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Theological Table-Talk
By E. David Willis

AN EYE FOR THE PARTICULAR

Making the claims of a religion based on events which occurred long ago and far away stick for a culture whose new priests are seriously listening for communication from other galaxies is somewhat difficult. This tension between the universal and the scandalously particular is not something only the poor theologian has to live with; the artist has been at it all along. One who articulates this sensitivity to the relation between the universal and the particular is Ben Shahn, whose "Biography of a Painting" from The Shape of Content has been reprinted in an interesting little volume, Creativity in the Arts, edited by Vincent Tomas.¹

Forced by a friend's criticism of a painting to re-think the origin of his creation, the artist concludes that "the most direct route to universal expression is not through generalities or statistics because such material is impersonal. In being average to all things, it is particular to none. . . . But let us say that universal is that unique thing which affirms the unique qualities of all things. The universal experience is that private experience which illuminates the private and personal world in which each of us lives a major part of his life. Thus, in art, the symbol which has vast universality may be some figure drawn from the most remote and inward recesses of consciousness; for it is here that we are unique and sovereign and most wholly aware."²

Shahn could get a good discussion going over whether it is in the most remote and inward recesses of consciousness that we are sovereign and most wholly aware. Nonetheless, his identification of the universal with that unique thing which affirms the unique qualities of all other things is right on the mark. If, as seems self-evident by

¹ Contemporary Perspectives in Philosophy Series, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1964.
² Ibid., p. 29.

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now, theologians must work with symbols, there is all the reason in the world, on this basis, to remain with the particular, instead of avoiding it to get overly serious about the universal religious truths. The trouble with devising symbols of an almost abstract nature is, says Shahn in his own context as an artist, that "in the abstracting of an idea one may lose the very humanity of it, and this deep and common tragedy [of the "Hickman Case," a Chicago fire in which a man lost his four children] Was above all things. I returned then to small family contacts, to the familiar experiences of all of us, to the furniture, the clothes, the look of ordinary people, and on that level I made my bid for universality and for the compassion that I hoped and believcd the narrative Would arouse."³ If we insist on speaking of the art of preaching and of the style of the Christian life, it might be a great deliverance if this artistic concern for the particular Were to help redefine homiletics, ethics-and theology.

MISSING: ONE EPIKLESIS

The Lord's Day Service proposed by the United Church of Christ, the order of worship for which appears in this issue, differs in some respects from the effort bearing the same title prepared by the United Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.'s committee on worship.⁴ Among other things, the United Church of Christ liturgy, like the one in the existing Book of Common Worship of the United Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.,⁵ has a prayer for the consecration of both the believers and the elements. The Presbyterian Lord's Day Service⁶ eliminates such a prayer, or epiklesis.

³ Ibid., p. 15.
⁴ James Nichols, "Is the New 'Service' Reformed?," THEOLOGY TODAY, October, 1964, pp. 361-370.
⁵ The Book of Common Worship, Approved by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Philadelphia, 1946.
⁶ Service for the Lord's Day and Lectionary for the Christian Year, developed by the joint Committee on Worship, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1964.

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There are historical precedents for both uses in the Reformed tradition. Bucer, Calvin, Knox, Zwingli and the English Prayer Book of 1552 all omit the consecration of the elements; so the 1964 Presbyterian Service could make a strong claim to represent the most prominent sixteenth century Reformed leaders. On the other hand, the United Church of Christ's Service and its companions have on their side the 1549 English Prayer Book, The Westminster Directory for Public Worship of God (1644) and the Savoy Liturgy (1661).⁷

Although there is no consensus on this among other Christian bodies, an epiklesis is used by the Eastern Orthodox, by the large majority of Anglican Churches,⁸ by the Lutheran Church in America, and by the Church of South India (itself a union of Anglican, Presbyterian, Congregational and Methodist traditions). Such widespread use should at least make the Presbyterians pause before moving in the opposite direction. It may of course be that the epiklesis should be eliminated; but on the reasons for this, the explanatory notes of the Presbyterian Service are curiously silent.

In questions of liturgical reforms or deforms, it is worth asking the question, "Why all the fuss?" Especially here is there an extremely fine line between things of some import and adiaphora. It is easy for the Church here to become so preoccupied with intramural refinements that it gets distracted from the job it has to do in facing outward. But where liturgical reform is not an indifferent thing is where a shift in the lex orandi implies, and perhaps seeks to create, a shift in the lex credendi. In the case of the Presbyterian Service, this shift is not adequately explained-indeed, it is not mentioned. Quite apart from ecumenical strategy, there are several

