I Kidnapped Jesus
Yesterday I commented on a news story about a student in America who took a wafer from a Catholic Mass, incurring the wrath of quite a number of Catholic organizations in the process. The “crime” was referred to repeatedly as kidnap because of the strange belief of transubstantiation which states that the wafer and wine turn to the body and blood of Jesus Christ once blessed, although our sense still perceive them as food.
In this sense, taking a wafer without eating it is apparently equal to the crime of kidnapping Jesus himself. For atheists, this claim is completely ridiculous and illogical; not so much because there is no way of proving any of this transubstantiating actually happens, but because by their own logic, Catholics (and other denominations which subscribe to the process) are partaking in ritual cannibalism of their Saviour.
The whole debacle got me thinking about churches in England, and I found that my “local” cathedral followed a rare doctrine introduced by one of it’s early bishops to unite both Catholics and Prostestants on the issue of transubstantiation. As such, they adhere to the doctrine that the wafer and wine literally become the body and blood, but can only be “grasped by faith”. I decided to mimic the student in America, go to church for the first time in 10 years, and take Jesus’ body home with me.
When I first announced my plan, some people said it was disrespectful of faith and I would be violating someone else’s freedom of expression in order to fulfil my own. Such an idea was not the case, and it was if I had planned to run up to the alter and grab a handful. In my defense, I will tell you exactly how the morning went.
8:30am - Arrived at Salisbury Cathedral. I had a bit of shopping to do before the service, and I was meeting a friend for a coffee.
9:45am - Met up with friend in Cafe Nero and discussed issues of morality, the U.S elections, gay marriage, and Evolution. My friend is a Christian and we differ on pretty much all of those points.
11:05am - Walked into Salisbury Cathedral and found the Morning Chapel where the service would be held.
11:15am - Service starts. I stayed at the back with the prayer book, and said every word in unison with everyone else.
11:30am - I went up to the front and knelt between two elderly people. The wafer was placed in my cupped hands. I raised them to my mouth, and palmed the wafer. I then drank Jesus’ “blood”.
11:40am - Service ends. On my way out a foreign man who was attending the service turned out to be a Bishop from a Latin American country (I didn’t hear which). He talked to the priest for a few minutes before noticing I was standing there waiting to get out. He let me pass, and on the way I shook the priest’s hand and thanked her for the service.
In my eyes, I was respectful of their traditions and faith. I joined in with the entire process except for one part, and didn’t interrupt or cause a scene. If what I did was “disrespectful” to the people there, then the whole issue of respect has to be rethought.
Anyway, I got home and took a photo of the wafer, another with my thumbnail for scale, and a final one with me holding the wafer. Since I was on my own I didn’t have anyone to take the last picture for me, so it’s probably a bit blurry due to it being on a timer and not set properly. If my memory serves me correctly, this is the first time I’ve put a photo of myself up (not counting the tiny one in the comments). Facebook friends can view all my photos of university life, which includes dressing up, makeup, and general drunken partying.
I’m still thinking of things to do with the wafer but some interesting things have been suggested so far, so keep them coming!
Enjoy!
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You drank the blood? You vampire!
(Good job. I love it. Congrats on burning in Hell with me.)
Oliver
10 Jul 08 at 5:06 pm (GMT)
wow, that’s a fancy looking wafer. it even has jesus on it? ours were just plain old boring wafers at baptist church…
i wonder if you could find an online provider of communion wafers and buy them in bulk. but i guess they haven’t been blessed, or whatever, by the priest so they wouldn’t yet be considered the body of christ.
amiable
10 Jul 08 at 6:48 pm (GMT)
It’s fancy but delicate. You could literally break it by touching it too hard. Plus, if my memory serves me correctly, the first time I ate one of them it tasted disgusting…but then it is human flesh.
Adrian Hayter
10 Jul 08 at 7:04 pm (GMT)
i wonder if you could find an online provider of communion wafers and buy them in bulk.
There are lots of places. Search for ‘communion hosts’ and you’ll find them. Also, simply going into a church and asking for one “out of curiosty” will likely get you one as well.
DaveS
10 Jul 08 at 7:11 pm (GMT)
I think they may try to get out of persecuting you as much because the church you got it from is not “True Christian” and thus cannot turn the cracker into “Real Jesus”.
Good attempt though.
db0
10 Jul 08 at 10:53 pm (GMT)
My next mission is to get a wafer from a Catholic Church, don’t worry! Although Salisbury Cathedral do believe in transubstantiation so at least some people think I have Jesus :)
Adrian Hayter
10 Jul 08 at 10:57 pm (GMT)
I was an alterboy when I was a kid and use to love stealing and scoffing on these communion wafer thingies. They used to melt in your mouth. Tasteless but kinda funky.
Moth
11 Jul 08 at 11:57 am (GMT)
You must have heard of the game they play in public schools over here in Blighty (and a rather good, filmable, extremely disrespectful thing you could do with said wafer)?
Anyhoo, what you do (on camera, of course, so the results can be posted on-line) is surround said wafer with exited gentlemen. Have gentlemen excite themselves further. The last one to, ahem, ‘finish’ loses, thus eats the, now somewhat soggy, wafer.
Great no?! You can even post it easy peasy using a blogspot account (youtube tend to frown on multiple cum shots), thus allowing all of us to join in the fun! hurrah!!!
Lil' Drummer Bwoi
11 Jul 08 at 5:01 pm (GMT)
Wow that’s courageous but unimpressive. Christians tend not to react to these sorts of contemptuous acts with violence. Want to do something that actually requires some cojones? Desecrate a Koran, take pictures, and advertise your name and address. Now that would really prove your commitment to…wait, what was it again…right…your commitment to nothing. If you are so unimpressed with Christianity, why do you even bother? Why not come up with a positive world-view instead of one that amounts to commiting hateful acts against Christians? Or are you like the Nazi who hates Jews but just can’t stop obsessing about them?
trp
12 Jul 08 at 2:46 am (GMT)
“If you are so unimpressed with Christianity, why do you even bother?”
It’s because I’m unimpressed with Christianity that I did this in the first place. Surely their all powerful God would smite me down for taking part of his son???
“Why not come up with a positive world-view instead of one that amounts to committing hateful acts against Christians?”
That’s not how the new atheist game is played. We have been quiet for far too long, and the new atheist movement has brought literally thousands of people out to fight against religion.
Also, just because I have a commitment to no God doesn’t mean I don’t have other commitments. I have commitments against slavery and for freedom, things religion is against.
Adrian Hayter
12 Jul 08 at 3:08 am (GMT)
[...] If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Looking over my stats, I found a few visitors coming in from a HaloScan comments page. Incidently, does anyone know how to find the original blog from this comments page? Judging by the comments it’s probably some deeply ignorant Christian blog. Anyway, I’d got some hits off that for my copy-cat wafer stealing event. [...]
Eucharist Miracles Explained - The Atheist Blogger
12 Jul 08 at 3:58 pm (GMT)
I wonder if they ever spread cheese or some other condiment on one of those wafers.
Oh yeah, about the posting about positive views. It is funny that I always noticed that Christians think that it is more important to be positive than it is to demonstrate reality.
Tedster
14 Jul 08 at 6:18 am (GMT)
A few weeks ago I started my Eucharist desecration video serie. Take a look an give me comments on youtube (search for fsmdude on youtube or Eucharist desecration).
By example, this week I’ve smoked a consecrated wafer with a bong (video will be added soon), and fed it to ducks.
Dominique
23 Aug 08 at 4:39 am (GMT)