicious voting blocs, absurd statements are stronger signals of loyalty than more reasonable ones. Yes, obviously, the Mexican government will not build a wall on our southern border. But promising that it will shows more loyalty to the white working class than, say, Marco Rubio's proposal to limit immigration to high tech workers. And no, there is really nothing sillier than Pentecostal preachers laying hands on Donald Trump, whom nobody considers to be deeply religious. But the signal was an olive branch to evangelicals who actually are religious and are indispensable to any Republican victory in about 15 states.

In their own minds, Republican voters have not been debating actual policy and legislation. They have been considering which personality to trust with a veto, appointive powers, some initiative in war-making, and a daily presence in their Facebook feeds. After years of falling in line behind candidates selected by the billionaire owners of casinos, hedge funds, energy companies, etc, they have fallen in love with a candidate who is at least their class enemies' enemy and perhaps even a populist friend.

The deep question for Americans on the political right is: how can they organise themselves as a political party with a reasonable chance of electing Presidents? Without a President, the Republican Party tends to be a centreless, leaderless movement easily co-opted by its billionaires for their obvious class interests. Against those billionaires, the peasants with pitchforks have won this year's Republican primary, but their champion has no experience in-- and maybe no strategy for-- holding the Grand Old Party together.

Bowman Walton

Father Ron Smith said...

Perhaps the time has come for GOP to exit the scene!

In the meantime, our G.S. slumbers overnight with Motion 4

Anonymous said...

Peter Carrell and Perry Butler almost speak my mind.

Ian's argument is roughly that of B on pages 9-10 of WCC F&O's BEM here--

http://tinyurl.com/gw4xyc2

--although it would be interesting to know his thoughts on C on pages 11-12.

Otherwise, the Psephizo discussion seems unfamiliar with the pages following 159, 168, 172, and 224 here--

http://tinyurl.com/go4f4y3

Which is even odder than neglect of a half century of ecumenical reflection.

Here, Jonathan Mitchican reads the relevant Articles much as John Calvin might have done, and as Richard Hooker actually did--

http://tinyurl.com/hkav7xe

(The reader sceptical of Calvin's mystical theology should consult Julie Canlis's study of it here--

http://tinyurl.com/j7cno3b

--because his eucharistic doctrine presupposes it.)

The question of the participation of the wicked in Article XXIX should be considered with Article XXXI in mind--

http://tinyurl.com/gvurn9r

Because Christ's oblation is the "perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual," even the wicked have that real participation in the historical Body and Blood prior to any encounter with their contemporary signs. However, the saving benefits of this participation flow only to those who are united to Christ by a "lively faith." Those who reject it, as in 1 John 5: 10-12, are in exactly the same relation to both the Cross and the communion: God's objective grace is actual prior to their perception of it, but they do not inwardly receive its benefits without faith.

http://tinyurl.com/jflpwvk

Meyendorff is still helpful in reorienting reflection on sacramental questions--

http://tinyurl.com/j5hpv4u

There is a guide to much more Anglican eucharistic reflection here--

http://tinyurl.com/7sk7w3w

Bowman Walton

Peter Carrell said...

Thanks Bowman.
That is an impressive set of links (as a golfer once said while on a tour of Scotland!)

Bryden Black said...

Although I have tried myself to follow a number of ecumenical agreements over the past decades, including BEM, I would hate to think we cannot learn from returning ad fontes. Two studies come to mind:

1. The most recent is Brant Pitre’s Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2015), a near exhaustive examination of the Jewish context of the meal plus therefore a return to a form of the search for “the historical Jesus” - but focusing upon the Last Supper itself.
2. Then Brevard Childs’ almost classic Memory and Tradition in Israel, SBT, SCM, 1962 [a summary is available in NIDNTT, vol.3, “remember”] provides us with a detailed study of zakar (the Hebrew verb) and zikkaron (the noun). It produces still some surprises!

Both of these when coupled with the likes of my own chapter 8 from The Lion, the Dove & the Lamb: An Exploration into the Nature of the Christian God as Trinity enable us to reimagine much of the historical tangles our Church history has bequeathed us. I.e. I personally do not think the so-called consensus reached these past decades by formal church commissions has given us anything like the last word!