What do you use in church?

[DanSSwing]

We use kosher wine some months and various reds other months, but there is also always a ring of grape juice for those that don't want alcohol for various reasons. Each elder is assigned a month where they buy the wine, so we get a variety.

Kosher wine? I, for one, only drink wine that doesn't have pork in it.

 

[SeanPatrickCornell]

EDIT: Nevermind.

 

[therussellhome]

It wasn't an option but my church offers both wine (probably something cheap/generic) and grape juice in prepackaged cups. Sharing communion feels wierd when everyone has to peal the seal off their micro cracker and few mL of wine. At times I cannot help but think of bad scifi movies where the family would sit at the table for supper with just a pill on their plates.

 

[Northern Crofter]

That is a fascinating resource. It's intriguing that the use of shortbread seems to have been largely an older custom (from a 19th century perspective) and limited to more rural areas, where the "ordinary bread" may have been more like oatcakes. In one of the sources, the desire to use shortbread is indeed linked with the idea of serving the "best" bread, and the shift from claret to port is attributed to the same desire. Yet port seems viewed as an innovation in the 19th century, whereas shortbread was seen as old-fashioned, so they aren't exactly parallel. It's certainly a plausible desire, alongside the unleavened nature of shortbread.

In another source the rarity of communion in 16th-17th century Scottish churches (annually in each parish, though communicants might travel to have communion more often) is attributed in part to cost factors, especially due to the laity taking long draughts on the wine in reaction to the withholding of the cup from the laity in the Medieval tradition! That was a factor in the frequency of communion I hadn't considered, and seems plausible as explaining part of the disjunct between the Westminster Directory of Public Worship's encouragement toward "frequent" administration of the sacrament and its historical infrequency in Scottish Presbyterian churches.

I would question whether there is a "disjunct between the Westminster Directory of Public Worship's encouragement toward "frequent" administration of the sacrament and its historical infrequency in Scottish Presbyterian churches." There seems to be a modern assumption as to what frequent/often means. For example, the Larger Catechism does use the word "often" in reference to how often the Lord's Supper should be observed but only in contrast to the belief "that baptism is to be administered but once" (LC 177). Yes, some of the English Assembly members were agitating for weekly observation of the Lord's Supper and "frequent" is seen by some as the language of charitable compromise, but the Scots commissioners were united in their opposition to such a definition. The "historical infrequency in Scottish Presbyterian churches" is a modern judgment that would have confused the Scots at that time - they believed celebrating 4 times a year was frequent: "Foure times in the yeare we think sufficient to the administration of the Lords Table...." (Scots First book of Church Discipline (1560) The ninth head concerning the policie of the kirk) in contrast to the medieval Romanism in Scotland which offered Mass every week but only required it once a year: "Your honours are not ignorant how superstitiously the people run to that action at Pasche, even as [if] the time gave virtue to the sacrament; and how the rest of the whole year they are careless and negligent" (Ibid.). It is worth noting that Calvin, who early on advocated a weekly observance, changed his stance after being introduced to Knox in 1554 - Calvin wrote later that in Geneva, “we celebrate the Lord’s Supper four times a year” (Calvin, Selected Works, VI. p.162). The Scottish (and Dutch) Churches celebrated seasonally and did not consider that to be infrequent.

If anyone is in need of a sleep aid, I have attached a paper I submitted to the RPCNA Synod years ago to support (unsuccessfully) maintaining/reviving seasonal observance.

 

[Eyedoc84]

I would question whether there is a "disjunct between the Westminster Directory of Public Worship's encouragement toward "frequent" administration of the sacrament and its historical infrequency in Scottish Presbyterian churches." There seems to be a modern assumption as to what frequent/often means. For example, the Larger Catechism does use the word "often" in reference to how often the Lord's Supper should be observed but only in contrast to the belief "that baptism is to be administered but once" (LC 177). Yes, some of the English Assembly members were agitating for weekly observation of the Lord's Supper and "frequent" is seen by some as the language of charitable compromise, but the Scots commissioners were united in their opposition to such a definition. The "historical infrequency in Scottish Presbyterian churches" is a modern judgment that would have confused the Scots at that time - they believed celebrating 4 times a year was frequent: "Foure times in the yeare we think sufficient to the administration of the Lords Table...." (Scots First book of Church Discipline (1560) The ninth head concerning the policie of the kirk) in contrast to the medieval Romanism in Scotland which offered Mass every week but only required it once a year: "Your honours are not ignorant how superstitiously the people run to that action at Pasche, even as [if] the time gave virtue to the sacrament; and how the rest of the whole year they are careless and negligent" (Ibid.). It is worth noting that Calvin, who early on advocated a weekly observance, changed his stance after being introduced to Knox in 1554 - Calvin wrote later that in Geneva, “we celebrate the Lord’s Supper four times a year” (Calvin, Selected Works, VI. p.162). The Scottish (and Dutch) Churches celebrated seasonally and did not consider that to be infrequent.

