Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: hplabs!markc@hpsmtc1.hp.com (Mark Corscadden) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: help needed Message-ID: Date: 17 Sep 89 18:36:50 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino Lines: 66 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I need help from someone in this newsgroup. I've become involved in an argument concerning a characterization of Christians that I believe is wrong and objectionable. The "opposition" has claimed that Christian people accept this characterization of themselves and are comfortable with it, but I believe this to be *false*. I need someone who is a practicing Christian with a sophisticated understanding of Christian theology, who would be willing to comment in writing on whether or not they accept this characterization of themselves (see below). Any material would have to be objective and factual in order to be helpful. The characterization was stated in the following words: > Christianity instills "a desire to bite off a piece of human flesh > and drink it down with a gulp of blood". I want to apologize to any readers who finds this to be as offensive as I did, and I can understand completely if many people here feel that it is unworthy of any further comment. However I've been dismayed to see this characterization defended in the strongest words by a number of people, and I think the degree of support for this image of Christian people makes *rebutting* it a worthy thing to do. I'm sorry to have brought this to soc.religion.christian, but I feel strongly about what has been happening. People who would be ashamed to support anti-Semitism seem to feel there is nothing wrong with supporting a position that *I* believe to be no different from anti-Semitism, except for the choice of victim. Thank you in advance for any help you would be kind enough to give me. Mark Corscadden markc@hpda.hp.com (408) 447-5399 [I've certainly never heard an attack like this. Are you sure such a thing is really being said, and that you are not the victim of disinformation? I.e. that someone isn't falsely attributing these statements to some group in order to discredit them. If such a thing were actually said, it would be not just anti-Christian, but specifically anti-Catholic. I presume no one believes that Christians practice cannibalism. If they do, then we have a factual error of a rather simple sort. However I'm going to assume that the statement is referring to Communion. For non-Catholics Christ's presence in Communion is in a mode which I will call "spiritual". That is, the bread and wine remain bread and wine, but Christ is really there in some sense. (The last three words hide a multitude of details. Different groups have different ideas of his exact mode of presence. I don't think it makes sense to include a monograph on eucharistic theology here.) I understand that many Catholic seminaries are also teaching "spiritual presence" these days. However the traditional Catholic doctrine is that the bread and wine truly change into Christ's body and blood, in a sense sufficiently literal that bread and wine are no longer present. Only their appearance is still present. So in Catholic theology it does make sense to say that Christians eat Christ's body, and that Christianity should instill the desire to do so. Of course there's an insulting tone to the statement that would be offensive even if it were completely accurate. (which it is not. The image of "biting off a piece" doesn't make much sense, and under normal circumstances Catholics other than the priest do not drink the wine.) It is possible for a statement to be factually true and yet still be a lie... --clh]