Methodists believe in transubstantiation?

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Apparently, my own Mother, a staunch Methodist and anti-Catholic, does.

She just got done telling me that, in her Methodist church this morning, they took communion and when they read the appropriate Scripture of “This is My Body; this is My Blood”, she was all “SEE? It’s right there! We too believe in transubstantiation.”

So I asked her, “you mean ALL Methodists believe in transubstantiation, that it’s more than just a symbol?”

“Well, I don’t know about others, but yes, we Methodists believe in it. I mean, it’s what I read this morning and I know my heart believes it, so there,” she replied.

“You mean that if I asked your pastor point-blank if he and every other Methodist believes in transubstantiation, he would say yes?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t really care what anyone else believes, I believe it and I’m the one who has to answer to God,” she said.

“So why aren’t you Catholic then?” I asked her with all sincerity.

“Because I’m Methodist. Why aren’t Catholics Methodist? It doesn’t matter; if someone needs their little fifedom (yes, she actually said ‘fifedom’) then they can have it,” she said. “That is, if a certain group needs their little ‘kingdom’ on communion, well, so be it.”

I completely gave up and beandipped to another subject.

How do I answer that? If I even can, that is; my Mother’s one of those people who believes what she believes and if you don’t like it, you know where you can go. :rolleyes:

Your help, please?
 
Methodist sacramental doctrine depends on the pastor and the parish.

The UMC has an official document on the matter but it is not followed uniformly.
 
twosweetgirls said:
Apparently, my own Mother, a staunch Methodist and anti-Catholic, does.

She just got done telling me that, in her Methodist church this morning, they took communion and when they read the appropriate Scripture of “This is My Body; this is My Blood”, she was all “SEE? It’s right there! We too believe in transubstantiation.”

So I asked her, “you mean ALL Methodists believe in transubstantiation, that it’s more than just a symbol?”

“Well, I don’t know about others, but yes, we Methodists believe in it. I mean, it’s what I read this morning and I know my heart believes it, so there,” she replied.

“You mean that if I asked your pastor point-blank if he and every other Methodist believes in transubstantiation, he would say yes?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t really care what anyone else believes, I believe it and I’m the one who has to answer to God,” she said.

“So why aren’t you Catholic then?” I asked her with all sincerity.

“Because I’m Methodist. Why aren’t Catholics Methodist? It doesn’t matter; if someone needs their little fifedom (yes, she actually said ‘fifedom’) then they can have it,” she said. “That is, if a certain group needs their little ‘kingdom’ on communion, well, so be it.”

I completely gave up and beandipped to another subject.

How do I answer that? If I even can, that is; my Mother’s one of those people who believes what she believes and if you don’t like it, you know where you can go. :rolleyes:

Your help, please?
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That sounds familiar. I was at my grandparents yesterday and saw their leaflet which stated that tomorrow is communion Sunday. If it such an important part of Methodism, why don’t they do it every Sunday? Also, why are gold fish crackers and grape juice used?
 
StFrancisXavier said:
That sounds familiar. I was at my grandparents yesterday and saw their leaflet which stated that tomorrow is communion Sunday. If it such an important part of Methodism, why don’t they do it every Sunday? Also, why are gold fish crackers and grape juice used?
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Most Methodists use store bought leavened bread. The goldfish is probably an attempt to play off of the association of fishes with Christ. I’m sure that no one in that church believed in the Real Presence, nor was the minister a validly ordained priest, so no one took offense, and neither should we.

As for the grape juice… That has to do with vestiges of the 1920s temperance movement. Again, no Real Presence, so no offense.
 
I’m taking some scripture classes with a Methodist minister as a teacher and he believes in transubstantiation. I’m about to ask him why he’s not Catholic because right after class he goes to the library so I’m hoping one of these days I’ll be able to talk to him about it.
 
twosweetgirls said:
beandipped
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There’s a new term for men. I never heard that one before.

I don’t think Methodists necessarily believe in transubstantiation, but I think they do officially believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist.

Chuck
 
does she believe in transubstanation or consubstanation. excuse my spelling.
the difference being we believe in the eucharist is no longer bread and wine but jesus
while anglicans believe its both bread and wine and JESUS
 
Oh, sorry–“beandip” is a term used to change the subject, i.e., someone says something extremely personal (embarassing, whatever) and you switch the subject:

Them: “So, how’s your sex life?”