⁷ The Westminster Directory provides that "the Minister is to begin the action with sanctifying and blessing the elements of Bread and Wine set before him ... having first in a few words shewed, that those elements, otherwise common, arc now set apart and sanctified to this holy use, by the Word of Institution and Prayer." (Bard Thompson, ed., Liturgies of ,he Western Church, New York, 1961; p. 369.) In the Savoy Liturgy, reference is made to the holy sacrament "wherein bread and wine, being first by consecration made sacramentally, or representatively, the body and blood of Christ, are used by breaking and pouring out to represent and commemorate the Sacrifice of Christ's body and blood upon the Cross Once offered up to God for sin. . . ." (ibid., p. 394.)
⁸ It has not again been inserted into the Prayer Book of the Church of England after its elimination in 1552, although such an effort was made in the proposed Prayer Book of 1928. For the other Anglican liturgies, see J. H. Arnold, ed., Anglican Liturgies, Alcuin Club Tracts XXII London, 1939. "To our inheritance from the Scottish Liturgy, we owe the . . . parting company with the defects and mistakes of the Roman Mass from its very inception by recovering a real Invocation of the Holy Ghost, placed at the proper place of the rite, as we find it in the Archetype of all liturgies in Hippolytus, and in the universal practice of the Ancient East." (Prayer Book Studies, IV: The Eucharistic Liturgy, The Standing Liturgical Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U. S. A., New York, 1953, pp. 248-249.)

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considerations -which would indicate that paring away the consecration of the elements is untimely.

The fears leading to the elimination of the consecration of the elements are far less valid today than they were in the sixteenth century. Not many of our congregations are tempted to take too literally Christ's real presence in the bread and -wine and to make the elements the subject of idolatrous adoration. It is quite superfluous to tell our present congregations, ". . . Let us not suffer our minds to wander about the consideration of these earthly and corruptible things (which we see present to our eyes and feel with our hands) to seek Christ bodily present in them as if he were enclosed in the bread and wine or as if these elements were turned and changed into the substance of his flesh and blood."9 Such exhortation is unnecessary not because it is formally untrue, but, though quite correct, it does not speak to one of the sacramental needs of our present congregations, namely to know why the elements of bread and wine are important for us anyway.

The Reformed emphasis on the Sursum Corda has perhaps intensified our suspicion of the elements. By concentrating on lifting up our hearts unto the Lord, we convey the impression that it is as we are elevated by the Spirit above this world that we arc joined to Christ where he is in heaven at the right hand of God. This transmundane location of our communion with Christ is an understandable alternative to communion with a bodily ubiquitous Christ. But what could be more profitably explored in Reformed sacramental theology (as it was in Reformed political theory) and expressed with the consecration of the elements, is the affirmation that Christ's being at the Tight hand of the Father really means that he occupies the position of ruler over all affairs of this world. Such an affirmation and celebration would do much to affirm that our communion with Christ, and not only our obedience to him, is located in this world. And it would give the lifting up of our hearts a more pronounced ethical significance, namely, of lifting up our hearts unto the Lord who is the Lord of the changing, real, good, fragile and fluid world in which we find ourselves.

It is important to affirm the goodness of creation 10 and even to

⁹ John Knox, The Form of Prayers, Geneva, 1556; Thompson, op. cit., p. 302, but with spelling modernized.
¹⁰ The Presbyterian Service includes the excellent suggestion of the Great Entrance whereby the gifts of God are brought to the table. In this act we have a recognition of the

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extend this to an affirmation of the integrity and independent worth which God has assigned to the secular character of our society. But it is equally Wise, especially for Churchmen Who speak so confidently and optimistically about a World come of age, to acknowledge that God sets apart a people for his special purposes. Such a setting apart should be celebrated in the consecration of the elements Which signify the scandalously particular character of the one singled out for the rest of us. This safeguard against obliterating the distinctions between the Church and the world¹¹ is important not primarily for the sake of the Church but in order to allow distance and polarity necessary for the Church's prophetic office, for the Church's being for the world, and for the world's critique of the Church.

Our familiar language about the relation between the sign and the reality of the sacraments may have to be reconsidered as describing the interpretive community's present activity of breaking and pouring (the signs) and the event of Christ's obedience to death (the reality) whose saving significance is reinterpreted in the eucharist. When the elements are set aside by Word¹² and Spirit they remain what they are, creatures, and are not changed in form or substance. Indeed their being the means of grace for us depends on their remaining creatures in form and substance. A fundamental judgment about history is represented here; Christ's obedience needs not to be duplicated in order to be effective for us and its efficacy depends in part on the very fact that as historical event it shares the characteristic of being unique and not capable of duplication. The once-for-all character of the saving event finds representation in the fact

