"Exercise your chompers. Really chew, chew, chew."
Exercise your craw by chomping cole slaw.
I disagree that the article is not worth clicking through. It is full of gems like this:
A lion doesn't attack a jackrabbit because of hate. Quite the contrary, the lion attacks because it loves the jackrabbit.
And I thought that John Oliver line about Trump's retweet appearing on a Crossfit gym wall was a joke.
omg omg I think the xfit owner and all the regulars are starting a church together. I am not kidding.
The plains of Africa resound to lions and jackrabbits singing Kum ba ya.
I'm so weirded out by this. I thought they were normal-background-Christian, not wildly-passionate-ba'al-teshuva-Christian. I have to recategorize these people now.
I'm guessing prolonged Texan exposure is bad for one's craziness sensitivity. Like the boiling frog thing.
This is triggering a post of its own. HANG ON!
Will they have some paleo 'bread' object to take communion with?
Actually, I don't know if evangelicals eat bread in church. All the protestant churches I ever attended were northeastern mainline, and communion was leavened supermarket bread and grape juice.
100% for real one of the two episcopal churches I attend gives you an option of asking for gluten-free communion wafers. Which of course I do.
I dunno how catholics who believe in transubstantiation deal with this.
It's never come up as far as I know.
No, it has -- I remember a kerfuffle about a kid with celiac who couldn't take communion, and the church not flexing.
Nowhere in the bible does it say Jesus was not gluten free.
They'd just tell you to have the wine.
Actually, a quick google suggests there are Church approved low-gluten hosts. The inflexibility thing is that they have to be wheat, but the gluten can be removed from the wheat, I guess?
This might rapidly get rabbinical, but how much can you take out of the wheat before it stops being transubstantiation-capable?
The church I attended as a kid offered Korean rice cakes, cut up very small, for communion. It would have been awesome and appropriate if they substituted Chivas for the wine or something, but I think they just used grape juice.
That wouldn't solve the paleo problem. Could they substitute meat I wonder? Would it be easier to transubstantiate flesh to flesh? (Is that a very offensive thing to say? I'm honestly not sure.)
I don't think it's offensive, exactly, but it gets a solid, clear, no. Bread means bread.
(If you're Catholic. Depending on the variety of protestant, everything's symbolic, so it probably doesn't matter much.
Come to think, I don't know where Episcopalians fall. Transubstantiation, Lutheran-style consubstantiation, or just symbolism? I'm guessing the first, but don't know.)
19: That only works if it's meat from the actual body of the Messiah. But then all I know about theology I learned from Stranger in a Strange Land.
Lutherans don't believe in consubstantiation, but rather "sacramental union", which doesn't require spatial equivalence of the bread/wine and body/blood of Christ. (Based on a quick googling plus what I remember from MacCullochThe Reformation, which teo recommended and I am still very slowly going through.) This is a very fine-grained distinction, though, and I'm probably not accurately capturing it.
For Anglicans, interpretations seem to be all over the map--some Reformed-like, some Catholic, some Lutheran. But that's consistent for Anglicism.
21 -- predictably, there's no single theology. I believe that transubstantiation was formally rejected by the 39 Articles and thus is "officially" not part of Anglicanism but I'm pretty sure you can find some high-church anglo-Catholic folks who believe that the wafer for real gets turned into Jesus' body or something close to that. Probably the closest to an official view in the US church is something like "receptionism" (which is similar to Lutheran con-substantiation (I think)) and basically means that the wafer itself doesn't change but that the recipient is changed in some spiritual way by taking it, but if and only if the recipient is faithful when doing so. And there are lots of people, probably the vast majority in practice, who believe in it as purely symbolic ritual.
Really, the actual in-practice official view is "let's not think about this issue too much."
21.2 is all of the law and the prophets, so far as Anglicanism goes
All the protestant churches I ever attended were northeastern mainline, and communion was leavened supermarket bread and grape juice.
What were these people, Methodists? Any mainline church worth its salt would have actual wine.
23
That sounds about right. Confirmation classes were almost 20 years ago, so I'm also fuzzy on the details. I mainly remember that it wasn't transubstantiation, so we weren't actually eating Christ's body.
22
Now I'm imagining a black market in "Messiah meat" for all the low carb Christians.
