discipleship | mission | practical theology

This week at Ripon College Cuddesdon [check out new website] has been our Themed Study Week. For me that meant a week of sacraments.One of the funniest, frustrating and profound moments was towards the end of an hour or so worming our way through a history of ‘transubtitution’. This, as you may know, is the doctrine of real ‘fleshly’ presence: where the host, the bread, becomes the real flesh and the wine becomes the real blood of Christ.At the crux of this, it came to the point when those amongst the group would need to explain why they indulge in ‘biscuit worship’: why it is they elevate the host, bow in it’s presence at the point of consecration, reserve some sacrament and bow in it’s presence? It is at this point that the magic word came out: “mystery”.And then it struck me, that when the Anglo-Catholics do stuff that they find hard to explain, let alone hard to understand, then they bring out the word “mystery”. And when the charismatic evagelicals are rolling on the floor barking like dogs, and they find it hard to understand and explain, then they too bring out the word “mystery”. And it further struck me that there is little difference between these occurrences.