Experiencing Christ through the Life of Prayer in Community

 A video from St. Matthew's Church (ACC) in Newport Beach, CA:

What Is The Gospel?

The following is a statement from GAFCON.

What is the gospel?

May 21, 2012

A paper from members of the FCA Leaders’ Conference, London, April 2012
Seminar led by Drs Ngozi Okeke & Mark Thompson

(PDF version here)

The gospel is the life-­‐transforming message of salvation from sin and all its consequences through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is both a declaration and a summons: announcing what has been done for us in Christ and calling us to repentance, faith and submission to his lordship. ‘Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, was buried and was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures’.¹

Jesus himself proclaimed ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel’.² This gospel finds its ultimate ground in the character of the triune God, his perfect love and holiness. God will not ignore human sin. Sin leads to God’s just and holy wrath and the awful reality of hell. The grave consequences of sin — guilt before God and the judgment to come, enslavement to sin and Satan, corruption and death — all must be dealt with. We cannot deal with those consequences ourselves, in part or in whole. In this light, God’s determined love expressed itself most clearly when the Father sent his Son in the power of the Spirit to be the Savior of the world.³ ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’.⁴ ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’.⁵

The gospel announces the work of the triune God. The Son came to do the Father’s will in the power of the Spirit. By the Spirit he was incarnate in Mary’s womb in fulfillment of the OT Scriptures, becoming genuinely one of us while remaining truly God.⁶ He was made like us in every way, sin excepted.⁷ At the same time he is the unique Son of God, the only savior of the world. He lived the perfect life that none of us can live, always doing the will of the Father who sent him^.8 He died for our sins and was raised for our justification, always in perfect unity with the Father and the Spirit. ‘For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit ...’⁹

The gospel, the proclamation of what God has done in Christ, is the powerful means by which God saves men and women today.¹⁰ As the gospel is proclaimed, the Holy Spirit enables us to trust in God’s promise of forgiveness and eternal life. Faith, genuine repentance and a transformed life are evidence that the gospel has been at work. Because Christ has died and been raised from the grave we cannot continue as before. In response to God’s mercy in saving us, we are called to be obedient, to stand as Christ’s faithful people in the world. We recognize that we now belong to the one who sanctified his people through his own blood.¹¹ Having died to sin in Christ we cannot continue to live in it.¹² As those rescued by Christ, our thinking and our behavior must be determined by his will expressed in his authoritative written word. Yet this new life of faith and obedience is never a human achievement. We are saved only through faith in Christ alone and even our faith is a gift of God.¹³ We have been brought from death to life by Jesus and the life he gives us is life as it was meant to be, life to the full.¹⁴ It is a life characterized by trust in God’s goodness, love of God and of our neighbor, and hope in the midst of suffering, looking forward to that day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.¹⁵ On that day, God’s redeemed people will enjoy his presence in a new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells.¹⁶ In the meantime, his service is perfect freedom.

The gospel announces God’s great victory and the fulfillment of his ancient promises in Christ.¹⁷ Sin and the powers that stand behind it are defeated.¹⁸ Judgment is exhausted so that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.¹⁹ Death has been overturned by the one who is the resurrection and the life.²⁰ Exalted to the right hand of the Father, he pours out his Spirit on the church, equipping it powerfully to worship, to witness by word and deed to the gospel of God, which always remains the gospel concerning his Son.²¹ This same gospel, proclaimed by Jesus and his apostles, is our message in every age to a broken world of lost men and women who can be rescued only by Jesus, the crucified but risen Saviour and Lord of all. It is in the faithful proclamation of the gospel, and in the living of lives that have been transformed by it, that we give God the glory that is his due.

References:

1 1 Corinthians 15:3–4
2 Mark 1:14
3 1 John 4:14
4 John 3:16
5 Romans 5:8
6 Isaiah 7:14; Luke 1:35
7 Hebrews 4:15
8 John 6:38; 8:28–29
9 1 Peter 3:18; 2 Corinthians 5:21
10 Romans 1:16–17
11 Hebrews 13:12
12 Romans 6:2
13 Ephesians 2:8–9
14 John 10:10
15 Philippians 2:9–10
16 2 Peter 3:13
17 Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 53:5–6
18 Colossians 2:13–15
19 Romans 8:1
20 John 11:25
20 Acts 2:33; Romans 1:1–3

Goodenough: Psalm 150 (King's College Choir)

Byrd: Ave Verum Corpus

This Just In From From An Acquaintance. . .

who was a subdeacon in the Orthodox Western Rite, and who had at least a bit of influence in the Western Rite here in the states.   He has gone back to the Roman Catholic Church of his youth, and is a novice at a Benedictine monastery overseas.  I had asked him:

Do you think the Western Rite has a secured place in the Orthodox Church, or do you foresee eventual assimilation into the Eastern Rite?

His answer came tonight:

Frankly, I don't believe that WRO has much of a future at all. There is simply no common vision. I do foresee eventual ER assimilation, or mass defections to Rome or traditional Anglicanism (the latter, admittedly, has the advantage of a non-exceptional married clergy).

My feeling is that Orthodox ought to be Byzantine, Romans ought to be Roman, Anglicans ought to be Anglican. Uniate projects (and yes, I include here Greek Catholicism and Anglican Use Roman Catholicism) never seem to work out; they always produce a sort of bastardized "tertium quid".

There are no data on the future, of course, but I happen to share his opinon.  We may be wrong, but if I had to lay money on the prediction, I'd bet the days of the Western Rite are numbered.  As I've argued, potential converts to Orthodoxy hoping to remain "Western" will very likely be frustrated in that goal if they go WR. 

The Fighting Episcopalian Bishop

                                      

The descendant of Scots-Irish pioneers and the son of a Revolutionary War officer, Leonidas Polk was born in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1806. His grandfather had founded the University of North Carolina and his cousin, James, was destined to become President of the United States. In his teens, Leonidas received an appointment to the U. S. Military Academy at West Point and was commissioned a second lieutenant of cavalry upon graduation in 1827.

As a cadet, Polk was heavily influenced by the Episcopalian chaplain who baptized him and then convinced him to become a priest. The young lieutenant resigned from the army to enter the Virginia Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1831. A year earlier, in 1830, Polk had married Frances Devereux of North Carolina.

