Thank you for Melessa Florer-Bixler’s “Literal, Symbolic — or Both?” (Bible, May 27). Having grown up in the Mennonite Church, I can easily identify with her dilemma. Two additional resources are Common Roots: A Call to Evangelical Maturity by Robert E. Webber and Peter Kreeft’s recently published Symbol or Substance.
My lifelong interest in worship and church history led me some years ago to appreciate more liturgical forms of worship. The church did not begin in the 16th century. Many of us could profit from a greater understanding of the “apostolic deposit,” the post-apostolic church, the ecumenical councils, how we got our Bible, the church fathers, holy tradition and biblical interpretation. The Nicene Creed provides a safeguard against apostasy.
For much of my life I “took” communion twice a year in the Mennonite Church. For some time now, I “receive” the Eucharist at least biweekly in the beauty and harmony of St. John Chrysostom’s scriptural-based divine liturgy. Does our perception of what we think or believe communion is determine whether we “take it” or “receive” it?
Bill Yovanovich
Elizabethtown, Pa.
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