When Jesus Says the Wrong Thing

David Mills on Qualifying Christian Language

The bishop of Oxford thinks that the Eucharistic language of eating the Lord’s Body and drinking his Blood so put off the modern man that Christians should stop using it. Jesus’ words in John 6:51–58 shocked and offended those to whom such language is utterly foreign. In his new book, Eating God, Richard Harries writes (as quoted in The Times) that

people who are groping their way into Christianity can suddenly find themselves shocked and horrified, though they may be too polite to express such feelings, at the sacrificial, cannibalistic language of the Eucharist.

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David Mills has been editor of Touchstone and executive editor of First Things.

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