The Reverend Mr. Polk served churches in Virginia and Tennessee before being appointed Missionary Bishop of the Southeast in 1838. Three years later, he became the first Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana. Over the next two decades, Leonidas Polk established churches in Thibodaux, Napoleonville, Plaquemine, Donaldsonville, Opelousas, and elsewhere throughout the state. It has been documented that "during his episcopate at New Orleans he ordained sixteen deacons and nineteen priests; and the number of churches grew from three to thirty-three. "

Bishop Polk led the effort to establish the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee and he laid the cornerstone there in 1860. He considered the Episcopal school to be "a home for all the arts and sciences and of literary culture in the Southern states. "

The Bishop, like most Southerners, feared that the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860 represented a new era of Federal assaults on the rights of the states of the South. When Louisiana seceded from the Union in January, 1861, Polk put aside his robes and took up the sword to defend his adopted state. President Jefferson Davis appointed him a major general in the new Confederate army and, shortly thereafter, Polk inflicted a defeat upon Union troops under U. S. Grant at Belmont, Missouri. He soon became a corps commander in the legendary Confederate Army of Tennessee and fought in scores of major and minor battles. Always remembering his Christian duties and the demands of his faith, the "Fighting Bishop" was largely responsible for the great spiritual revival which swept the Confederate forces .

In the spring and summer of 1864, General Polk assisted in the defense of Atlanta against William T. Sherman's marauding Northern army . On June 14, at Pine Mountain, he was killed by Union artillery fire. According to Private Sam Watkins of the 1st Tennessee Infantry,

"hundreds of Confederate soldiers shed tears when told of the Bishop's death. "

Leonidas Polk of Louisiana would later be described as a man who "in pulpit and on battlefield, lived up to the tradition of a family that offered itself again and again upon the altar of freedom. It was his idea that a man should fight for what he believed...his was a fighting faith." 

(http://www.knowsouthernhistory.net/Biographies/Leonidas_Polk/)

Deus Vult

      

England and the Crusades

Lead Kindly Light (J.H. Newman)

A Reader Sends This Article

Patristic Soteriology: Three Trajectories (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society)

I would urge my readers to take the time to read this 21-page article. The author is Donald Fairbairn, a professor of historical theology at Erskine Theological Seminary in South Carolina, who sets forth the argument that what we see in the soteriologies of Western and Eastern churches is not two, but three "trajectories." Based on the work of the noted Protestant historical theologian Adolf von Harnack and others, it is commonly held that there are two major soteriological patterns, "a juridical or legal pattern (strongly represented in the Western Church) that focused on forgiveness of sins, and a more Eastern pattern that saw salvation as participation in God or deification." Harnack argued, and I would largely agree with him, that: 

the Western pattern . . . followed the biblical depiction of salvation by focusing on the inspiring character of Christ’s human life, the need for atonement from sin, the fact of human justification, and the coming of God’s judgment. . . . In contrast (to the Eastern participatory and mystical trajectory), he writes that Western Christianity was from the start more biblical and practical, as well as more ecclesiastical, because of its less speculative bent. Harnack affirms: “To this is attributed the fact that the West did not fix its attention above all on deification nor, in consequence, on asceticism, but kept real life more distinctly in view.” (Emphasis mine.)

 Of the Eastern Church, Harnack writes: 

The salvation presented in (Eastern) Christianity consists in the redemption of the human race from the state of mortality and the sin involved in it, that men might attain divine life, i.e., the everlasting contemplation of God, this redemption having already been consummated in the incarnation of the Son of God and being conferred on men by their close union with him: Christianity is the religion which delivers from death and leads to the contemplation of God.

 It is, in fact, this trajectory which took hold in the East: 

If one turns to the East, it seems to me that what I am calling the mystical trajectory was the one that gained preeminence during the Byzantine period. The emphases of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa were echoed prominently in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius early in the sixth century. Later, Maximus the Confessor (ca. 580–662) launched an extensive critique of Origen’s cosmology, allegedly solving once-for-all the problems inherent in it, but in my opinion he did not significantly depart from the overall vision of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. This trajectory may be traced further through Gregory Palamas (ca. 1269–1359), who crystallized the distinction between God’s essence (in which we do not share) and his energies (in which we do share through salvation). With Palamas the Eastern Orthodox Church was locked onto a trajectory in which salvation consists more of participation in God’s qualities, his energies, rather than participation in a relationship. 

Read almost any standard Orthodox theology text today, and you will see that this is how the Orthodox view of soteriology is stated, its indebtedness to Origenist (and hence Neoplatonist) theologians such as Gregory, Maximus and Palamas frankly noted. 

However, Fairbairn argues there is a separate soteriological trajectory in Eastern Christian thought, one he describes as personalist and relational, which is rooted in the writings of Irenaeus and Cyril of Alexandria. That trajectory unfortunately did not triumph in the East, but it is arguably one that could harmonize well not only with the juridical trajectory of the West, but also with the personalist and relationalist theologies of Evangelicalism. 

It's an interesting thesis. Whether or not it stands a chance of bearing any ecumenical fruit is another question. From a Western "juridical" perspective, personalism and relationalism are theologies that are complementary to the juridical pattern.  But Orthodoxy is so locked into its theosis/works soteriology and so dead set against "the West" that any attempt on its part to find some common ground here seems unlikely.

Anglican Chant: O How Amiable are Thy Dwellings (Parry)

O how amiable are thy dwellings, Thou Lord of hosts.
My soul hath desired long to enter into the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God.

Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house
And the swallow a nest where she may lay her young.
Even thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.
Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house;
They will be alway praising Thee.

Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee,
In whose heart are Thy ways.
Who, going through the vale of misery use it for a well
And the pools are filled with water.
They will go from strength to strength and unto the God of Gods appeareth every one of them in Sion.

O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer. Hearken, O God of Jacob.
Behold our God, our defender and look upon the face of Thine anointed.

For one day in Thy courts is better than a thousand.
I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
Than to dwell in the tents of ungodliness.

For the Lord God is a light and defense.
The Lord will give praise and worship
And no good things shall be withhold from them that live a godly life.
O Lord God of hosts! Blessed is the man that putteth his trust in Thee!

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be
World without end, Amen.