I've only been to Lutheran, Catholic, and Episcopalian/Anglican services.* Lutherans always serve some sort of reasonably fancy bread, either home baked or something challah-like. The Catholics have the wafers, and the Episcopalians/Anglican churches I've been to did too. I'm realizing this might not be a very representative sample of the carbs served in American churches. Do most of them use supermarket sliced bread for communion? Is wine really that uncommon? I don't think I've ever took communion where wine was not offered.
*Actually I've been to AME services once or twice as a small kid, but I don't remember communion.
The one Presbyterian service I went to had what was probably home-baked bread.
I would guess that a majority of American Catholic parishes don't offer wine except on special occasions, but it's a slim majority.
28
Is that a cost thing? Though terrible bulk wine isn't probably more expensive than grape juice.
Also, if that is the case, the CC could increase attendance simply by promising actual wine at communion.
The mennonite church that I've been to used bits of a normalish loaf of bread torn into smaller bits, and grape juice*. But it was only a couple times a year instead of almost every service like in a lot of churches.
*Prohibition was very popular and mennonites don't let go of things easily. Most of my relatives at this point will occasionally have a drink, but you can tell that there's still a certain naughtiness about it for them.
Huh. Googling reveals that while consubstantiation is a word used to describe the Lutheran view of communion, it's used only about Lutherans, not by Lutherans, or at least not anymore.
29: I doubt it--as you way, wine's not that expensive. I suspect that it's a bit more of a PITA to manage, it makes communion take longer, and you have to take extra care not to spill it (more important given transubstantiation). That the decision usually occurs at the parish level it's tells me it's totally for practical reasons, although there's a bishop in Arizona who seems to have outlawed it because he's a bit of an authoritarian.
28.2: Really? I thought that in Catholicism it absolutely has to be wine, no exceptions, just as the wafer has to be wheat.
The strangest Eucharist I've heard of is one celebrated in a Californian prison visiting room, using grape juice and a burrito from the vending machines.
28: I've never been to one that didn't have wine.
I've always felt that a lack of taste should be fatal. My lawyer advised me against taking action, though.
They always have wine. They don't always offer the wine to all.
I think y'all are misunderstanding dal here: They're not using non-wine, they're failing to offer a cup at all. I recognize this from my youth: I certainly was in churches where only the priest consumed wine/blood, and the parishioners just got that sweet, sweet wafer/flesh.
I didn't misunderstand. Never been at a parish where there wasn't wine for everyone.
We did have an interesting thing with the bread at college chapel. Girls wanted to bake bread. That's fine. The problem is the theological issue if the recipe leads to crumbly bread, because then there is consecrated God crumbs on the floor.
39
Huh. That's even worse. Why sit through a church service where you have to watch OTHER people drink wine and don't offer you any? Now I know the real reason behind the Reformation.
The Episcopal seminary where I studied for a couple of years had a baking rota for communion bread (flat, wholemeal discs, a sort of compromise between challah and wafers). Inevitably too much would get made, so once the celebrant and aclytes had made a valiant attempt to eat the remains from the daily communion, what was left would get fed to the squirrels and birds that lived in the trees around the chapel.
In true Episcopalian tradition I don't remember there ever being any wine left over, though.
In the United Presbyterian Church, USA, and also in the United Church of Canada, grape juice distributed in tiny plastic cups like miniature shot glasses, passed through the pews, so that you pass to the next person and then take yours. Distributed by Elders, not by Ushers. Bread was cubed regular white bread, lightly dusted with flour to make it easier to handle when preparing the communion plates.
I always assumed the universal acceptance by churchgoers of my ethnicity and class of the temperance movement required this practice from the late 19th C, but don't actually know.
Yah, I meant what 37 and 39 said. The priest always transubstantiates a small amount of wine and consumes it, but it's up to them as to whether to offer transubstantiated wine to the congregation. If it is offered, it might be offered either by taking a sip or by dipping the bread in the wine. (I think. It's been a while.)
I vaguely recall having grape juice as a wine substitute once in Catholic elementary school, but I'm almost certain that was at a pseudo-seder.
26.1 is correct IMO. I associate white bread and grape juice with the sort of people who can't say the words "mainline Protestant" without sneering.
I recall once going to some sort of hippie-inspired service where the bread was a barely-leavened whole wheat thing that was not only unpleasant on its own, but was also more or less impossible to choke down without a drink, but I was pre-wine at the time.
