The Politics of Holy Communion

When John F. Kennedy ran for President of the United States in 1960, he had to persuade a lot of non-Catholics that he was a loyal enough American to be President in spite of his own Catholic heritage. He accomplished the task so well that he not only got himself elected; he supposedly laid to rest "the Catholic issue" in American politics permanently.

Well, maybe not. Some in the American Catholic hierarchy, most notably Cardinal McCarrick of the Washington Archdiocese, are now in the process of exhuming the coffin. Specifically, they are threatening to withhold communion from Catholic legislators who do not vote the church's way on issues before them --- especially on issues related to abortion. And so, as Catholic Senator John Kerry continues his own run for the Presidency, he faces a far more insidious version of "the Catholic issue" than the one with which his predecessor had to deal: this time, the issue is subversion of the Constitution by leaders in his own church.

Fortunately, at least for those of us who still think that the First Amendment is the best guide to living out our faith in a pluralistic society, our country is now getting some important support from Catholic legislators themselves. Upwards of fifty in the Congress have already challenged publically their church leaders' high-handed attempts to coerce consent to church doctrine through manipulating the political process. Hopefully, more and more state and local Catholics will join with them, or else the rule by clerics that we are decrying nowadays in Saudi Arabia and Iran could be here before we can even get our e-mails off to the Pope to unpack. For if Catholic bishops and priests can't pull off the power grab just by themselves, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Franklin Graham will be more than eager to lend their support to the cause.

It is little short of sickening to contemplate priests refusing to serve communion to the politically incorrect while they are flipping the wafers onto the tongues of their pedophile brothers in the order. But it is downright blasphemous to contemplate their withholding Christ himself from those who, for whatever reason, have gotten themselves to Christ's table in the hope of receiving Him there. For these same priests are teaching the faithful that Christ is indeed bodily present in the elements of the bread and wine. On the ground of this same sacred teaching, withholding these elements is tantamount to shoving the Lord himself away from His own table. Archbishop McCarrick shouldn't need another 95 theses nailed to his cathedral's front door in order to get this.

We Protestants, though, are by no means clean on this issue. A number of traditionalists, clearly with too much time on their hands, have been doing some tinkering of their own around the communion table, to the effect that we should now prescribe the attainment of "worthiness" as a condition for coming to it. Or if not worthiness, at least baptism. By contrast, John Wesley thought of the sacrament itself as having converting power: partake of it and then you just might get the idea that new life in Christ is a life better than any you could carve out on your own. Methodists who really want to be more traditional than they think our church now is should begin right here.

If you have been around long enough as a Methodist yourself, you probably know by heart the Wesleyan words of invitation to the communion table: "Ye that do truly and earnestly repent of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God and walking henceforth in his holy ways, draw near with faith…" Nothing that we've done to make communion liturgies more worshipper-friendly comes even close to capturing the power of these particular words.

But the words are of invitation, not of pre-condition, and certainly not of command. Just like the words of Genesis 1: "Be fruitful and increase." Most of the uncharitable pronouncements about abortion and homosexuality rampant in our churches today derive from deforming this divine invitation into a divine imperative, making the multiplication of offspring the sole validation of sexual behavior. If you are trying to out-populate the original inhabitants of territory you want for your own, this may not be a bad political strategy, but it makes for very bad theology under any conditions. Just as does deforming Wesley's vision of what will happen as a result of coming to communion into a set of virtues you must acquire before you get there.

Methodist Schismatics

Not hours after the conservatives cleaned the liberals' clocks at Methodism's recent General Conference, two phrases began circulating among a few of the conservative delegates themselves: "irreconcilable differences" and "amicable divorce." Say what? By then, you might have imagined that liberals were entertaining thoughts of schism. But conservatives?

As expected, everything went the conservatives' way on the one big issue of this Conference: gays and lesbians in the church. Homosexual behavior was denounced once again, as were ordaining and marrying gays and lesbians. Further still, failure to live up to the ideals of faithfulness in marriage and celibacy in singleness got newly defined as "chargeable offenses" against clergypersons. What more could conservatives have wanted?

It is hard to know for sure, but the kind of thinking that informs conservative Methodist movements in general provides more than just vague clues. It is a kind of thinking that is from first to last anchored in taking the Bible as the inerrant foundation of faith and life, and in respecting those traditions of belief, worship, and behavior that conform to scriptural rather than to cultural standards. The forty-one delegates who voted against a General Conference unity resolution (869 voted for it) appear to hold some version of the belief that United Methodism has lost its scriptural bearings irreparably. They believe this so strongly that they say they are going to spend the next four years persuading other Methodists toward schism.

Ok, folks: take your best shot. If you and your followers-to-be are really serious about this, then I have some suggestions for how you might construct a more internally consistent biblical theology for your new church than the theology of our present one. How about beginning with just five issues, and perhaps moving on from there?

The first has to do with sex. If I understand correctly the way you read the Bible, then it seems clear that you could find in it no double standard on this matter. In specific, what you have been requiring from the clergy with respect to sexual behavior, you will have to require from the laity too. The implication is obvious: in your new church, you should have a process for conducting regular and fair-minded reviews of the sexual conduct of all your members, clergy and lay, married and single.

Second, on the basis of this same principle, and since your new church will already exclude homosexuals from the ordained ministry and deny same-sex cermonies and weddings, your next step should be to get rid of all that other stuff in our present Book of Discipline that talks about respecting homosexuals as persons. Then you can get them out of your congregations altogether.

Third, there is the matter of divorce. Read from your perspective, the Bible offers a clear basis for addressing it: make divorce also a chargeable offense for clergy and laity alike. Marshall the texts that are right in front of everybody's noses, and defy anyone put off by them (divorced members in particular can be testy about this topic) to show why a truly scripture-based faith should not come down hard on divorce. Perhaps you could start by prohibiting re-marriage, and then work back from there. After all, the Bible does say one strike and you're out, doesn't it?

Fourth, especially for those of you who are ecumenically-minded, you should propose an end to the ordination of women. This practice is killing us with the Roman and Orthodox churches, whose leaders think we are stupid and apostate to have let this go on for so long. Have we forgotten that Paul silenced women in his own churches?

Finally, you should strike a bold note for ending another practice that is sucking the life out of us as spiritual beings, the practice of usury: charging interest on money borrowed. No matter that it is the basis of all modern economic systems. The Bible flatly forbids the practice, and so did the church, before it started putting relevance ahead of faithfulness. It is no wonder that conservative Muslims excoriate Western values so vehemently today. They understand our Bible better than we do!

Once you begin to take up all these issues in earnest, you will find many others out there willing to give your new denomination a try. Personally, though, I think I'll just stick with the one we've got. It's not very pure, doctrinally, or in any other way for that matter. And it certainly isn't much of a substitute for the Kingdom. But somehow I doubt that yours is going to be much better. You people are too much like the rest of us.