You: "Have you tried the beandip? It’s very good. . . "

In my Mother’s case, she says that Catholics and Methodists are exactly the same; I say, "hey, thanks so much for that recipe you gave me the other day. . . " Hope that makes sense. :o
 
She doesn’t seem to know what she supposedly believes. Methodists do not believe in transubstantiation.
Methodists only have 2 Sacraments

Please feel free to print out the following article from my blog and see what she says then. 👍

The Eucharist IS Scriptural
 
Church_Militant said:
She doesn’t seem to know what she supposedly believes. Methodists do not believe in transubstantiation.
Methodists only have 2 Sacraments

Please feel free to print out the following article from my blog and see what she says then. 👍

The Eucharist IS Scriptural
Click to expand...
The trick is, the Sacraments the Methodists say they have are Baptism and the Eucharist.

The Sacraments they, like all Protestants, actually have are Baptism and Matrimony.
 
Methodists, like all Christians, believe in the ‘real presence’ of Christ, not only at communion but everywhere and at all times. “Lo, I am with you always…”
Code: 
However, Article XVIII in the Methodist 'Articles of Faith' reads in part: "Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the Supper of our Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions. The body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up or worshiped." 

Somewhat Elizabethan language, perhaps, but doesn't that answer the question quite decidedly? 

True, there are a few 'high church' Methodist ministers who want more ceremony, closer ties with Anglicanism (out of which Methodism arose), etc., but they are a small group among the 45,000 or so United Methodist ministers in the US. There are perhaps another 15,000 or more Methodist ministers in other American denominations that belong to the World Methodist Council - e. g., AME, AME Zion, CME, etc. I believe this may be more parish clergy than in American Catholicism??? Of course: (1) Methodist parishes are generally smaller than Catholic parishes; and (2) there are roughly 10,000 women clergy in the United Methodist Church, not counting the other Methodist denominations.

 God bless all churches, creeds, colors and countries, and may religion cease serving as a barrier and become a bridge. Christ would like that.
 
twosweetgirls said:
Apparently, my own Mother, a staunch Methodist and anti-Catholic, does.

She just got done telling me that, in her Methodist church this morning, they took communion and when they read the appropriate Scripture of “This is My Body; this is My Blood”, she was all “SEE? It’s right there! We too believe in transubstantiation.”

So I asked her, “you mean ALL Methodists believe in transubstantiation, that it’s more than just a symbol?”

“Well, I don’t know about others, but yes, we Methodists believe in it. I mean, it’s what I read this morning and I know my heart believes it, so there,” she replied.

“You mean that if I asked your pastor point-blank if he and every other Methodist believes in transubstantiation, he would say yes?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t really care what anyone else believes, I believe it and I’m the one who has to answer to God,” she said.

“So why aren’t you Catholic then?” I asked her with all sincerity.

“Because I’m Methodist. Why aren’t Catholics Methodist? It doesn’t matter; if someone needs their little fifedom (yes, she actually said ‘fifedom’) then they can have it,” she said. “That is, if a certain group needs their little ‘kingdom’ on communion, well, so be it.”

I completely gave up and beandipped to another subject.

How do I answer that? If I even can, that is; my Mother’s one of those people who believes what she believes and if you don’t like it, you know where you can go. :rolleyes:

Your help, please?
Click to expand...
I was a Methodist before converting. Methodists do not believe in transubstantiation.
Receiving Communion in the Methodist Church is symbolic.
 
Roy5 said:
Methodists, like all Christians, believe in the ‘real presence’ of Christ, not only at communion but everywhere and at all times. “Lo, I am with you always…”
Code: 
However, Article XVIII in the Methodist 'Articles of Faith' reads in part: "Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the Supper of our Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions. The body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up or worshiped." 

Somewhat Elizabethan language, perhaps, but doesn't that answer the question quite decidedly? 

True, there are a few 'high church' Methodist ministers who want more ceremony, closer ties with Anglicanism (out of which Methodism arose), etc., but they are a small group among the 45,000 or so United Methodist ministers in the US. There are perhaps another 15,000 or more Methodist ministers in other American denominations that belong to the World Methodist Council - e. g., AME, AME Zion, CME, etc. I believe this may be more parish clergy than in American Catholicism??? Of course: (1) Methodist parishes are generally smaller than Catholic parishes; and (2) there are roughly 10,000 women clergy in the United Methodist Church, not counting the other Methodist denominations.

