Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Taking Communion Via the Internet?

This is just crazy. I am not sure how I missed this last month.

With a scrap of bagel and a sip of Crystal Light, Beth McDonald gave communion to her husband. Then, after a blessing, he gave communion to her. Music played as the celebrant intoned the ancient words, "Do this in remembrance of me." The experience was among the most spiritually powerful of her life. "I had my eyes closed," McDonald told me. "We were praying ... I got really choked up."
McDonald was not in church; she was in her living room in Minnesota. The celebrant was not at church; he was at home, in Santa Fe, N.M. Other participants logged on from Sri Lanka, Australia and the Netherlands. Through streaming video and the Internet, all were joined in holy communion
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Good Grief

In Christianity, the sacrament of communion underscores the unity of the faithful; consuming the consecrated bread and wine binds Christians with each other, with the saints in heaven and with the Lord. Now, at the farthest corners of the Christian world, a few people are applying new-tech concepts of community to this ancient rite. The example above is among the most avant-garde. The celebrant, Zeph Daniel, is a musician who preaches online to a group of Christians disconnected from the traditional church. One of his slogans is "Leave religion and find God."..................

Hmmm I think "Pastor" Zeph Daniel here does not have a good grounding in the Theology of the Eucharist here

The experiment is underway in more mainstream corners of the Christian world as well. Two Methodist ministers have (in unrelated efforts) put communion services online. The Rev. Thomas Madron, pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Nashville, says he was moved to build an interactive communion site (holycommunionontheweb.com) to help people get what he calls "spiritual buttressing" when they need it, regardless of whether they regularly go to church. A former technology-company CEO, Madron is convinced that religious institutions need to rethink the way they deliver their services. ...............................

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