Today Bill Reel and Chris Bloxham sit down and discuss the Sacrament and specifically what led to the change from a single common cup that everyone drank from to having individual cups. To understand this story is to understand Progressive Mormonism. To understand the battle that is always going on from those who are conservative and want desperately to cling to tradition and fight to maintain the status quo versus the progressive movement which seems to generally be focused on the data and science and seem to be making rational arguments and moving us towards treating each other with more healthiness. And the leaders in their need to be seen as inspired while consistently always lagging behind the progressive members where the real inspiration was originating. Culminating with the tragic moment when Joseph F Smith dies from Pneumonia right in the midst of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 and now it becomes paramount that the Church face the faulty thinking that tradition trumps good ideas and healthier ways of doing things. And then in the end, The church is dragged into change when it finally accepts time and time again that the real inspiration was with its critics and its progressive members.
RESOURCES:
https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/blog/sacrament-cup-influenza-epidemic-1918
https://mormondiscussionpodcast.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/08/Mormon-Sacrament-1928_1940.pdf
https://rsc.byu.edu/you-shall-have-my-word/lords-supper-early-mormonism
https://www.ldsliving.com/What-You-Didn-t-Know-About-Sacrament-Cups/s/82333
https://58468702.weebly.com/mormon-sacrament-cups.html#:~:text=Previously%20the%20church%20partook%20of,the%20use%20of%20individual%20cups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrament_(LDS_Church)
http://www.reformedpresbytery.org/books/comncup/comncup.htm
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Interesting show. I am subscriber and contributor. I am a sixth generation Mormon but now an Episcopalian. My mother remembers as a little girl in Logan in the 1910s sharing a common cup. She dreaded ending up on a pew with a particular old man with a huge mustache which he drained into the cup after he drank.
The shared chalice is part of the tradition of the Anglican/Episcopal faith. The bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ and is described as the “real presence”. The sacramental wine is very high proof and that helps disinfect. The chalice is turned and wiped after each person. The belief is that the sacrament is complete with either the bread or the wine, so it is not necessary to drink from the chalice to make ones communion. I honestly have never known of anyone in my parish becoming ill from sharing the cup. The priest at the end of mass consumes any wine left over and I am not aware of my priest becoming ill from it. Probably more danger to being an alcoholic!
Thanks again for a great show
It has always puzzled me why Mormons use water. I know at one time it was wine but it is the only denomination I know that uses water for communion. Great show, thanks