Innovations

I woke up this morning, used a bathroom with indoor plumbing, heated water in a kettle with no visible fire at the touch of a button, brewed fairly-traded coffee grown by an ecologically-sensitive Latin American farmer, read an email message that someone on the other side of the planet sent me during the night, checked some up-to-the-minute news headlines from around the world, ate food from a box, drove myself to church in a conveyance with no visible means of propulsion, listened to pre-recorded music from a device no larger than a human hand, arrived at a church building that was cool and comfortable despite 85-degree humid summer temperatures, and participated in a liturgical Christian worship service that did not include Holy Communion.

Of all the modern “innovations” of which I have availed myself today, which would be the most surprising to the average, run-of-the-mill, fourth-century Christian?

That was rhetorical, by the way.

(Before I get drummed out of the WELS on some sort of heresy charge, see Rev. J. Micheel’s essay The Church Offers Holy Communion pp. 13-29.)

As it has often been observed, the proper question isn’t whether Athanasius (or Chrysostom, or Luther, or Jesus, or whoever) would have belonged to my church, but whether or not I belong to theirs.