On the use of individual communion cups

There is evidently a fight going on within the Church of England on the potential use of individual communion cups as a Covid-safe way to celebrate the Eucharist. It’s not my fight, and I don’t want to say much about it. But in the last couple of days a new argument has emerged: that the use of individual communion cups is, historically, racist. That does bother me. Each of the five churches I have been a member of have used individual communion cups as a regular part of their sacramental life. This is hardly uncommon in either the English Free Churches, or Scottish evangelicalism—I don’t actually recall the last time I celebrated or received the Eucharist at a church that did not use individual cups (although our collegiate celebrations use a single cup and intinction). So the suggestion that the use of individual cups is pandering to racism worries me—or it would worry me if there were any plausibility to it; fortunately, there is not, or none that I can discover. As far as I can see, there are two sources for this suggestion: a blogpost by Peter Anthony, which cites a podcast by Barak Wright, which in turn cites (unhappily without reference) the investigations of an American Methodist leader, James Buckley, in the 1890s; and a paper by Hilary M. Bogert-Winkler, which relies entirely (for this point) on Daniel Sack’s 2002 monograph, Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture. Both sources are agreed that the presenting reason for the adoption of individual cups is the C19th sanitary reform movement. With the discovery that diseases were transmitted through ‘germs’ (at the time a rather unspecific term), ways of altering behaviour to prevent transmission were investigated and recommended. There was a general awareness that fluids were important in transmission, and so a concern about a shared cup where potentially, the saliva of the first recipient can enter the mouth of a later recipient. The charge in both sources is that, in the USA, sanitary reform became entangled with racial prejudice, and so that in certain contexts the shared cup was given to whites first, so that they would not be contaminated by African-Americans, and then individual cups were introduced for the same reason. Let us for the moment simply accept this. All that is then demonstrated is entanglement. But that is uninteresting. Suppose I were to campaign against a particular industrial development both because I believed that it would be damaging to the environment, and because I believed that there was a faerie castle that would be destroyed by it; the ridiculousness of the latter belief does not damage the cogency of the former one. Just so, someone who genuinely believes that it is unhygienic to share a single cup, and that non-whites are more likely to spread disease, cannot be criticised for the former belief just because the latter one is appallingly racist. (Were there a demonstration that the former, sanitary, belief was not sincerely held, but merely a cover for the latter, racist, belief, then of course the criticism would stand. Sack is careful to avoid that implication in his monograph; in the absence of references I cannot be sure of all Buckley claimed, but from what I have been able to read, it does not appear that he essayed the stronger argument either.) It is of course easy to survey the arguments around 1900—the material is all out of copyright, and so generally on the Web. What is striking is how much Buckley is an outlier—one can, for example, read through article after article opposing the use of individual communion cups in the old Lutheran Church Review and find no hint at all that there is any concern other than tradition and symbolism. (See, e.g., Drach, ‘Have Individual Communion Cups Any Historical Justification?’ vol. 26 (1907), pp. 567-574; Schuchard, ‘Individual Communion Cup Questions’ vol. 29 (1910), pp. 567-577; Michler, ‘Individual Communion Cups’ vol. 34 (1915), pp. 395-402). (Similar series are easily found in other denominational journals of the time.) There is a second point, however: even if Anthony and Wright are simply correct in everything they assert, they only establish the point for North America. The introduction of individual communion cups in the UK is a separate history, and, as far as I can see, there has never been a single scholarly suggestion that this history has been driven by racism. The medical point is of course to the fore; Dennis raised it in his System of Surgery (iii.803), and it was discussed repeatedly in The Lancet in the first decade of the twentieth century. A remarkable article, ‘The Patience of...