Iranian-American Songstress-Goddess Azam Ali: O Quanta Qualia - A Hymn of Peter Abelard, and An Anglican Commentary Thereon

O quanta, qualia sunt illa sabbata
quae semper celebrat superna curia.
quae fessis requies, quae merces fortibus,
cum erit omnia Deus in omnibus.

vere Ierusalem est illa civitas,
cuius pax iugis est, summa iucunditas,
ubi non praevenit rem desiderium,
nec desiderio minus est praemium.

quis rex, quae curia, quale palatium,
quae pax, quae requies, quod illud gaudium,
huius participes exponant gloriae,
si quantum sentiunt, possint exprimere.

nostrum est interim mentem erigere
et totis patriam votis appetere,
et ad Ierusalem a Babylonia
post longa regredi tandem exilia.

illic molestiis finitis omnibus
securi cantica Sion cantibimus,
et iuges gratias de donis gratiae
beata referet plebs tibi, Domine.

illic ex sabbato succedet sabbatum,
perpes laetitia sabbatizantium,
nec ineffabiles cessabunt iubili,
quos decantabimus et nos et angeli.

perenni Domino perpes sit gloria,
ex quo sunt, per quem sunt, in quo sunt omnia;
ex quo sunt, Pater est; per quem sunt, Filius;
in quo sunt, Patris et Filii Spiritus.

ON BABYLON'S STRAND

Margaret Laird claims Peter Abelard as a contemporary

THERE IS A HYMN, not perhaps sung as often as it once was, which expresses most aptly the situation in which so many faithful orthodox Anglicans find themselves at the beginning of this new millennium. The hymn dates from the Middle Ages and like most hymns of that period, contains purer expressions of doctrine than that of most contemporary hymnody. The fact that mediaeval hymns have been used throughout the ages in Christian liturgy adds to their attraction and this is particularly true of the subject of this article.

In order to appreciate any literature fully, it is essential to take some account of the context and age in which it was written. In this case, it was the twelfth century, the age of a great cultural movement, so rich in art, architecture, scholarship and literature, that it has often been described as the 'Twelfth Century Renaissance'. It was, of course, an age of faith and the key to the understanding of this period lies in theology - a theology which attracted and produced some of the greatest scholars and teachers, the most brilliant of whom was Peter Abelard.

And so, at last, the hymn can be identified. It is J M Neale's translation of:

'O quanta qualia sunt illa Sabbata'

or 'O what their joy and their glory must be,
Those endless Sabbaths the blessed ones see!'

The original Latin version has been attributed to Peter Abelard.

There are many reasons why faithful Anglicans may benefit from a study of this hymn but extreme sabbatarian sympathy is not one of them. It is, however, mainly because of the way in which Peter Abelard uses the imagery of the Sabbath to illustrate the contrast between life now and life hereafter and at the same time, to demonstrate the tenuous link between heaven and earth.

Like so many of the faithful in the Church today, Abelard's experience of the mediaeval Church was by no means happy. His theological stance and superior intellect gave rise to opposition and even to hatred and envy amongst his contemporaries. His academic career suffered when his writings were publicly condemned and in his personal life, his romantic love affair with Heloise ended in tragedy and frustration. Is it any wonder that he longed for the life hereafter?

Where:
'Wish and fulfilment can severed be ne'er,
Nor the thing prayed for come short of the prayer.

Peter Abelard was born in Brittany of Breton parents and his independence of thought, his vivid poetic imagination and his keen awareness of the supernatural, doubtless flowed from his Celtic roots. These qualities are reflected in his description of the heavenly courts:

'What are the Monarch, his court, and his throne?
What are the peace and the joy that they own?
Tell us, ye blest ones, that in it have share,
If what ye feel ye can fully declare.'

Like all Celts, he could not envisage the heavenly Jerusalem without music:

'One and unending is that triumph-song
Which to the Angels and us shall belong.'

It is, however, in the penultimate verse of the hymn that Abelard expresses with deep emotion what he had discovered from his own experience - that during our earthly existence, we must accept the limitations of this life. Things here will never be perfect, even in the Church.

'Now in the meanwhile, with hearts raised on high,
We for that country must yearn and must sigh,
Seeking Jerusalem, dear native land,
Through our long exile on Babylon's strand.'

Although in this life, we are already members of that heavenly Jerusalem and subject to its Monarch, as yet, we are unable to enjoy all its privileges. We are, as Abelard expresses it 'exiles on Babylon's strand'. The Jews in exile in Babylon were deprived of their Temple and its worship and of their Priesthood. Similarly, many faithful orthodox Anglicans, who are isolated from those of like mind, are deprived of the opportunity to receive the sacrament of the altar in their own parish churches and are unable to accept the priestly ministry of their incumbents. The Act of Synod has been a life line to many and is still desperately needed, but the PEVs are only too well aware that there are still a large number of the faithful who are unable to benefit from the protection it offers.

During their long exile, many of the Jews remained loyal to the faith of their fathers and although deprived of the outward symbols of their religion, used this time in their history to deepen their theological knowledge and spiritual understanding. Likewise, orthodox or traditional Anglicans must not lose heart. During what might be described as their 'exile', they must continue to defend the doctrines and teaching which have been upheld by the universal Church for two thousand years. They must also resist resolutely the efforts of those who attempt to conform the Church to the standards of the world. It is well worth recalling some words of Bishop Graham Leonard that "though men reject the Church when she is true to herself, they despise her when she is conformed to the world."

All this will not be easy and the results of those efforts may not be seen in our lifetime. However, there is no room for despondency as long as we believe that orthodoxy will ultimately triumph as it has done in the past, often against the most tremendous odds.

Abelard's hymn ends on a note of hope. Although at present, we may be 'exiles on Babylon's strand', of one thing we can be certain and that is that for each of us, the exile will come to an end. Physical death is a necessity which is laid upon us but because of the Cross, because of the Resurrection, death holds no fear for members of the heavenly kingdom. Death simply means 'the end of the exile' and the opportunity to enjoy fully the privileges of the Kingdom:

'Crown for the valiant, to weary ones rest;
God shall be All and in all ever blest'.

and the chance to worship him:

'Low before him with our praises we fall,
of whom, and in whom, and through whom are all.'

Peter Abelard's hymn ends with a doxology which, in two brief lines, not only expresses the doctrine but leads us on to the worship of the Holy Trinity:

'Of whom, the Father; and through whom, the Son;
In whom, the Spirit, with these ever One. Amen.'

