Deal W. Hudson

“Stop Murmuring among Yourselves”

It is not available online, but Russell D. Moore has an interesting piece in the current issue of Touchstone titled, “The Red Cross of Jesus: On Recovering the Lifeblood of the Church.” The article is about blood and as such it is an occasionally uncomfortable read. And yet it is extremely important that we constantly remind ourselves that without the blood there is no salvation. As Jesus Himself said, “Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6:53).

Moore argues that as our secular culture becomes more and more bloody—what with all the movies and video games that dominate our youths’ limited attentions—our churches have become, well, bloodless. Russell writes:

“American Christianisty is far less bloody than it used to be. Songs like ‘Power in the Blood’ or ‘There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood or ‘Are You Washed in the Blood?’ are still sung in some paces, but fewer and fewer, and there aren’t many newer songs or praise choruses so focused on blood. The Cross, yes; redemption, yes; but blood, rarely.

“And this is not only a Protestant phenomenon. Roman Catholics—centered as they are on the Eucharist—often seem to go out of their way to speak of the ‘real presence’ of Jesus in the elements, without going so far as to mention that this presence is believed to be that of his body and blood, as well as soul and divinity. Even Catholic communion hymns, I’m told, prefer terms like ‘the Cup’ to ‘the Blood.’”

“Seeker friendly” evangelical megachurches deserve some of the blame for this phenomenon, I am afraid. The goal has been to put fannies in the pews and if that means preaching only the easy stuff, so be it. And yet, megachurch evangelicals flocked to see The Passion of the Christ, which was panned by official Hollywood for, get this, being too bloody. Perhaps there is hope that we can reclaim the blood and talk about it in polite society again, though I confess it is an uncomfortable subject.

And since I have now leapt to the subject of evangelical Christianity’s view of the blood, let me say that the Protestant rejection of Transubstantiation is perhaps the most potent frustration I experience when talking with my born again friends.

All Jesus’ talk of eating flesh and drinking blood in John 6 was hard to, um, swallow even for His disciples, let alone the Jews. But if Jesus was speaking metaphorically he certainly stretched the metaphor too thin. He pushed it and pushed it and pushed it until even His disciples said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” (John 6:60). It is hard; but we need to stop murmuring among ourselves and just accept it.

Re: Pelosi

Deal and Marjorie, I’m going to approach the question of Pelosi receiving the Host from a different angle. On the substance of the debate, you are both correct: We need to keep the issue before the Bishops and we need to call out politicians who flagrantly reject the Church’s teaching while using the Church to get votes, as Pelosi is clearly doing.

But as a political hack by trade, I want to grumble about the media’s double standard on these matters generally.

Christian conservatives are regularly disparaged in the media for using “the Jesus Machine” (as one reporter/author put it recently). But our Christian brothers and sisters on the political left are never, and I mean never called out for using church imagery or Scripture to sell their political initiatives to the American people.

This gripe of mine was the subject of an Op-Ed I co-authored with Jeremy Lott for USA Today not long ago. As I wrote then:

The religious left is usually given a respectful hearing. That's a good thing. After all, this is a democracy in which people can make up their own minds about such things. But the same deference should be given to the arguments and ideas of religious conservatives.

Critics are out of line for lambasting the religious right for advocating their beliefs, and they'd be just as wrong blasting the religious left. Yet for liberal and secular pundits, this has been a one-way street.