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On opening church buildings for private prayer

We should open our buildings for private prayer as soon as we can. Not for the members, but as a mission opportunity. This week it seems likely that the First Minister will announce that Scotland is moving to Phase 2 of our lifting of lockdown, which includes the opening of places of worship for private prayer—a move made this past weekend in the rather less orderly English system. I suspect that for most Baptists, the instinctive response will be to shrug; our spirituality does not have that sense of sacred space, or at least not of ecclesially-authorised sacred space. We might have our own ‘thin places’, where for us ‘prayer has been valid’, but they are probably not significantly connected to local church buildings. I think this response would be a mistake. There are a few Baptist churches around the UK that, before lockdown, were in the habit of keeping their buildings open for private prayer—I think of Bloomsbury Central B.C. in London as the example I perhaps know best; the doors are generally open, and a small room to the right of the front of the sanctuary—presumably once a vestry—is set aside as a space to pray. I’ve known the ministers of Bloomsbury over the past 20 years or so—Brian Haymes; Ruth Gouldbourne; Simon Woodman—and although I’ve never particularly discussed this aspect of their ministry with any of them, every passing reference they made suggested that it was not a facility offered for, or used by, the church members, but rather for passers by, seeking a quiet reflective space in the energy and noise of central London. Our buildings should be open, if they can be, not for members, but for non-members. I think of a friend, around my age, who recently rediscovered a faith she had walked away from as a child. She started to come to our church, but, having outgrown our building, we meet in a local school hall. Her searching spirit wanted a space that looked, felt sacred—the P.E. charts that we cheerfully ignore (and long to cheerfully ignore again…) were an impediment, a stumbling block, to her. Another church, lacking a building of their own, was borrowing our church building of a Sunday morning; she joined there. I think now if they moved out she would be happy enough; she has been well discipled into a broadly evangelical spirituality that emphasises the holiness of the community that meets, rather than that of the room it meets in. If someone wanted to narrate her recent story in Pauline terms of valuing the indifferent things that seem important to those of weak/immature faith, I suspect she would not be offended. Paul’s point in Rom. 14 is that we should in fact value these things, because nurturing nascent faith matters. Equally, although slightly differently, it matters that we provide seekers with comfortable ways to discover the truth of the gospel and the glory of our King Jesus. I suspect her spiritual sensibilities are not unusual: there are a significant number of people in the UK who, if moved to search for a genuine encounter with God, would look to a church building as the right place to begin that search. Some may have cultural memories of what church ‘should’ be; some may be coming from other religious traditions, and bringing those traditions’ assumptions about sacred space with them; some may just need to do something kinaesthetic to demonstrate to themselves that they are serious. Of course, as they find the truth, and as we have the privilege of discipling them into maturity, we will want to insist that being close to Jesus is what matters, and that being close to Jesus comes from being in covenant community, not from being in ecclesiastical buildings. But if stepping into the building is going to be the first step on that journey to Life for some, perhaps for many, we ought to do what we can to have the door of the building open, particularly if, as is being regularly suggested at the moment, there are significant signs of spiritual awakening across the U.K. just now. For some of us it will of course be impossible to open the building. Perhaps other urgent mission opportunities—running the local foodbank, e.g.—are taking all our efforts; perhaps we cannot, with the resources we have, open the building safely; perhaps, like the apostles, we have no building to open. But if we can open the building, I suggest that we should—for missional, not pastoral,...

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But what can I do? A beginner’s tool kit 1: knowing