Margaret Laird

is a member of Forward in Faith in the diocese of St Alban's

And Then There's This

http://www.aoiusa.org/blog/same-sex-marriage-and-the-revolt-against-metropolitan-jonah/

Work, Fight, Pray

The Muscular Christianity of the Middle Ages.

Lewis vs. The Occupier

 

Whole Lotta Hemming and Hawing Going On: USCCB on Anglican Orders

Looks like Rome's rejection of Anglican orders may one day die the death of a thousand qualifications:

http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/ecumenical-and-interreligious/ecumenical/anglican/anglican-orders-in-catholic-church.cfm

As it should:

http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/search?q=+Apostolicae+

The Life and Times of the Embryo Parson

(Revised 8-21-2015)

I'm not actually going to bore you all with some detailed and narcissistic account of my "life and times", but I do want to give my readers a brief "spiritual autobiography" that will explain, at least in part, why I have come to the conclusions I have about the Anglican Way.

I come from a long line of Southerners who came from the British Isles and Northwestern Europe.  I grew up not in the Southern states of America, however, but in Southern California.  I grew up there because my father and mother, from Arkansas and Oklahoma respectively, moved there in 1940 as part of the great migration of Southerners looking for work. 

My father was Primitive Baptist (PB) and my mother a Missionary Baptist.  They did nevertheless get along theologically, my mother adopting the high predestinarianism of the PBs but never converting to the PB church.  (She took communion exactly once after she married my dad.  The PBs practice close communion, but during my brief sojourn in a Lutheran parish that had a rather "liberal" policy on communion, she and I took communion there together several years before she died.  It was the only time I ever took communion with either of my parents.) 

One problem with the PBs is that while they have a fairly strong presence in the South, there isn't much of one in SoCal, so I believe I attended a PB church only twice in my childhood days as the nearest one was 80 miles away.  My mom made a couple of half-hearted efforts to take me to local Southern Baptist Sunday schools, but that never really "took" due in no small part to the fact that my sectarian parents didn't like what the Southern Baptists taught.  So, I spent the bulk of my childhood years unchurched, though to their credit my parents did a fairly good job of teaching me about the Christian faith.  As a child, I really believed that faith.

But it was a Christian faith I deliberately tossed aside when I happened upon the seductions of the 1960s counterculture in my early teens.   In late 1973 and early 1974, however, things started happening to me psychologically and spiritually that drove me to the old King James Bible my mother gave me when I was a kid.  One day after I finshed reading the Gospel of John and then Paul's Epistle to the Romans, I said to myself, "that's IT", and I flushed $75 worth of hash oil down the toilet. 

Having had an Evangelical-style conversion experience and having been influenced throughout my teenage years by a number of Evangelical Christians, I naturally became an Evangelical myself.  After a bit of spiritual meandering, I ended up at an Evangelical college, where I obtained a degree in biblical studies, and later at an Evangelical seminary, where I pursued theological studies and graduated with a Master's degree. 

During my undergrad and graduate studies and through the influences of Anglican Catholic and Orthodox friends, I became an avid student of church history -- including the history before the Reformation -- and the Church Fathers.  Dovetailing with this was the fact that I had become very disenchanted with Evangelical worship forms.  To me, there was a huge disconnect between what I viewed as the depth and profundity (or gravitas, or kabod) of God and the message communicated by Evangelicalism's subculture, especially as it expressed itself in worship.  I had learned about something called "liturgy" and the "liturgical churches" where a different culture of worship existed, so I started trying them out:  Lutheran; Anglican Catholic; Episcopalian; Roman Catholic; Orthodox.   By the late 80s/early 90s I was well on my way to reading myself out of an "Evangelical mind" and into a "Catholic mind", and I had narrowed my choices down to two:  Anglican Catholic or Orthodox.  Just barely, Orthodoxy won out.  I was chrismated in 1992.

I stayed in the Orthodox Church  longer than I did in any other church during my Evangelical days, approximately 13 years.  But as the Spirit moved upon me in 1974, urging me to come to Christ, 30 or so years later when I was in the Orthodox Church, I began sensing an urge to come home to the biblical and apostolic faith of my fathers, the Catholic Church of England.

Like so many converts to Orthodoxy from Evangelicalism, I had become "true Orthodox"; a devotee of Orthodoxy as ideology.  I had not become quite as bad as "Vasili" in this article, but at points I was very close.  Thankfully, that mentality was temporary.  Several things occured:

1) Slowly but surely, after repressing a nagging issue for so long, I began asking myself why there is such a disconnect between what the Bible has to say about salvation and what the Orthodox Church says about it.  Not that the Orthodox Church is wrong in what it understands about theosis;  that can be found in Western Christian spirituality too.  Rather, I came to see that it's soteriology is somewhat stunted or incomplete.  It needs St. Paul, and it needs St. Augustine.  The apostle it largely ignores; the Catholic doctor of the Church it often excoriates.

2) I grew increasingly tired of the attacks on "the West" from the pulpits and publishing houses of the Orthodox Church, especially since, on certain issues anyway, the Western theological approach seemed more rational and/or biblical than the Orthodox theological approach.  I kept wondering why the Orthodox are so constitutionally anti-Western;

3) I began to ponder the question, if Evangelicals are truly the spiritually benighted folk Orthodox spokesmen and literature often said or at least implied they are, then how is it that so many of these Evangelicals live such spiritually exemplary lives -- much more exemplary than the life of the rank-and-file, nominal Orthodox Christian -- and whose holiness rivals if not exceeds the holiness of many of Orthodoxy's most revered saints and contemporary "holy elders"?;

4) I became increasingly annoyed by the negative attitude of many Eastern Orthodox concerning the Orthodox Western Rites, an attitude harbored by what appears to be the vast majority of Orthodox Christians.  I had come to love the Holy Communion service of the Book of Common Prayer.  The vast majority of Orthodox who know of the Liturgy of St. Tikhon have not been mollified by St. Tikhon's Orthodoxizing tweaks to the BCP.  Why?  Their parochial attitude began to get under my skin;