 God bless all churches, creeds, colors and countries, and may religion cease serving as a barrier and become a bridge. Christ would like that.
Click to expand...
That isn’t what the early Church Fathers taught. Are we to ignore them and instead listen to a fella that showed up 150 years ago?
 
Re Church Fathers
Code: 
In my lifelong study of religion and search for truth, I read the Church Fathers such as St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Cyprian, Augustine, Tertuillian, Origen and various others. (It's been awhile back so I can't think of them all at the moment.) Then there were a variety of early Church Fathers who are not recognized as such because 'their side' did not win the early theological debates and they were banished as heretics of various kinds. 

 I concluded certain things about the Church Fathers. Let me list a few of them.

 1. For their time and age they were quite brilliant writers and thinkers.

 2. However, I was shocked and disappointed at how primitive so much of their thinking was. Some described God and heaven and hell in the most worldly terms. They clearly believed that the earth was the absolute center of the universe and that the rest of the celestial bodies were minor and small in comparison. They assumed, of course, that the sun revolved around the earth. Some traced disease to sin or to demons. Some imagined a literal devil with all the accountements of Satan - horns and the rest of it. Some were predicting that the Second Coming  and 'end times' were just around the corner (as certain evangelicals do today). Some had picked up miracles from extra-scriptural sources that have no basis in scripture - such as Jesus spoke as an infant in the cradle, he performed miracles as a child, he miraculously killed a boy because the other child had bumped against him.  Etc.

  3. I'm more interested in current theologians who have hundreds or thousands of times the knowledge that the Church Fathers had. I worry that too many Catholics seem determined to go back to a darker age when ignorance was rampant and few people were literate, and the world was bubbling over with superstition. I for one am not all that impressed by many of the bizarre teachings at that time. 

  4. There were, of course, competing schools of thought among early Christians. The Arians, the Modalists, the Monarchians, the Adoptionists, the Gnostics, the Monophysites, and on and on. If any of these or other 'heresies' had won out we would have been reading a whole different set of Church Fathers. 

  I was reading in the *US Catholic*, one of my favorite magazines, that one of their surveys showed that 43% of Catholics do not believe in transubstantiation. I'm not particularly interested in the debate. Christ promised to be with us, and that satisfies me. Whether he is somehow more in some bread and wine is less important than the assurance of his perpetual presence everywhere and 'always'. I'll settle for that.
 
Really, Roy5? I would think that the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist should be a magnet to anyone that really loves and follows Christ, especially since it is Christ who commanded we celebrate the Eucharist.
 
=twosweetgirls;7127580]Apparently, my own Mother, a staunch Methodist and anti-Catholic, does.
Click to expand...
She just got done telling me that, in her Methodist church this morning, they took communion and when they read the appropriate Scripture of “This is My Body; this is My Blood”, she was all “SEE? It’s right there! We too believe in transubstantiation.”
Click to expand...
So I asked her, “you mean ALL Methodists believe in transubstantiation, that it’s more than just a symbol?”
Click to expand...
“Well, I don’t know about others, but yes, we Methodists believe in it. I mean, it’s what I read this morning and I know my heart believes it, so there,” she replied.
Click to expand...
"

Methodists do not believe that the bread and wine (grape juice) become the body and blood of Christ yet retain the appearance of bread and wine (grape juice)

I attended a Methodist service and stayed and asked the minister that very question. The proof that they believe it is only symbolic is what they do with the left-overs. The bread (at this pastors Methodist Church) is thrown on the ground so that the birds can eat it. The extra juice is also poured on the ground.
Some of the bread was put into plastic sandwich baggies and taken to those who were ill and could not attend the service.
If they truly believed in transubstantation they would not be feeding the Lord’s body and blood to the birds or putting God in a plastic bag.
 
Even if they did, though, they do not have apostolic authority for it to be valid.
 
I attended a Methodist service and stayed and asked the minister that very question. The proof that they believe it is only symbolic is what they do with the left-overs. The bread (at this pastors Methodist Church) is thrown on the ground so that the birds can eat it. The extra juice is also poured on the ground.
Click to expand...
:eek: They are NOT supposed to be doing:eek: that!! That is:( terrible!!!

OP, I love “fifedom”; that has to be the:rolleyes: silliest thing…
 
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