Why Crackers and Grape Juice?

[Not David]

I never understood the theology behind that since Jesus had bread and wine. When I was growing up I never had a church that offers bread and wine even when they say they follow the Bible. Does anybody know the reason Evangelical churches have this change?

 

[Albion]

I dont like crackers and juice myself, but this is partly what we are familiar and comfortable with, I suppose.

However, on behalf of the crackers and juice people, I do acknowledge that the bread used at the Last Supper was most likely unleavened (thats why Catholics, Anglicans, an others today use hosts that are wheat but look like paper wafers) and that the wine of Jesus day was cut with water and not like that which we think of today.

On the other hand, the campaign to change over to plain grape juice instead of even weak wine like Jesus knew got rolling a little more than a century ago and was driven largely by the Welchs Grape Juice company, so.....

 

[Dave-W]

The scene was a Passover celebration. So regular bread was off the table (so to speak) meaning they used matzoh. (a cracker)

Since many evangelical and most fundamentalist denominations consider alcohol use to be sinful, they use grape juice instead of fermented wine.

 

[dqhall]

I never understood the theology behind that since Jesus had bread and wine. When I was growing up I never had a church that offers bread and wine even when they say they follow the Bible. Does anybody know the reason Evangelical churches have this change?

They can not easily replicate a group of people sitting around a table and eating a meal together as Jesus did with his disciples the night he was arrested; before being crucified the next day. They symbolize the last supper fellowship by handing out a few grams of bread, wafer or cracker and maybe an ounce of wine or grape juice, if that much.

 

[FireDragon76]

It's valid, though not dignified, as far as I'm concerned.

My pastor is becoming loopy, he's handing out homemade challah bread at communion sometimes. I much prefer the wafers and metal chalice. For one thing, the traditional unleavened wafers stores very easily because the water content is so low, and they are easier to handle in a dignified manner, including easier for intinction and less crumbling.

 

[Phil 1:21]

If a person is hung up on the composition of the elements, they're missing the point.

 

[Rubiks]

The bread that Jesus ate was most likely unleavened (without yeast). Grape juice had not been invented at that point in history.

 

[AnnaDeborah]

Most churches I've been in, we do have bread (a loaf) and wine, but the wine is non-alcoholic. I think that's important because if someone is unable to take alcohol for medical reasons or because they are recovering from an addiction, they could be barred from communion.

I don't think what you have communion with is that important though. My understanding is that Jesus' disciples were celebrating Passover with what every other Jewish household would have been eating & drinking - it wasn't like the meal was a special 'communion' meal. So I guess it would make most sense for the communion meal to be made up either of the staple food & drink of the culture or food & drink that has a special celebratory significance in that culture. I sometimes wonder what the first disciples would think of our super-formal communion services with tiny little cups and cubes of bread! I'm not sure they'd recognise it as having any connection to what they experienced!!!

I remember someone telling me that the most memorable communion meal they ever had was when they visited a country that was 'closed' to the Gospel - they trekked up a mountain to attend a service with some national believers (people walked for about three hours to reach somewhere isolated enough to be safe), and while they were there, someone suggested they should have communion. One person had a bottle of diluted squash and another person had a packet of two custard creams from the tea tray in their hotel room, so that was what they used!

 

[Albion]

Most churches I've been in, we do have bread (a loaf) and wine, but the wine is non-alcoholic. I think that's important because if someone is unable to take alcohol for medical reasons or because they are recovering from an addiction, they could be barred from communion.

I wonder what church would do that. Every one that I know of would (or does) have some way of accommodating such communicants.

 

[AnnaDeborah]

I wonder what church would do that. Every one that I know of would (or does) have some way of accommodating such communicants.

The only way of accommodating such people if you are using alcoholic wine is to offer them a separate cup of grape juice or similar. This can be really isolating. If you are an alcoholic, there is also the risk that the smell of alcohol could trigger cravings, even if you don't actually drink it.

