Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Robert Jenson on the Sacraments

"Recently, a priest in England tried to celebrate the Supper by television. Each little group was to have its bread and wine, to be blessed by the man on the tube. The metaphysical divide of our epoch is between those who will regard such an event as an interesting experiment or even a "breakthrough," and those who, like myself, will regard it as a joke in pitiably bad taste."
(Visible Words: The Interpretation and Practice of Christian Sacraments, Fortress Press, 1978, p. 17)
Another quote, just for fun...a few pages earlier, he writes: "If the church had begun in a northern climate, doubtless its sacramental drink, if it had one, would be beer." (p. 9)
Of course, one would expect as much from a Lutheran.