Philip Weeks' misrepresentation of the relative Anglican and Lutheran positions regarding the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharistic meal is alarming.

The Augsburg Confession clearly teaches "that the true body and blood of Christ are really present in the Supper of our Lord under the form of bread and wine and are distributed and received" (Article X). Luther emphatically taught that Christ was present "in, through, and under" the species of bread and wine. The Smalcald Articles (written by Luther in 1537 and still part of the Lutheran Book of Concord) insisted on the objective presence of Christ in the Holy Communion and went so far as to declare, "We hold that the bread and wine in the Supper are the true body and blood of Christ and that these are given and received not only by the godly but also by wicked Christians."

It was Anglicans who hedged their bets on the real, objective presence of Christ in the bread and wine when they declared in the Thirty-Nine Articles, "The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth ... the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ ..."

And so to the necessity of the epiclesis, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, still the official prayer book of the Church of England, contains no epiclesis. Perhaps the C of E does not measure up to Canon Weeks' interpretation of the Lambeth Quadrilateral? Maybe we should not be in communion with that body?

(The Rev. Canon) David L. Veal Diocese of Northwest Texas Lubbock, Texas