[I’ve been wanting to write this all week, but our marking deadline was today…] Plenty of White British folk like me have this week been asking—but what can I do? It was a question I first asked myself seriously after watching the events in Charlestown, VA, in 2017. This post is a beginner’s tool kit, written by a beginner of almost three years’ experience, for beginners with even less, in the hope that it helps someone. This post is about knowing—knowing how to begin to understand white supremacy. I plan to add a couple more on ‘doing’ and ‘giving’ soon. This is specifically for people in the UK churches, and began from wanting to take seriously several conversations with Black British church leaders who expressed some concern/dissatisfaction with/over an assumption that the narrative of Black life in the UK could be simply assimilated to the US narrative. I was looking for a theorised account of oppression similar to the ones I knew about gender and sexuality, but wanted to honour the concerns of my Black British sisters and brothers, and so find an indigenous British version. I certainly don’t pretend to be an expert, but this is what I have found to be most helpful in the past three years of looking: 1. Know about The first task is to understand the reality: the history, cultural realities, and the facts of racial oppression, in UK culture and in the UK church: 1.1 History: David Olusoga, Black and British: A forgotten history (2016) is the best place I have found to start; it was based on a TV series, which I haven’t seen, but which I assume is equally excellent. I don’t know a good book covering all the history of Black Christianity in the UK, but Israel Olufinjana’s various studies of reverse mission offer interesting and varied snapshots. 1.2 Cultural Studies: Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race (2018) is the single best text I know here. this is just a must-read; in brief and simple chapters, she explains whiteness, and how it affects so much else. Looking backwards in history, the work of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies is seminal here. Almost anything by Stuart Hall is worth reading, but if you only pick one text, Paul Gilroy’s There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: The cultural politics of race and nation (1987) is the one to go for. Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy collaborated on a photo-journalistic essay, Black Britain: A Photographic History (2011), which is powerful and profound. 1.3 Church life: Ben Lindsay, We Need to Talk About Race: Understanding the Black experience in white majority churches (2019) is a brilliant and accessible introduction 1.4 Theology: I suggest you start with Anthony Reddie—he’s written loads, and there aren’t any bad ways in that I’ve discovered, but perhaps Faith, Stories, and the Experience of Black Elders (2001) is the place to start, maybe followed up by the collection he edited with Jagessar in 2007, Black Theology in Britain: A reader. These aren’t better than the rest, but they are broader, and so invite you into an overview which his many other writings fill out the details of. Robert Beckford is probably the next step–half a generation back in time. God of the Rahtid: Redeeming Rage (2001) is probably the way in. 2. Know: If the texts above are about informing the intellect, what follows is about addressing the heart. Art is key. Art speaks personal truth in personal ways. I list here material that I have found helpful in offering some sort of a window into what it actually feels like to be Black and British. (If a Black British person invites you to hear their story, that is a precious gift, and should be honoured as such, and will be better than most of this; but you cannot demand of your Black friends and colleagues that they open their hearts and wounds to you, and so art is important.) 2.1 Poetry: We are living in a golden age of British poetry, and immigrant and cross-cultural poets are probably leading the way. For those of us in Scotland, our national Makar, Jackie Kay, is the key voice, reflecting on experiences of immigration and adoption; Vahni Capildeo explores the identity of the immigrant profoundly and beautifully; Imtiaz Dharker brings the perspective of a subcontinental and Scottish heritage–one of her book blurbs describes her upbringing as ‘Muslim Calvinist’; Derek Walcott is of course one of the great Anglophone writers of the C20th, and his exploration of Caribbean life under the shadow of the memory of the British...

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Prosopal presence: our current conundrum

