Cannibalism in Church

By: George Wallace

Your participation in religious rites is your choice. I have suggested that you might want to think clearly about what and why you are doing it.

As to Communion specifically? It is your choice, your decision. The symbolism and mystery of the Transmutation, and the rite itself, if performed sincerely, are deeply moving and can be important to the individual. You can do it yourself, at the family dinner table. Use good whole wheat dinner rolls and a good red wine.

From a human observer level, I have to vote with the Aztecs of the 1500’s. They reportedly asked, after becoming familiar with the Christian rite as practiced by their new Catholic masters, and I paraphrase: “Why are you upset by our religious feast rites serving up our enemies as food for a celebration for our Gods, when you turn around and eat a part of your God?” I think that was a particularly good question.

Religious cannibalism is religious cannibalism. Cannibalism is not always a religious crime, nor even a social crime.

It, again, depends on the circumstances. Most people would agree that for you to knock off your neighbor because of the high price of beef, is at least uncivil behavior.

On the other hand, remember the Donner Party in California history, and more recently the plane load of soccer players that crashed in the Andes, and who, to survive, ate the dead? All participants in the Andes crash were specifically excused by the church.

I just don’t know enough about Hebrew religious rites, especially those extant in Roman times. Nothing I do know suggests a similar ritual. The Romans were very accommodating to all religions they encountered as they assembled their Empire by military force. The Romans accepted them all, knowing that this acceptance made assimilating new peoples and territories much easier for the Empire.

There might have been some adherents of a religion visiting temporarily in Judea for trade purposes that may have had a similar rite, and this may have provided a pattern that came to the attention of Christ.

Christ as a Hebrew child and rabbi, should have been well versed in Hebrew history and ritual. To add the Transmutation and Communion to The Last Supper just seems somehow “out of place”. It was a return to a more primitive pagan style religious ceremony.

Maybe that was the point, to participate in an unusual rite made The Last Supper just that much more memorable and reassuring. Surely the disciples were in need of reassurance? The mysticism of the Transmutation of bread to flesh, and of wine to blood reeks of magic. The magic Power of God strong enough to drive home the separate cult status of the Followers of Jesus from the main body of Judaism.

Article Source: http://www.religionarticlelibrary.com

(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace completed an MA and taught in the public schools for 28 years. He recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, the layers of money sucking priesthood, and their departures from the fundamental ideas and messages of Religion. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will outrage everyone. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com

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