The Sacramental Imagination
Newaygo pastor David Wygmans offers this provocative paper on dualism, Calvin, and “the sacramental imagination.” A highlight:
“The church has two (or seven) sacraments that it celebrates by way of living out on a small scale the universal sacramentality of life. Thus, control over the sacraments may be important, but it is not the major issue, nor should it be heavily emphasized. The major issue instead is to celebrate the sacraments in ways that imparts as much as possible a sacramental imagination, giving both vision and permission to those who partake as well as those who stand far off and observe. In this way, the church’s ritual will say, “We celebrate specific promises of God here in these rituals. We use normal, everyday elements because God comes to us in the normal and the everyday. And God’s promises are all encompassing. ‘I will be with you.’ Who can ask for more of the sacred in the everyday than that?”
[Also see Laura Smit’s Developing a Calvinist Sacramental Theology(pdf)]
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