When we meet online, are we meeting ‘face to face’? My colleague Elizabeth Shively gave us an excellent sermon this morning in our series on 1Thess.; I won’t repeat what she said (its on our church FB page, and well worth the watch), but before she began my attention was caught by a word in the reading. Throughout the letter Paul expresses his regrets that he is absent from the Thessalonian believers, his longing to see them, and his eagerness for news of them. In 3:10 he prays ‘Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face’ (NRSV) ‘May see you face to face’ translates τὸ ἰδεῖν ὑμῶν τὸ πρόσωπον; it was the word πρόσωπον that caught my eye (I was following the reading in the original, as I usually do); it’s a word I’ve thought about a lot. Paul made a similar point , using the same word, twice, in 2:17: ἀπορφανισθέντες ἀφ᾿ ὑμῶν … προσώπῳ οὐ καρδίᾳ, περισσοτέρως ἐσπουδάσαμεν τὸ πρόσωπον ὑμῶν ἰδεῖν… (‘…separated from you—in person, not in heart—we longed … to see you face to face.’ NRSV) Here, there is a contrast between being with them ‘in person’ (πρόσωπον) and ‘in heart’ (καρδίᾳ), reminiscent of 1Cor. 5:3 ἀπὼν τῷ σώματι, παρὼν δὲ τῷ πνεύματι (‘absent in body [σώμα], present in spirit [πνεύμα]’), as well as the same expression of desire to see facially [τὸ πρόσωπον]. How does Paul’s urgent longing to be re-united with the Thessalonian sisters and brothers relate to our enforced absence from each other today? The Corinthian text is easy: we are apart bodily without question, and together in spirit, without question. The Thessalonian ones are more difficult. πρόσωπον is more difficult, as already the translations from the NRSV above indicate: does it mean ‘face’ or ‘person’? Well, yes; the semantic range stretches at least that wide—see the historical note at the end of this post. But in this linguistic imprecision our current experience of church fellowship sits: many of us, at least, are seeing the faces of our sisters and brothers through video conferencing; we are talking, interacting, so there is some real togetherness, some experience of coming together for worship and fellowship. We are not bodily present, however, and so we are not fully personally present to each other. We are living in a grey area in the middle of the semantic range of the word πρόσωπον. Paul longed to be with the Thessalonians prosopally; did that mean just seeing their faces, or bodily presence, or what? Of course, these are not distinctions he could have made; lacking videoconferencing solutions, bodily presence was necessary to seeing faces. Almost everything he talks about longing for in the letter is achievable in online meeting: he wants to pastor them, to observe and interrogate their growth in faith, to be able to correct error, to offer exhortation and encouragement. All of this is possible online. In the end, however, is the instruction to ‘greet all the brothers and sisters with a holy kiss’ (5:26); there comes a point where bodies matter. If Paul could have met with the Thessalonians over Teams or Zoom, he would have jumped at the chance, I am sure; he could have heard of the answers to his constant prayers, and offered the encouragement and advice he longed to give—but he would still have wanted to kiss them. I don’t think many of us need to be told that our online gatherings are sub-optimal; kissing may not be quite our culture, but hugging might be, and singing without question is; we want to be together bodily. But Paul in Thessalonians certainly reminds us that what we have is not nothing; we can meet face to face, after a fashion, we can hear of each other’s faith, and offer encouragement and counsel. We are not simply apart, though we are scattered. If we are to be church well through this time, I suspect it will be in part by reflecting seriously on the limits, but also the possibilities of this grey prosopal space we are now meeting in; perhaps thinking about Greek semantic fields can help us with that? Historical note: [This is all from memory, as I am separated from my library…] πρόσωπον is a very difficult word to translate, and visibly changes meaning over time. In earliest extant usage (Homer), it referred fairly simply to the face; from there, it came to be the term for the mask an actor in a Greek drama would wear, from which sense another meaning of ‘character’ (in a play), and so ‘actor in a narrative’; from this the sense of...

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On not having closed our churches

Language matters. It matters more in how it is heard than in how it is meant. If we want to communicate certain things, then disciplined use of language can help us, because it will improve the chances of what we want to say being heard, rather than being misunderstood. There was a time when we British Baptists would not have thought of calling the building we met in for worship a ‘church’. We knew that the church was the congregation, gathered together by God, covenanted to each other before God. If the church habitually met in a particular building, we called that a ‘chapel’. ‘Church,’ we once understood, meant people, saved by grace, making expansive vows to each other because God has called us together. ‘Chapel,’ we used to know, meant a building, where the church can conveniently congregate. [This is for us Baptists—and of course for others, although I do not presume to identify those traditions that would be happy to be defined by this point—other faithful followers of our King Jesus will disagree, and so will define things differently.] This old, almost lost, tradition, seems important just now. Our chapels are closed, but our churches are alive and active, and doing wonderful Kingdom work, spreading the gospel and doing justice. Perhaps this present strange season will teach us that there was value in the old language: we should not identify ‘chapel’ and ‘church’ because the former is incidental to us, the latter the definitive core of who we are. Our chapels are closed—and, on Sundays in particular, that is a great sadness to us, because we long to gather together for worship. Our chapels are closed, but our churches are open and active. Announcing the gospel, however they can; serving the needy; comforting those who mourn; praying for the needs of the fellowship, the community, and the world; living out the call of the Kingdom. For us Baptists, our chapels are closed, but our churches are open and alive and active; the one is an inconvenience; the other a vital gospel...

