sdesocio
Puritan Board Freshman
I just put a new article up over at Vintage73: Are We Neglecting the Lord’s Supper: 3 Starter Questions.
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
I agree with Philip- most reformed churches do not practice a weekly observance as Calvin had desired and which the NT seems to suggest due to the faulty reasoning that it will become "too common," yet people do not use that logic when it comes to weekly preaching and praying. The sacrament has the word attached to it (Take eat this is my body, do this in remembrance of me), so if we believe the word should be preached weekly, then the LS should occur weekly as well. Not only that, but if we believe the LS strengthens our faith and we are nourished by Christ, then why wouldn't we want it weekly- do we only need to be nourished and strengthened once a month or once a quarter? Doesn't make sense...
I agree that our Standards have a much higher view of the Supper than the average churchgoer (and Minister) really understands. However this is a symptom of the much greater problem of just general ignorance of the what the WCF and WSC and WLC teach in general (especially Ch. 22 of the WCF).
Just as a point of clarification I was speaking not towards the issue of regularity but the efficacy of the sacraments.
I understand, Ben. Your post was just a useful touchstone to make my point. You did not touch on regularity, but whenever this topic is mentioned, people come out of the woodwork to declare that somehow a "Reformed view of the sacraments" mandates a weekly view. Then the chorus turns to Calvin and his supposed vehemence for weekly communion, when in reality he mentioned (his his whole corpus) the same once in a comment.Just as a point of clarification I was speaking not towards the issue of regularity but the efficacy of the sacraments.
However, practically speaking, most, I find, are Zwiinglians. The LS does not share primacy of place with preaching, which, if one practically held Calvin's view, I think it would. We don't tend to treat the LS as a sacrament, that is, as essential to our Christian walk and life together. We tend to give primacy of place to preaching, and thus the LS gets downplayed on a week-to-week basis.
I think it also important to recognize that in Calvin's day, when the medieval church had celebrated communion as little as twice a year, in some parishes (and even then the parishioners would only partake of the bread), the switch to weekly communion was truly radical.
Are you saying that the mass was only celebrated a few times per year
If I may say, you seem to be overreacting to broad-evangelicalism's downplay of the sacraments, especially if you think giving "primacy of place to preaching" is having a lower-than-Calvin view of the sacraments. Surely you realize that Calvin gave primacy of place to preaching?
I would say that the ideal is to give primacy to both. I don't quite agree with Calvin that the sacraments are an appendix except insofar as I recognize that they are not necessary for salvation as such, whereas the preaching of the word is. However, in terms of corporate worship and ecclesiology, we have to make them both central to our life together.
In codifying the Lord's Supper, the Westminster Assembly approximated Calvin's doctrine. However, the work of the Spirit in the sacrament is not mentioned
Phillip, you began this thread by saying the Reformed church today errs because, unlike Calvin, the sacrament does not share "primacy of place" with the word; now you are saying Calvin erred, because he did not allow the sacrament to share "primacy of place" with word. There is clearly a disconnect here. But we can table that for the moment.
That being the case, can you please explain whether or not the word has priority over the sacraments? And, if not, can you explain how, precisely, that works without becoming sacerdotal?
Of course, an alternative is simply that you think Calvin had a "higher" view of the sacraments than he actually did.I think what I'm trying to say is that Calvin's sacramentology should have led him to emphasize it in practice more than he in fact did.
How would you demonstrate this?In the life of the church, though, both should have equal priority.