5) In 2003, all of this sort of came to ahead when my father passed away.   Having drifted from the PB churches for one reason or another, my mom and dad had no church community to bury him.  So my mom asked me to find someone there in the little town where they lived and where I had gone to college.  I knew that community in a way she did not.  The reaction of the Evangelical community there, expressed in the form of an outpouring of love for a man they didn't even know, was enough to drive home the point to me, once and for all, that these people have the life of God in them, the manifestation of which, as I said, is equal to if not exceeds that of Orthodoxy's holiest people.  They are certainly holier than the man who was my bishop at the time, a man who was notorious for both his ugly antics on various online Orthodox discussion boards and his support of people who were ultimately censured by the OCA for their role in a huge finanicial scandal.  When I posted something on one of those boards about how I believed the Lord had sent our family various little "signs" of His presence among us in the wake of the funeral, telling us that Dad was OK, said bishop responded by telling me that this is all so much hooey and "prelest", and that because my dad hadn't been baptized there was no eternal hope for him.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back, something for which I must grudgingly thank this bishop who is now, happily for the church, "out to pasture".  I thank him because a year or so after that I attended my last Divine Liturgy and then began a several-year process trying to figure out, exactly, where that "home" was to which the Spirit was calling me.   As for my father, as near as I can tell the real reason that he  (a *Baptist*, mind you) wasn't baptized was that he had a fear of water.  That became more or less confirmed to me over the years, though he really never wanted to talk about it.  I did pour some holy water on his grave, beseeching the Lord to count that as his baptism, but I wonder if that was even really necessary, as I can recount numerous times tears would well up in my father's eyes as he'd read a precious passage of Scripture.  I figure he was likely baptized by those tears, or more precisely, that they were a manifestation of an internal baptism of the Spirit that had aleady occurred.

6) This experience, plus my own *theological* reflection on the exclusivist ecclesiology of the Orthodox church, led me back to an ecclesiology that included Evangelicals in the church.  Read most any book or article on the subject in Orthodox sources and you will find an assertion to the effect that while Protestants may be godly people they are not, strictly speaking, members of the Church.  This, however, is a proposition that is patently absurd, as it enjoys neither empirical nor biblical support.   So absurd, in fact, that some Orthodox scholars are starting to backpedal on the issue, as are a number of Roman Catholic scholars, whose official ecclesiology calls forth the same absurd proposition.  For instance, Rome these days makes a distinction between "the Church", which she says subsists in the Roman communion, and "ecclesial communities", i.e., all those Protestant who aren't, strictly speaking, part of the Church.  Of course since "ecclesia" in Greek means "church", one wonders what Rome hopes to establish by such an argument.   Read this article for an example of Orthodox backpedaling, and these two for examples of Roman Catholic backpedaling.  Officially, however, for both communions Evangelicals cannot be in the Church.  I say hooey.  Clearly they are, though I will agree that their ecclesiologies are lacking, in that while they definitely participate in the "prophetic" mode of the church, they are lacking the "priestly" mode.

Back to the chronology.  I floated ecclesially for a few years, trying out both Roman Catholic and Evangelical churches, whose worship services only seemed to be proceeding apace from bad to worse.  What to do?  Well, eventually, as you may have guessed by now, I found a way to put both Evangelical and Catholic together: Anglicanism.  Though it has its own set of problems, the Anglican Way is, finally, a saddle that fits my butt.  It is BOTH Catholic and Augustinian.  It is the historic church of my Anglo-Saxon fathers.  It has a linguistically glorious and theologically profound cultus, more glorious and profound, I would argue, than Orthodoxy's opulent but soteriologically deficient "feast for the eyes", as Molly Sabourin calls it.  What's not to like?

So here I am, an orthodox Anglican deacon, a blogger, and a healthcare chaplain: the "Embryo Parson".  After having gone through a brief Anglo-Calvinist "cage stage" after my reception into Anglicanism in 2011,  I am settling in comforably to a form of high church, Augustinian Anglicanism that acknowledges the problematic aspects of the Reformation and accordingly looks to the Catholic past for its essential identity, something that has long been an emphasis in Anglican divinity.  (I have come to believe that when B.B. Warfield opined somewhat gleefully that the Protestant Reformation represented the triumph of Augustine's view of grace over his view of the Church,  his glee was misplaced.   Augustine would have never thought to separate them, and the corrosive effects of the more radical movements of the Reformation arguably demonstrate why he would have never separated them.)  I intend to live and die as a "Prayer Book Catholic" sort of Anglican who espouses the Pauline-Augustinian doctrines of grace *rightly interpreted and preached*, and I will try to convince some of you to join me.  Anglicanism isn't for everyone.  Nor would I begin to presume that my church is the "one true church".  But as for you disaffected Evangelicals who are looking for something more historic, more theologically balanced, and more liturgically fitting, I urge you to take a long, careful look before you move on. 

Dr. Bradley Nassif on "Reclaiming the Gospel" in the Orthodox Church: A Lesson for Anglicans

I had a long and very illuminating telephone conversation with Dr. Nassif back in the early 90s, when I was in the throes of a conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy, and have followed his career off and on in the years since then.  I recently happened upon an essay of his that will be the subject of this blog entry.  More on that after a word of introduction.

Nassif is a cradle Orthodox Christian who had an Evangelical-style conversion experience in his mature years.  He is still a member of the Orthodox Church, but is one of the rarest of the rare in that communion, an Evangelical.  And as an Evangelical, he has written and said some pretty hard-hitting things about the need for Orthodox Christians to have a life-changing conversion experience and come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Like here, for example, in the powerful essay referenced above (and which proved to be quite controversial in Orthodox circles), "Reclaiming the Gospel."  Some salient excerpts:

A Lament Over Unchanged Lives

We all know that the Orthodox Church possesses a very rich and beautiful theological inheritance. Few would dispute the architectural wonder of our cathedrals, the artistic beauty of our iconography, or the inspirational impact of our ancient hymns and liturgical services. Our theological literature from the past continues to define the meaning of the word orthodoxy for those who have lost their way in the contemporary maze of theological liberalism, cultic religion, or postmodernism. We Orthodox have done better than all others at "not changing the faith once delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3).

Still, it is quite obvious from the weak participation in our liturgical services and in the personal lives of some members, that Orthodoxy is often failing to meet the spiritual needs of our people -- in America as well as the motherlands of Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Parishioners are coming and going in and out of church with little visible change in their lives. In short, they do not know the core content of the gospel or how to integrate its meaning into their everyday lives. I realize these are sad things to say, but a correct diagnosis precedes the proper cure.

Are Our People Evangelized or Sacramentalized?