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On ‘Kitchen Table Eucharists’: a plea to my Anglican friends

It is, to my regret, nearly ten years since I last joined in worship with the small fellowship at Hawkshead Hill Baptist Church in Cumbria. My memories of the fellowship are warm; my memories of the building in which they meet, and of the garden behind it, are vivid. The building is an ancient cottage, registered for worship in 1709. There is no historical record of what changes were made as it was registered for worship, but very probably the kitchen table was the only table, and so became the place where the Eucharist was celebrated for those people. The Baptists had begun in Hawkshead in 1678, at a time when the Church of England was aggressively devoted to persecuting anyone who would not worship according to its formularies (even though then, as now, it could not agree on what its formularies actually meant). I know the Baptist stories; others will tell the Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Quaker, Catholic tales—and the stories that do not fit into any of these denominations. In my tradition, John Bunyan was famously imprisoned for his Baptist faith; Elizabeth Gaunt was burnt at the stake in public for hers, denied the customary ‘kindness’ of a quick death by strangulation before the spectacle. I could add scores of other names from my own memory, people who I have read and studied, whose faith and courage I have learnt from, whose piety has formed my own; people who are my mothers and fathers in the faith. I could add tens of thousands of names if I had reference to books. The persecution was savage and widespread. It was also systematically prosecuted and vocally encouraged by Anglican clergy and bishops. Although a measure of toleration came with the Glorious Revolution in 1689, the Clarendon Code (which, inter alia, forbade meetings for prayer of more than five people unless they were reciting forms from the 1662 BCP) was not fully repealed until well into the nineteenth century. When William Dennyson of Hawkshead registered his cottage as a meeting place in 1709, it seems clear that memories of persecution were still fresh. The building carefully appeared, from the street, to be still a cottage, and did so until 1876, when the present ecclesial-looking windows were installed. In the garden a baptistry was created by a clever damming of a stream, and then shrubs were grown to conceal its site, and the path that led to it. When we were last there—and today, I assume—you could walk the garden completely unaware of the baptismal pool, until someone showed you the carefully-pruned branches that needed to be pushed aside to open the path down. Hidden sacramental spaces are a common theme of Christian persecution; normal domestic paraphernalia are repurposed to allow worship to happen. For one example, a kitchen table often becomes the site of eucharistic celebration. The phrase ’kitchen table Eucharists’ seems to have become, in the last few weeks, the chosen sneer of a number of Anglicans angry at their Bishops’ guidance, revised yesterday, on clergy not entering their churches. I have no view at all on that guidance; I know that my understanding of ‘church’, and ‘sacred space’ is simply different from my Anglican sisters and brothers. I am concerned, as others have been, about the denigration of domestic space implied by this sneer, and by the gendered implications of that. I am at least as much concerned by the implied criticism of the faith and practice of our persecuted sisters and brothers around the world right now, who find the kitchen table the only eucharistic site available to them. Most seriously, however, I remember William Dennyson, John Bunyan, Elizabeth Gaunt, scores of others I could name, tens of thousands whose names I could discover—and at least as many again who are nameless. For nearly three decades they celebrated the Eucharist on kitchen tables, in Hawkshead and across England, because Anglican bishops and Anglican priests were active and aggressive in having them thrown into jail, or even burnt alive at the stake, if they did it anywhere public. For over three centuries they, and their co-religionists, were prevented from celebrating the Eucharist as they might have wished by oppressive laws, pressed by the Anglican establishment. I am not an Anglican and I do not live in England; the policies of the Church of England are no business of mine. But for office-holders in that denomination to denigrate ‘kitchen table Eucharists’ is for them to trample once again on the faith and lives of people who, through reading, I have grown to know and love, people who, at their predecessors’ hands, were extensively persecuted, people of...

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