I'm not able to take alcohol in any quantity due to medical reasons. Accidently ingesting the amount contained in an individual communion cup would involve me being blue-lighted to hospital. I attended one church that started using alcoholic wine and I had to go to a small side table to receive a glass of orange squash instead! Half the time, the person preparing forgot to put it out for me, and then I'd end up standing there like a lemon while they rushed round to find a spare glass and something to put in it. I ended up missing communion services because I felt like some kind of outcast. Apparently, the reason for the change was that some people in the leadership team liked the taste of alcoholic wine better...

 

[redleghunter]

I never understood the theology behind that since Jesus had bread and wine. When I was growing up I never had a church that offers bread and wine even when they say they follow the Bible. Does anybody know the reason Evangelical churches have this change?

As my Jesuit educators used to say "It depends." I was raised and educated Roman Catholic. It was not until I was age 10 they even offered the cup to the laity. And since I was underage for alcohol I was refused the cup as well. And the host is really more of a cracker than bread.

When I starting attending an Evangelical Protestant church there was actually real bread broken and passed around like during the Last Supper and we did have grape juice. Why not wine? Because we ran a Gospel Mission Home for homeless, recovering drug addicts and recovering alcoholics. Some would join our church after conversion and baptism. The elders decided that putting wine even watered down would not be befitting of the brethren to do so. Every church I attended after that held to the same principle. Real bread and fruit of the vine (grape juice). We don't want to create a stumbling block for a fellow brother or sister in Christ. Not so much being puritans on alcohol like Carry Nation.

 

[redleghunter]

I wonder what church would do that. Every one that I know of would (or does) have some way of accommodating such communicants.

That is an option as well but the point is we all drink from the same "cup."

Considering my pastor's wife has a gluten allergy, there is accommodation for that!

 

[redleghunter]

Since many evangelical and most fundamentalist denominations consider alcohol use to be sinful, they use grape juice instead of fermented wine.

That may be the case but not in every situation.

 

[Dave-W]

. Every church I attended after that held to the same principle. Real bread and fruit of the vine (grape juice).

What do you mean by "real bread?" Not unleavened?

 

[redleghunter]

What do you mean by "real bread?" Not unleavened?

Real unleavened bread. Not the processed wafers or crackers.

 

[Dave-W]

Real unleavened bread. Not the processed wafers or crackers.

OK. Regular Matzah then.

 

[redleghunter]

OK. Regular Matzah then.

On the softer side. Most commercial Matzah is hard like crackers.

 

[JackRT]

In biblical times wine was normally fermented to the maximum of about 16%. At that concentration the alcohol actually kills the yeast. Biblically this was called strong drink. However the wine was usually cut with water to bring down the alcohol content to 5% to 8%. Grape juice would only be available a few weeks a year during and just following harvest season. Beyond that time the wild yeasts would already be turning the juice into wine. Distillation of alcohol was not known until about the twelfth century. Among the common people the consumption of weak beer was actually more common than wine which was often reserved for special occasions.

I have also read that wine from Judea and Galilee was regarded by the Greeks and Romans as cheap plonk.

 

[Jenniferdiana]

I don't know maybe because the crackers and grape juice is cheaper hahaha jk

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

I never understood the theology behind that since Jesus had bread and wine. When I was growing up I never had a church that offers bread and wine even when they say they follow the Bible. Does anybody know the reason Evangelical churches have this change?

Others have aptly noted that the bread was originally unleavened, which makes it more of a cracker. The history of the grape juice, as I was told, goes back to the founding of Welch's grape juice, begun in direct response to an alcoholic friend that fell off of the wagon because of the wine used in communion.

From Wikipedia:

Welch was an adherent to the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion which strongly opposed "manufacturing, buying, selling, or using intoxicating liquors" and advocated the use of unfermented grape juice instead of wine for administering the sacrament of the Eucharist, or communion, during the church service.

Why grape juice? For the simple purpose of not tempting a weaker brother or sister in the faith. That's all.