goodness of all material gifts, which arc returned with thanksgiving to God. The elements are brought forward as part of the money offerings; but it is a bit exaggerated not to have the bread and wine set apart from the money offering. Not that anyone wishes to minimize the money: but pledge envelopes and loose change do not have the same relation to the words of institution as bread and wine!
¹¹ This idea of the sacraments' serving as signs of the Christian community's presence among men is found in the Augsburg Confession (Art. 13. The sacraments were instituted "not only to be marks of profession among men but rather to be signs and testimonies of the will of God toward us, set forth in order to stir up and confirm faith in those who use them."), the Thirty-nine Articles (Art. 25. "The sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christians' profession but are sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace. . . ."), and the Westminster Confession (22: 1 "Sacraments are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God, to represent Christ and his benefits, and to confirm our interest in him; as also to Put a visible difference between those that belong unto the Church, and the rest of the world; and solemnly to engage them to the service of God in Christ.").
¹² Actually the form of the epiklesis as it appears in the Book of Common Worship and the United Church of Christ Service is not complete, not providing for consecration by Word and Spirit. The Lutheran form is far better in this regard: ". . . and with Thy Word and Spirit to bless us, and these thine own gifts of bread and wine. (Service Book and Hymnal of the Lutheran Church in America, 1958, p. 34.)

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that the elements are removed from the general to the specific, that they are emphatically signs of this reality while they are used in this act. The once-for-all character of the event is blurred as much by not consecrating the elements as it is by the practice of reserving the host. It is this bread and wine before us here and now, not bread and wine in general, which are for us the body and blood of Christ, and they are this for those who themselves are set apart from people in general by their common reliance on Christ's promises and their common stance toward other men. The most intimate possible connection between the elements and the reality, by which one can speak of the bread and wine becoming for us the communion of the body and blood of Christ, exists only for those who receive the elements with faith. That is, there is no manducatio implorum since the elements are set aside for those who in this engage in the interpretive side of the saving event itself, namely Christ's deliberate setting apart of himself from all men in order to be for all men. It is true, as we hear constantly, that Christ was the man for all men; but this is true only insofar as it describes an obedience which radically set him apart from what other men were willing or able to do and which in large measure constituted the saving differentiation between Christ's sacrifice for all men and the behavior common to us all. Christ is really present as he interprets himself, in his saving significance, by the power of the Holy Spirit with the promise given again with the words of institution. This he does in the midst of the interpretive community whom he continually renews as that people whose response, visible to the world, is its reconciling activity,

BEHIND THE MYTH

In 1960 half a million migrant workers in this country earned an average of $900, lived lives of exclusion, and were generally deprived of adequate food, housing, health and education. Spanish Americans make up the bulk of this labor force, and a myth about the nature of Spanish Americans makes up a large part of the justification for keeping these people as distant from our Protestant churches as we do from our steady jobs.

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This myth, attacked in the recent volume by Kyle Haselden, Death of a Myth,¹³ is the "common assumption that Protestantism and Spanish American culture are so alien to each other that they are totally incompatible and mutually exclusive. Roman Catholicism's domination of the vast areas once held by the Spanish empire is explained, not as it should be, on the basis of historical factors, but rather as the product of an intrinsic affinity of Spanish Culture and Catholicism for each other. This myth insists that the spirit of the Spanish American is naturally receptive to Roman Catholicism and that this spirit is not congenial to Protestantism."¹⁴

Haselden is not talking only, or even primarily, about Spanish Americans of this country in his volume; and he admits that the term Spanish American covers an extremely large and diverse group of people. But since most Anglo-Americans have an image already established of a group as a whole and remain ignorant of the real nature of the people thus categorized, and since they have exaggerated misconceptions of the difference between themselves and Spanish Americans, Haselden, rightly so it seems, chooses this way of re-introducing Spanish Americans to Anglo-Americans.

The myth depends on three factors, First is ignorance of the appeal which the Protestant Reformation made to Spain and to the Spanish mind in the sixteenth century and its "subtle persistence" to this day. Second is the false assumption that there is an accurate correlation between what religious censuses of Latin America say is the religion of the populace, Roman Catholicism, and what is actually practised, "often no religion at all." Third is the identification of Protestantism with Puritanism. "It is held that the warm-blooded, vibrant, romantic, sentimental Spanish American mood naturally repudiates the joyless, colorless life that Protestantism indorses,"¹⁵ This is considered by Haselden to be erroneous, it will come as no surprise, because Spanish Americans are not really that way and because Protestantism is not really that way: ". . . Seventeenth century Puritanism-dull, moralistic, drab, and prohibitive"¹⁶ is not Protestantism.

¹³ Friendship Press, New York, 1964.
¹⁴ Ibid., p. 89.
¹⁵ Ibid., p. 96.
¹⁶ Ibid., P. 96.

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In the process of destroying one myth, Haselden perpetuates a few others: that the seventeenth century Puritans were as unbearable as the argument assumes, that present Protestant Churches by contrast are as warm and colorful as it also assumes, and that religiosity is more fundamentally a characteristic of Spanish Americans than it is of any one today. Nonetheless, Haselden has done a great service in tackling this problem on a level and in a style which will do exactly what he intends, to help many of us get to men and women behind the myth and learn from them.