Emerson as Sacramental Theologian

Lundin spends considerable time describing Emerson’s rejection of Christian orthodoxy in favor of an American version of Romanticism, and shows that Emerson’s departure from orthodoxy centered on his rejection of the Eucharist. Emerson resigned his post at the Second Church of Boston because he could no longer administer the Supper in good conscience. He argued that Jesus did not intend the Supper to be a continuing rite in the church, and the church’s use of the rite showed how far it had departed from the simply faith of Jesus, His simple faith in the “infinitude of man.”

Emerson also objected to the Supper because it places bread and wine in between him and God, impolitely intervening in the cozy unmediated relationship one might have with God. (Consistently, Emerson thought of Christ Himself in the same way – a “second God” that kept us at a distance. Jesus mediates only in the sense that he instructs us “how to become like God.”)

Importantly, Emerson said that the early Christians adopted the Supper as a continuing rite because of their “Jewish prejudices,” and Lundin suggests that the historical particularity of the Supper also offended Emerson’s sensibilities. Lundin places Emerson’s views on the Supper in the context of American Puritan conflicts over church membership, and suggests that questions of inclusion and exclusion from the Supper represent the earliest explorations of American identity – raising the question of “who belongs here”? Like other American romantics, Emerson was offended by the fact that the Supper drew boundaries between the covenant people and those outside.

Emerson thus provides further evidence of the thesis that modern Western culture arose from conflicts and debates in sacramental theology. And I’ll say again: Someone needs to write a book on this.