I just remembered that, when I was a Eucharistic Minister at the local cathedral, there was a whole procedure for leftovers; I can't quite recall.... Hmm. I definitely recall that we were supposed to drain the wine chalice, and of course extra wafers go in the tabernacle.... Oh wait, I remember the weird part: if a wafer hit the floor, you could neither eat nor toss it, so you instead dissolved it in holy water. Really? That sounds insane, but I think it's true. Like, there was a bowl near the tabernacle for that purpose.
It now occurs to me, I've only ever been to some special Mass in a Catholic church, so maybe that's why there's always been wine. AITIHMHB, this Christmas I went to Mass at Stanford, and the church lady asked my brother, mother, and me to present the host during the service. We did it because we felt bad saying no, and then took communion anyways, since we didn't want them to realize that non-Catholics had presented the host. I'm pretty sure we got asked because we were the only people in church clothes instead of yoga pants and fit bits at the service.
Lutheran services usually have a chalice of wine for communal drinking/bread dipping, and then the little shot glass cups for the germophobes/non drinkers/children. The little cups are usually 50/50 wine/grape juice, with the grape juice either being a different color or arranged on one part of the silver cup-holder platter. (In communion class as a kid they told us where the grape juice would be on the platter so we would know where to get the cup from). Everyone lines up and goes to the front for communion. At larger churches it's more and more in receiving line style, but at smaller churches you actually kneel around the alter on the alter bench/guards in batches and the minister goes to each person.
See, as a non-religious person, I'd have thought that transubstantiation meant that it mattered less what the actual substance was, as it was going to be converted into Jesus's body/blood anyway. Whereas the protestants would have more justification to be fussy about it, as it's all semiotics.
My Presbyterian Church, USA in Tennessee used the shot glasses of grape juice and something that resembled oyster crackers or tiny bits of pita chips. The most memorable incident was when my youth group was tasked with making some homemade ice cream for a fundraiser, and we raided the church pantry for ingredients. "Blood & Body" was a controversial flavor that year.
The Kirk takes the view that sharing any form of food and drink will do. Oatcakes and whisky, for example.
And this thing... we Earth people... Call... Love.
The church I grew up in had cubes of white bread and grape juice. The juice was served in little glasses like miniature shot glasses. The back of the pews had a little receptacle to put the glass in when you were done, and the ushers collected them after the service.
My Presbyterian Church, USA in Pennsylvania used the shot glasses of grape juice and cubes of white bread. I thought that was the Methodist/Presbyterian/Lutheran thing to do. No ceremony.
Now my Episcopal church uses wine and a non-leavened host that resembles no actual bread I've ever seen.
My (barely remembered) Anglican church had special wafers with crucifixes stamped on them and actual wine sipped from a chalice. Everybody got both at every service, kneeling at an altar rail. In hindsight the wine was probably mixed with fruit juice, definitely sweetened somehow. But no concession to teetotals or germophobes.
50 is better than the Star Trek joke I'm glad I decided not to make.
53: Are you sure it wasn't just really sweet wine? That exists. Anyway, I do recall that when I went to church in England, the wine was noticeably sweet, but I'm pretty sure Catholics aren't allowed to add juice or sugar.
52
Unless you're getting really Pietist Lutherans, we're way more high church than that. I grew up in a Norwegian formerly- Pietist church, which meant we only did communion once a month, but when we did it, it was wine, special bread (home baked, whole wheat, unleavened, sweetened with honey), and kneeling at the alter. My mother now goes to a Swedish Lutheran church, which being more high church has communion every week.
50, 54: Same. I was working up something with Romulan Ale, and then decided it just wasn't worth it.
I still can't think of an adjective for "Protestant clergy" instead of Opinionated James T.
Classic Slacktivist, for your enjoyment:
Allow me to explain for those unfamiliar with the American evangelical subculture. Evangelicals read the Bible literally. Thus whenever the Bible says "wine" they read this as "nonalcoholic grape juice" -- unless the passage seems to say something negative about wine, in which case they read it to mean "wine."
Some examples: Ephesians 5:18 says "Do not get drunk on wine [Greek: oinos], which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit." For evangelicals, the word "wine" here refers to wine, which is evil. But in the second chapter of John's Gospel, when Jesus changes some 30 gallons of water into "wine" [oinos] that's really just nonalcoholic grape juice -- because what's a wedding feast without at least 30 gallons of nonalcoholic grape juice?
