Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: kilroy@mimsy.umd.edu (Nancy's Sweetie) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Triune Immersion and Footwashing Message-ID: Date: 19 Mar 90 06:04:34 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 Lines: 21 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I commented that I thought foot-washing should be replaced with shoe- shining, and OFM replied: >[I don't think they wash each other's feet because they need washing, >but as part of a reenactment of the original Last Supper. Well, yes, but I'm an iconoclast. 8^) When the Last Supper took place, foot-washing was a common symbol of servanthood; but it does not have that symbolic import in our society. Shoe-shining, however, is a fairly common service in our culture, and many places have specially elevated chairs to raise the shinee over the shiner; so it seems to me that it is a more immediate symbol of the same idea. (Of course, if one believes that Jesus was instituting a sacrament, instead of illustrating a point, then the use of foot-washing is surely preferable.) kilroy@cs.umd.edu Darren F. Provine ...uunet!mimsy!kilroy "He may have been eccentric, but silly he was not." -- Torkel Franzen