If anyone is in need of a sleep aid, I have attached a paper I submitted to the RPCNA Synod years ago to support (unsuccessfully) maintaining/reviving seasonal observance.

My understanding is not that Calvin changed his view, just that he was unsuccessful in getting the practice changed. So his comment on quarterly observation was simply descriptive.

Is this not true?

 

[Northern Crofter]

My understanding is not that Calvin changed his view, just that he was unsuccessful in getting the practice changed. So his comment on quarterly observation was simply descriptive.

Is this not true?

My understanding is that he changed his view - I discuss this in the beginning of my paper I posted (see pp.1-2 and also p.4). His view seems to have changed between when he wrote his first edition of Institutes in 1536 and when his 1560 commentary on Acts was published.

 

[Eyedoc84]

My understanding is that he changed his view - I discuss this in the beginning of my paper I posted (see pp.1-2 and also p.4). His view seems to have changed between when he wrote his first edition of Institutes in 1536 and when his 1560 commentary on Acts was published.

Does the 1559 edition reflect this change? Or the 1560 French?

 

[Northern Crofter]

Does the 1559 edition reflect this change? Or the 1560 French?

My quotations of Calvin's Acts commentary are from the published English translation (from the original Latin). It footnotes when the French edition differs from the Latin. There are no footnotes in relation to this passage. So I believe the original Latin edition, the French edition, and the English translation all reflect this change.

 

[jambo]

We use grape juice but my own preference would be real red wine. I don't really know much about wines so I would'nt know the difference between merlot, shiraz etc. As long as it's red.

 

[Eyedoc84]

My quotations of Calvin's Acts commentary are from the published English translation (from the original Latin). It footnotes when the French edition differs from the Latin. There are no footnotes in relation to this passage. So I believe the original Latin edition, the French edition, and the English translation all reflect this change.

I think you might be misinterpreting/misapplying Calvin’s comments. Unless I’m misreading something, the 1559 update of the Institutes retain the weekly position.

 

[Northern Crofter]

the 1559 update of the Institutes retain the weekly position.

Could you provide a quote/reference? My paper (#64 posted above) tries to show how Calvin's position changed over time. In the 1559 Institutes, Calvin states that it "was the practice of the apostolic church.... that no meeting of the church should take place without the Word, prayers, partaking of the Supper, and almsgiving" (IV, xvii, 44). But he doesn't endorse reverting to that practice. I think it might be misinterpreting/misapplying Calvin’s comments to use this to show he still favored daily/weekly administration as he did when he was younger - his main interest at this point in the Institutes is to condemn the Romanist position of partaking only once a year: "Plainly this custom which enjoins us to take communion once a year is a veritable invention of the devil." (Ibid. 46). Calvin does not say that the Lord's Supper should be observed weekly, but that, in the 2nd and 3rd century, it should not have become so infrequent: "It should have been done far differently: the Lord's Table should have been spread at least once a week for the assembly of Christians." (Ibid. emphasis mine) Again, it is more likely a misinterpretation/misapplication of Calvin’s comments here to say that he was proscribing weekly communion when he was simply refuting what he saw to be the error of Romanist tradition: "Not unjustly, then, did I complain at the outset that this custom was thrust in by the devils' artifice, which, in prescribing one day a year, renders men slothful the rest of the year." (Ibid.) This is the only part of the Institutes that I know of where Calvin discusses the frequency of the Lord's Supper. In context, he is not arguing for it be weekly. Rather, he is arguing that once a year is not frequent enough. Regardless, there is sufficient testimony during the "second reformation" that seasonal observance of the Lord's Supper was the preference in most of Europe's Reformed churches, with the exception of some groups such as English Congregationalists (thus the use of nothing more specific than the term "frequent" in the Westminster Standards - the English could interpret that as weekly while the Scots could interpret quarterly as frequent, and both would be correct versus the Romanist view that congregants only had to partake once a year).

 

[Eyedoc84]

So in the 2nd and 3rd century it should have been weekly because that was the apostolic practice, but for us that just means it should be more frequent than once a year?

I think what you are seeing in Calvin in his Institutes and Letters is a difference between ideal and practical.

 

[NaphtaliPress]

Moderating. Let's stay on topic. The thread is about what wine in communion not the frequency of the Lord's Supper. There are plenty of old threads on the latter.