tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post117048543229725705..comments2023-10-10T09:50:34.565-07:00Comments on Find and Ye Shall Seek: Gatekeepers and outsidersMystical Seekerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-1170781686943673822007-02-06T09:08:00.000-08:002007-02-06T09:08:00.000-08:00Grace, you do pose an interesting question. I don...Grace, you do pose an interesting question. I don't know if there is a single answer to that question. I guess it might depend on the individual.and probably also it depends on how the sacrament is described when it is presented to the congregation.Mystical Seekerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-1170705162363136882007-02-05T11:52:00.000-08:002007-02-05T11:52:00.000-08:00Grace, I don't take the position that the pre-East...Grace, I don't take the position that the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Christianity were completely different. This is the position that a Jewish scholar, Amy-Jill Levine, has essentially taken, and I disagree with that. Nor do I think that the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Christ were the same either. I think there was an evolution of Christology over time, and this evolution can be seen from reading the letters of Paul and then the synoptics, and finally John.<BR/><BR/>I doubt that the hymn that you quote from comes from as early as 20 AD, since that would have been <I>before</I> Jesus's own ministry. The dating of that hymn is subject to debate, but we do know that it is included in a letter by Paul that was written <I>after</I> the death of Jesus. In any case, it describes Jesus as being "in the form" (or in the "image") of God, as it then goes on to say that he was "in the form" of a slave ("In the nature God" is how the NIV, which often interjects its own conservative theology into its translations, chooses to translate this.) This hymn clearly praises Jesus, as Paul himself elsewhere praised Jesus as having been exalted into God's presence. Paul certainly believed in Jesus's special divine role, and I don't think anyone disputes that.<BR/><BR/>Note that Paul also expresses an adoptionist view elsewhere, in the epistle to the Romans, where he says that it was during the resurrection that he was made the Son of God. And Paul, I might add, indicated in 1 Chronicles that the nature of his experience of the risen Christ, which was visionary, was the same as the nature of the experience of the risen Christ by those who preceded him. Thus he was not making any reference to a physical, bodily resurrection, but to a vision of the exalted Jesus in heaven. The physical resurrection stories didn't show up in biblical writings until some 40-45 years after Jesus died.<BR/><BR/>My point here is simply to note that it is a huge fallacy to argue, as the blogger I mentioned in my posting did, that simply because the post-Easter writings came from the post-Easter Christian community, we have no choice but to accept the lens through which those works were written as the only possible way of understanding Jesus's life. This attitude ignores the array of scholarly tools at our disposal than can help make a serious effort at gettign a handle on the historical Jesus.Mystical Seekerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-1170686317227940362007-02-05T06:38:00.000-08:002007-02-05T06:38:00.000-08:00Grace, I disagree with you that scholars such as t...Grace, I disagree with you that scholars such as those you mention are beginning with the presuppositions that you have described. The specific ones you mentioned may or may not be correct in their interpretation of what kind of ministry Jesus had, but my observation has been that those characterizations are conclusions based on scholarly inference, using the tools at their disposal, and are not presuppositions or starting points. This is a quite different from what we often find among orthodox apologists for the faith, where they take a certain kind of post-Easter orthodox filter at face value, refusing to delve into any layering or traditioning process that may have preceded the written texts, and rejecting any finding that contradicts the dogma.Mystical Seekerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-1170572626923562322007-02-03T23:03:00.000-08:002007-02-03T23:03:00.000-08:00Cynthia, you raise an interesting point about the ...Cynthia, you raise an interesting point about the UCC requiring licensed or ordained ministers to be the ones to administer the sacraments. The UCC doesn't call its pastors "priests", but in a sense they are still expected to perform a priestly duty.Mystical Seekerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-1170527362074130532007-02-03T10:29:00.000-08:002007-02-03T10:29:00.000-08:00The other sticking point in the UCC is that only o...The other sticking point in the UCC is that only ordained or licensed ministers can officiate, as if the clergy say the magic words and God appears.<BR/><BR/>I understand sacrament to be making visible and tangible that experience of God which is invisible and intangible. It is we who have need of ritual, not God. When I gave birth to my first child, I realized that she was baptized in the waters of my womb, that she was nourished by my body and blood. Baptism and communion are ways we realize our God-given sacredness, our unity as children of God, and live out Jesus' mandate that all are welcome. Yet these very rituals also illustrate the Church's exclusionary nature as well, showing us just how much work there is yet to do.Cynthiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29128991.post-1170515286033710602007-02-03T07:08:00.000-08:002007-02-03T07:08:00.000-08:00I agree wholeheartedly. The way I see the closed ...I agree wholeheartedly. The way I see the closed communion, gatekeepers as you have so aptly labeled them, is that people are standing between ourselves and God, choosing who is worthy of the kingdom and denying the very work of Christ through the Holy Sacraments. For the record I am a cradle Episcopalian.<BR/><BR/>The Lord has invited us all to his table!Anniehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16953544682005776731noreply@blogger.com