I remember a story told by an old priest friend of giving communion to a bunch of kids that came from a housing project across the street from the church. These kids weren’t raised in a liturgical church and had been coming on their own. Thrown directly into the Sunday service, at least some of them had no background for the rituals and traditions contained in the communion service. So when my friend offered the communion cup to one of the girls with the formula, “the blood of Christ, the cup of salvation,” she recoiled and declared, “yuck!”
Little did she know her response was in keeping with rumors spread about the early church--rumors that are understandable given all this language of blood sacrifice--that Christians were cannibals among other things.1 It’s a pretty stark accusation to make about a religion that’s supposed to be about love of neighbor and God.
These rumors came from the language around the communion service, language lifted straight out of what the gospels record as …
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