Port is very sweet. Also sherry. I don't know if fortified wine is allowed.
My church uses either Cisco or MD 20/20 Banana Red flavor.
I recall once going to some sort of hippie-inspired service where the bread was a barely-leavened whole wheat thing that was not only unpleasant on its own, but was also more or less impossible to choke down without a drink, but I was pre-wine at the time.
I had something like that once. Someone almost had to do the heimlich.
64 was I.
The fancy church I went to used to use pita bread and bake it themselves, but then there were budget cuts. I think that their finances are in better shape, but they haven't gone back to baking.
either Cisco or MD 20/20 Banana Red flavor.
Are those actual names of wines? In any other context I'd assume you were talking about database products or something.
That all depends on how broadly you define "wine."
Knew that teofilio was going to prove that he went C/ornell someday.
The fact that I don't recognize any connection is yet another sign that my experience there was very different from yours.
In the Anglican church, they usually use a sweet dessert-style wine. Traditionally, I believe Catholics did too- there's some sort of connection with Vin Santo here but I'm not clear what. Not grape juice under any circumstances. Heresy!
the bread was a barely-leavened whole wheat thing
I I think it was actually unleavened. Because Passover-rules.
I'm sure that Anglican theology talks about the real presence, but I don't think that that's the same as transubstantiation, necessarily.
The priest at my church gave a sermon once about her experience in divinity school staying up all night writing a paper about Eucharistic theology, getting tied up in knots and not getting any of it.
And then she said that she was in an ecumenical chapel service where the chalice bearer was from a Protestant tradition who said in the words of her tradition, "I give you this bread/wine as a symbol of God's body." And she "knew" that it wasn't a symbol it was his body even though she couldn't explain it. But obviously, she was saying something about God being present when people come together.
Although after Vatican II it was fashionable in trendy Catholic circles to use crusty white bread rolls. I encountered this when the Anglican chaplain at school invited a Franciscan to come and give a talk in the interests of ecumenicalism and all that, and for his last trick he said Mass and passed the goodies around. Afterwards he announced, "There's a load of bread left. Take some if you're hungry." But the wine went back in the bag.
Unitarian communion is donuts and coffee.
Although after Vatican II it was fashionable in trendy Catholic circles to use crusty white bread rolls.
Wait, what? I've definitely see the homemade bread, but it's never leavened and I don't see how you get a crust without that.
This stuff was leavened all right. But those were the 60s and they've probably cracked down since then.
Fortified wine is usually used in Anglican churches, for the practical reason that you don't use a huge amount in each service and so need something that won't have turned to vinegar by the following week. This supplier has a pretty good selection, though I have no idea what "ecclesiastically certified" actually means.
Maybe the rules are looser in the U.K.
"As long as your stopped imprisoning Jesuits, you can have leavening and wine that is only 15% grapes."
77 last. No, that is weird. I thought ecclesiastical certification was a chit from a bishop authorising you to do sacraments. Maybe it's a chit from a bishop saying it's fit to drink.
78 was me, with the link to the communion wine supplier. "Cleanse your sins more thoroughly with Sanctifex Altar Wine!"
15% grape spirit. I think that means cheap brandy to fortify the stuff.
I looked it up. You're allowed to fortify the wine so long as the extra alcohol comes from grapes and you don't go over 18% alcohol.
I looked it up slowly after reading the earlier link incorrectly.
Anyway, that would explain 53 (and my own memories of masses when I was in England). It was port or sherry.
Now I want port, but it's too early.
What I recall from my days as a Catholic altar boy was a special drain for the blessed wine that hadn't been consumed. The drain went directly into the earth rather than into the city's wastewater pipes. In practice, however, the priest usually drank the leftover wine (perks!) or, if it was a straight-laced priest, the altar boys drank the leftover wine when the priest wasn't looking.
Yeah, we had the same kind of drain and the same thing w/the priests finishing off the wine when I was an altar-boy equivalent. But I think it was just a church architecture thing devoid of theological significance, aside from the Episcopal church's foundational conmitment to genteel alcoholism.
53: you celebrated the Eucharist with sangria? Party church!
87: we used to drink it up, but people also take it outside to pour on the ground. Some people reserve the consecrated bread, but I think that's creepy.