What I'm saying is that contemporary Orthodoxy possesses the gospel in a formal way but we are not translating it in a relevant, life-changing way. The clarity of the gospel is not intentionally made central to our liturgical services and everyday lives. Formally, in its liturgy, sacraments, iconography, hymnography, spirituality, and theological literature, the Orthodox Church is extremely Christ-centered; in practice, however, it is not. Just because the gospel is formally in the life of the Church does not mean that Orthodox parishioners have understood and appropriated its message! Our bishops and priests need to make the gospel crystal clear and absolutely central in our parishes.

This is not to say sermons are not preached. They are, and are often eloquent. But very often what priests preach are not the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and His call to total commitment and what that means to everyday life and liturgy. Our leaders wrongly assume everybody knows about that subject. Instead of Christ-centered messages, we hear sermons dealing with moral values, social issues, financial giving, the environment, or the need for more Church attendance -all inseparably related to the gospel, but not to be confused with the Good News itself. In effect, the authentic gospel is replaced with a social gospel or a liturgical gospel (as if simply "going to Church" is all that is needed). I often wonder, "Are our people really evangelized, or are they simply sacramentalized?"

True sacramental preaching makes the gospel central to every liturgical act and every liturgical season of fasting and prayer. Without the centrality of the gospel we end up imposing on our people the evil of religious formalism and barren ritualism. It is, in effect, not a true Orthodoxy but a false Orthodoxy. Bishops and priests must not take for granted that everyone in the Church is converted and has no need to hear the basic gospel message. The life-changing message of the forgiveness of sins and new life in Christ must be deliberately applied to the entire sacramental life of the Church. Christ-centered preaching and Christ-centered worship must be faithfully performed by our priests and bishops if they wish to worship God truly in "spirit and in truth" (John 4).

Focus on the Centrality of "Christ," not the Centrality of "Orthodoxy"

Outside of Orthodoxy, have you noticed how the healthiest Christian communities around today are the ones who preach Christ, not their own denomination? They speak of Jesus, not their "Baptist," "Methodist" or "Pentecostal" identities. Yet, all we seem to hear from our pulpits is "Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy!" We are obsessed with self-definition through negation. It is a sick religious addiction. We often shore up our identity as Orthodox by constantly contrasting ourselves with Evangelicals or Catholics. I wish we would talk more about Christian faith, and less about "Orthodoxy". . . .

So, in the end, if we Orthodox wish to possess a truly incarnational, trinitarian faith, we will constantly need to recover the personal and relational aspects of God in every life-giving action of the Church. Failure to keep the gospel central will constitute an experiential denial of our own faith. We must stop our religious addiction to "Orthodoxy" and its "differences" with the West. We need rather to recover the evangelical dimensions of our total Church life. The liturgy itself exhorts us to that end. The four Gospels are the only books that sit upon the very center of the altar because in them alone do we hear the Good News -- all else in the Church is commentary. It is the Bible which guides and judges the Church, not the other way around. Thus, in the words of St. John Chrysostom, whose name our liturgy bears, "The lack of Scriptural knowledge is the source of all evils in the Church." I fear that many converts are coming to the Church through a revolving door, quietly leaving because their lives and families are not being sufficiently fed. Only a gospel-transformation will make the Orthodox Church healthy enough to sustain the lives of parishioners who seek spiritual nourishment in our communities.

Now, Dr. Nassif is hopeful that things will change in the Orthodox Church, in accordance with his desire to see it become Evangelical.  But in an interview on Ancient Faith Radio, he expresses his fear that up to half or slightly more Evangelicals who convert to Orthodoxy end up leaving the communion precisely because at the end of the day it simply isn't Evangelical.  And if this is the case, cradle Orthodox are not going to hear the Gospel preached.  Here is a link to the podcast, entitled Is There A "Revolving Door" in the Orthodox Church?.  Please take the time to listen to this 30 minute podcast, in which Nassif repeats some of the themes of "Reclaiming the Gospel" and also acknowledges that there may be such a revolving door in Orthodoxy.

This "sacramentalized but not evangelized" concern was also expressed by Episcopalian priest Rob Smith in his book "Leading Christians to Christ."  Surely the same phenomenon exists in every sacramental church, where many church members have come to confuse the essence of Christianity with the performance of rites, and this mainly because the Gospel has not been preached.  Or as Nassif puts it, because "pulpit does not match altar."

Of all people, Anglicans should know better.  The revisionism coming from certain Anglo-Catholic quarters notwithstanding, Anglicanism is a reformed church, and its reformation centered around the rediscovery of the Gospel and the need not only to preach it, but to pray individually and corporately in accordance with it, which is why Cranmer's prayerbook came to be.  Alas, with the passage of time and the entrance of anti-Evangelical influences, many Anglicans became either nominal or ritualist/aestheticist, or both.  But at least Anglicanism, unlike Eastern Orthodoxy, has Evangelical origins it can reclaim.  Nassif demurs, and believes those Evangelical origins can be found in the writings of many of the Eastern Church Fathers.  I would agree with Dr. Nassif that if Evangelicalism can be found there, those writings need to be brought to the consciousness of the laity through preaching and other media.  But I would argue that we will never fully know what the Gospel *is* until we come to a proper understanding of grace and justification. 

Therein lies the rub, for I would argue that grace and justification cannot be properly understood if they are not viewed in accordance with a Pauline, Augustinian, and Reformational mindset.  Yes, I am saying that Eastern Orthodoxy stands in opposition not only to the Reformation and to St. Augustine, but to St. Paul.  As Alister McGrath argues, that opposition is rooted in an unbiblical understaning of human volition:

Part of the fascination of the patristic era to the scholar lies in the efforts of its theologians to express an essentially Hebraic gospel in a Hellenistic milieu: the delights of patristic scholarship must not, however, be permitted to divert our attention from the suspicion voiced by the Liberal school in the last century - that Christ's teaching was seriously compromised by the Hellenism of its earlier adherents. The history of the development of the Christian doctrine of justification lends support to such a suspicion. In particular, it can be shown that two major distortions were introduced into the corpus of traditional belief within the eastern church at a very early stage, and were subsequently transferred to the emerging western theological tradition. These are:

1. The introduction of the non-biblical, secular Stoic concept of autoexousia or liberum arbitrium in the articulation of the human response to the divine initiative in justification.

2. The implicit equation of tsedaqa, dikaiosune and iustitia, linked with the particular association of the Latin meritum noted earlier (p.15), inevitably suggested a correlation between human moral effort and justification within the western church.

