The Form and Function of The Eucharist in Modern, British Christianity - Essay Example

From the time Psychology became an independent field of enquiry the psychologists started studying religious phenomenon, especially rituals like the Eucharist. But for the exception of Islam and Buddhism all religions have some form of sacrifice. The Christian sacrifice of Eucharist is, in a way, the perfection of all the sacrifices that the world has witnessed, because it is the sacrifice performed by the Messiah Himself. Since no more sacrifices are required to atone for mankind, Christ Himself ordered mankind to perform the sacrifice in the form of Eucharistic celebration in which the materials used are wine and bread.

But though the material used are wine and bread they turn into the body and blood of Christ. To find out the level of participation in UK two approaches have been used. To find out the general attitudes to Eucharist the tool of Focus Group was used. The study yielded ten different attitudes to Eucharist, ranging from wholehearted involvement to total apathy. Finally the statistical information on UK public to religion was used .It revealed that religion is matter of limited interest to UK public.

Eucharist, par excellence, is community worship. Since the modern British Christians are members of religion only from the point of view of statistics only the participation in the Eucharist, is not matter of importance to them. Religious phenomenon started attracting the attention of scholars only in the latter half of 19th century. Religion was a subject surrounded in mystery and generally scholars did not study it as they studied other subjects. Subjects like sociology, anthropology and psychology however started making their entry into the study of religion.

The attempt was praiseworthy as thinking man or woman is able to integrate his /her faith experience in the light of reason. In fact, many people thought that Darwin’s work would be the death knell of people’s faith in religion. But even after Darwin religion remains .The