Churches of Christ and the Lord's Supper: Twentieth Century Perspectives

Though Alexander Campbell objected that the house of God had been turned into a "house of sorrow" through a "morose piety" surrounding the Lord’s Supper, the theology and practice of Stone-Campbell congregations have generally failed to heed his warning. Using early 20th-century Churches of Christ as a case study, the practice of the Supper is identified as cerebral, silent, and individualistic obedience to a positive command. In contrast, Luke–Acts portrays the Lord's Table as a joyous embrace and communion with the risen Christ as an eschatological event. This eschatological horizon reminds us that the root metaphor of the Eucharist is neither tomb nor altar, but table.