The subsequent development of the western theological tradition, particularly since the time of Augustine, has shown a reaction against both these earlier distortions, and may be regarded as an attempt to recover a more biblically orientated approach to the question of justification. . . .

The emerging patristic understanding of such matters as predestination, grace and free will is somewhat confused, and would remain so until controversy forced full discussion of the issue upon the church. Indeed, by the end of the fourth century, the Greek fathers had formulated a teaching on human free will based upon philosophical rather than biblical foundations. Standing in the great Platonic tradition, heavily influenced by Philo, and reacting against the fatalisms of their day, they taught that man was utterly free in his choice of good or evil. . . . (Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, Vol. I, pp.18-19. Emphases mine.)

When Dr. Nassif became converted to Christ as a result of the ministry of Evangelical Protestants, to which ministry he refers in the podcast, he was the beneficiary of the work of the Holy Spirit  in the New Testament's clearest explications of the Gospel, which are found in St. Paul's writings, and in the Protestant Reformation as Augustine's doctrines of grace (which are Pauline to the core) received new impetus.  I sincerely doubt the Orthodox Church will ever see it that way, given their dogged embrace of "free will" a la Hellenism and their vehement opposition to the Western Church in general and St. Augustine in particular.  I pray Anglicans who have strayed from their own formulae *will*  come to see it that way.  With Fr. Smith, I say it's all right there in the Book of Common Prayer, if Anglicans will just open their eyes.  Lex orandi lex credendi.

Still I Say Swim the Tiber Without Me. (Fr. Hart Again on Anglicans With An Inferiority Complex.)

As a contributing editor to a magazine that is "A Journal of Mere Christianity," and as a fellow blogger here at the The Continuum with members of the TAC, I am cast in a diplomatic and non-partisan role. But, despite this doubly diplomatic role and my eirenic nature, I see a need to rally and defend Anglicans who feel left behind by men who appear to be Anglo-Papalists of the worst sort: The kind who have an inferiority complex and want it to rub off.

Without revealing any sources or naming names, I will quote a portion of an email I received Monday. I make no claim that it is entirely accurate, and ask for more details and for clarification. Nonetheless, it is the view of a reliable man, according to another reliable man (forgive the double sourcing. And, I hope Ed and Sandra will still be talking to me-although their own commitment to Anglicanism has never been in doubt- but, I must speak out now). The email said this :

"[This man] had been a delegate to the ACA Diocese of the Midwest Synod _this_ summer. This man has been an Anglican for many years and said he was simply, 'appalled' by the presentations at the synod. He stated they basically came out and declared Anglicanism a failure and that the Romans had it right."

Unfortunately, knowing that one of their bishops, Rt. Rev. George Langburg, was the man who said that line about a 450 year-old failed experiment, and knowing other facts that give context to that statement, I am saddened, deeply concerned, and feel that it is time to ask just what is really going on? If I have any facts wrong, to those whose position it is, please say so. Not for me, but to reassure your own people before you lose them.

Why should any Anglican have to doubt the level of commitment to Anglicanism held by his bishop and clergy? Should not these Anglicans be given some clarity about comments that Anglicanism is simply "English Culture" or "500 years of mistakes?" Is it unreasonable to ask for this clarity? Why shoud I, from the outside, be champion to worried and unhappy members of a jurisdiction to which I have never belonged? They write to me, and lay their fears and concerns out privately (And, please, before anyone quotes John 17: 21, should we really think that a few thousand people switching denominations-or creating a western Uniat- could amount to some sort of apocolyptic healing of disunity in the Universal Church? There are about three billion Christians in the world).

Keep your inferiority complex to yourself

Unfortuantely, in the last generation or so, education among some of the Anglo-Catholics in this Continuing movement has been very poor, and by no means does this problem belong exclusively to the ACA/TAC. Recently, I received an email from a man who told me this:

In my parish I've been told the 39 articles belong to a peculiar period of history and are no longer really relevant. They are too "protestant". I've also been told we do not subscribe to the 39 articles because they rule out adoration and procession of the sacrament, and this undermines the Oxford movement, etc.

The ignorance that this reveals is simply inexcusable. Anyone who wishes to be educated on why this ignorance is appalling needs only to go to the right on this page, and see the link to further links to my essays on Classic Anglicanism, including this detailed explanation of Article XXV that I posted only about a month ago. Those who read it for the first time, and learn from it, may begin to grasp that Anglicans who hold to Classic Anglican doctrine have nothing of which to be ashamed. I make a deliberate point of using Article XXV itself, the most misunderstood Article of all, to demonstrate that the English Reformers were the most true and faithful Catholics of their time. They were right then to reject the innovations of Rome, as we are right to reject Roman innovations now.

The best path back to the doctrine of the earliest Catholic Fathers and Bishops, that is, to the teaching that truly is Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est, lies not through Rome, but through the English Reformers. Truly educated Anglicans of the Continuum, have no reason to feel inferior to their Roman Catholic brethren. Indeed, it is Rome that has learned many things from us, though they cannot admit it.

I say to you who have an inferiority complex regarding your Anglican affiliation and Rome, read my essays, as well as Fr. Kirby's Apologetics, and begin to learn. If not, you may swim the Tiber without me, and get buyer's remorse later.

(Article and combox discussion here.)

The Relevance of the Historic Prayer Book to Evangelism

From Virtue Online:

In a Christian culture where historic worship and evangelistic zeal rarely seem to intersect, the Prayer Book Society leadership has made clear it is determined to rebuild the connection. On July 28th, All Saints' Church in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania the Executive Director of the Society, Fr. Jason Patterson, and the President, Fr. Gavin Dunbar, spoke about the nature of worship and the relevance of the historic Prayer Book to evangelism.

Before a group of laity and clergy from across the Anglican/Episcopalian spectrum, Fr. Patterson posed the question, "For what purpose do we gather for our Sunday Worship of God?" Many churches are only concerned with what an individual can get from worship. Fr. Patterson built a Biblical case that "worship is something we offer to God. It is for Him, not for us." This idea is foreign to the consumer mentality that has been embraced by the western Church. Noting that sacrifice is inherent to the Old and New Testament devotion of the people of God, Fr. Patterson encouraged the Church to recognize that worship will sometimes be uncomfortable particularly when the worshiper is himself a living sacrifice. Fr. Patterson noted that, by the grace of God, those that have properly ordered their worship toward God receive much in worship. But this is not the primary end of Biblical worship.

People instinctively worship. This drive is a part of divine imprint upon man. Yet because of sin, man's worship is misdirected. He is given to make idols out of most anything in the creation while neglecting the Creator. Therefore, fallen man must be "be taught both how and whom to worship." Consider Luke 11:1, where the disciples ask Jesus, "Lord, teach us to pray..." Fr. Patterson argued that the Bible challenges popular conceptions that true worship must be a "genuine" or an "authentic expression of what one is feeling or experiencing." Fallen man, if left to himself, will have an authentically unbalanced and unbiblical approach to the worship of God. Worship must teach the wayward man to properly orient his life toward the Creator. Worship rightly ordered will challenge each individual, in different ways, to maintain essential elements or neglect innovations so as to offer a sacrifice that is truly please to God.

"I think," Fr. Patterson concluded, "that if we begin from the standpoint of distrusting ourselves (for we shall be inclined to worship wrongly), relying upon God the Holy Spirit as our teacher, and looking to the wisdom of the past we shall be well on our way to learning to worship God in spirit and in truth such that His name is glorified and He is pleased. As Anglicans we have a great treasure in the historic (i.e. 1662 in England, 1928 in the US and 1962 in Canada) Book of Common Prayer. It is not simply a collection of liturgical texts that we are to make use of as best suits our fancy. Rather, the BCP sets forth a system for Christian discipleship, discipline, parochial care, devotion and worship."

Fr. Dunbar's paper was a demonstration of the Biblical logic of Cranmer's Communion Service. Like Fr. Patterson, he spoke about the prevailing attitude that worship must conform to the culture in order to be evangelistically effective. This commitment has led many away from the church's tradition in favor of forms that resemble popular culture and commercial marketing strategies. Fr. Dunbar called this trend the "de-churching of the gospel." The apparent success of non-denominational mega-churches has function to validate this innovating approach for many evangelicals.

The Apostle Paul called Christians, however, to "be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." Instead of being driven by the culture, the church brings its own culture to bear on this world. The culture of the church is embodied by its worship. Fr. Dunbar asserted that "worship transforms the way we think, act and live. Cultus changes culture... If your cultus is conformed to worldly culture, it will end up reinforcing worldly wisdom. It will produce more of the same, under some veneer of piety."

Because of this fact, the church's tradition or culture is not a dispensable vehicle for the salvation or enhancement of individuals. The church and her worship tradition are an aspect of salvation. From St. Cyprian (+258) to John Calvin (+1564) this truth has been affirmed by the ministers of the Gospel. "I do not mean to suggest," Fr. Dunbar clarified, "that liturgy itself is all that matters. Far from it: the church cannot do without evangelizing witness and teaching, the discipling of new Christians,[etc.] ; but such efforts will be in vain if in fact they do not begin and end in worship." For this reason, Fr. Dunbar encouraged Anglicans and Episcopalians to rediscover their classical Prayer Book heritage for the sake of the evangelism and change of the culture.

He outlined three aspects of Cranmer's liturgy which are vital to this end. 1) "The Prayer Book as worship of the Father - a liturgy that orients the Church not to the world but to the Father through the Sacrifice of the Son. 2) The Prayer Book as worship of the Word - both the Word that forms the Church, and the Church that bears the Word. 3) The Prayer Book as worship of the Spirit - the Spirit that directs the Church in its conversation to God, and the Church through which the Spirit works." Fr. Dunbar noted that the preparatory prayers of the Holy Communion, the Lord's Prayer and the Collect for Purity, direct the worshiper to the Father. The hallowing of the Father is the goal of worship and it is accomplished through the revelation of the Son and in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. "The church's worship is thus a divine work, God's knowing himself, and loving himself through the church." It is a "movement from God to God and through God."

The height of this movement is found in the remembrance of Christ's sacrificial offering through which man is enabled to offer up the sacrifice of praise. Fr. Dunbar noted that only the sacrificial language, which Cranmer employed, reconciles man with God. All other theories of Christ's work and the church's worship are concerned with either man in relationship to man or God in relationship to the Devil. When the Church faithfully represents Christ's sacrifice, it is united to His body and returns with the Son to the Father. The liturgy is the means by which the Church is "caught up in the life of the Trinity."

Second, Fr. Dunbar affirmed the centrality of the Word in Prayer Book worship. This liturgy was intended to lead Christians into conformity with the Word of God. Although many might be surprised, Cranmer's emphasis on the Word was an evidence of his conservative commitment to Church tradition. It was only in the late Middle Ages that the reading of major portions of Scripture was abbreviated. Cranmer was firm in his belief "that ecclesial tradition generated by... the Word of the Gospel, was necessary to the Church's evangelization of society." When he prescribed the Scripture readings for Holy Communion, he made only minor changes to the tradition which had developed and lasted from the sixth century. As such, Cranmer was giving tacit approval to the belief that the Word of God is rightly read and preached within the Church and her tradition. Fr. Dunbar summarized, "the primacy of Scripture over the Church does not abolish but... authorizes and empowers the Church, as 'the pillar and ground of the truth.' (1 Tim. 3:15)"

Fr. Dunbar concluded by insisting that, despite appearances, Prayer Book worship is a liturgy of the Spirit. The Communion Service begins by calling the Spirit down upon the Church to make it worthy to worship. Moreover, it is the Spirit that converts men through the process of repentance, faith and works of charity. Fr. Dunbar noted that Morning and Evening Prayer follow this pattern. Even more interesting was his demonstration of Cranmer's intent to carry the Church through this cycle three times in the Eucharistic service. In an ascending spiral, the Church is drawn up by the power of the Spirit to join Christ in heaven at the throne of grace. Fr. Dunbar likened it to Aslan calling the children "further up and further in" to the land that depicts the Kingdom of Heaven.

In both of these lectures, Anglicans, were called to recognize the power of the historic Prayer Book to call men into worship which is rightly direct to the glory of God and therefore abundantly relevant to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Far from being dispensable or a matter of preference, the Church's tradition of worship is necessary for the work of communicating the Gospel.


Deacon Jonathan Kell serves Holy Trinity Church, a parish of the Reformed Episcopal Church, in Fairfax Virginia. He was recently appointed to the board of the Prayer Book Society, USA. Dcn. Jonathan received a M.Div. from the Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania

Collect for the Tenth Sunday After Trinity