Nielsen’s Nook

I recently learned of the Anglican Society of the Holy Cross (SSC) and wanted to pass on this little historical tidbit to you. The following is quoted from the SSC Province of the Americas website:

SSC stands for Societas Sanctae Crucis - the Society of the Holy Cross. The Society was founded in London in 1855 by a small group of Anglo-Catholic priests led by Father Charles Lowder. At a time when the Catholic Revival in the Church of England was threatened by persecution and misunderstanding, these priests came together for support, mutual prayer and encouragement. Fr Lowder spelled out the objects of SSC:  ‘To defend and strengthen the spiritual life of the clergy, to defend the faith of the Church, and to carry on and aid Mission work both at home and abroad.  The members of this society, meeting together as they did in prayer and conference, were deeply impressed with the evils existing in the Church, and saw also, in the remedies adopted by St Vincent de Paul, the hope of lessening them.’

The Society has now spread throughout the world and is organised in autonomous Provinces under Provincial Masters elected by their Brethren.  Within each Province are various Regions headed by Regional Vicars, and the work of the Society at local level is carried forward in Chapters led by their Local Vicars.  Priests of the Society live under a common Rule and meet together in their local SSC Chapters every month or two for prayer, Mass and some kind of study or conversation.  Presiding over the Society worldwide is a Master-General who has a special responsibility to ensure an on-going fidelity among the Brethren to the spirit of the Society. The Americas Province is the province in the Western Hemisphere, with the majority of its members living in the USA and Canada.

SSC is not a devotional guild, but takes its stance upon a shared vision of ‘a disciplined priestly life fashioned after a definite spiritual rule.’  It is this Rule of Life which unites the Brethren in their various priestly ministries and lives. They are required to ‘consider their obligation to the Society as a close spiritual bond…which takes precedence to that of any other voluntary society.’  This obligation includes a commitment to attend local SSC Chapter meetings and annual Regional and Provincial Synods.  The life of the Society is experienced primarily through the local Chapter, and attendance at Chapter is of obligation unless prevented by genuine pastoral duties.

The fortunes of the Society have waxed and waned since the early days of the Catholic Revival, but for its members it has always been an important source of priestly formation, discipline and fraternity. Many of the best-known and best-loved priests of our Anglo-Catholic tradition have been brethren of SSC.  Priests of the Society can be recognized by the small gold lapel cross that they generally wear. On it is inscribed the motto of the Society - in hoc signo vinces - in this sign, conquer!

See also the article at Wikipedia.

I happened to come across this album (if we may call it that), which is a recording of the Cistercian Monks of Stift Heilgenkreuz. If ever music could compel one to long to lay cruciform for hours before the altar of the LORD, this does. If ever the human voice could sound forth with symphonies of glory, the voices on this piece do merely that. I hope it brings as many worshipful tears to you as are beheld by this music.

If you’d like a copy, buy one through Amazon.

An Unraveling Mystery

It was as if living in Russia (2000-2002) had provided the snag in my garment the fabric of which began to unwind at increasing rates. We arrived in Russia believing that it was only an exceptional case for a Russian Orthodox person to be a Christian. We left having met many Russian Orthodox who were irrefutably beautiful Christians, reveling the anemic nature my own Christian faith. Now we were presented with the possibility of weaving a new and more beautiful garment out of the same golden thread.

Herman Bavinck has a well known quote that begins the second volume of Reformed Dogmatics, which nevertheless has resonated with me since the first moment I heard it quoted by Rev. Dr. David McWilliams at WTS:

Mystery is the lifeblood of dogmatics. To be sure, the term “mystery” (μυστηριον) in Scripture does not mean an abstract supernatural truth in the Roman Catholic sense. Yet Scripture is equally far removed from the idea that believers can grasp the revealed mysteries in a scientific sense. [1]

At that time, it was precisely my modern enlightenment approach to Christianity that explicitly and implicitly attempted to reduce the faith to the confines of a mental spreadsheet. While I’m not convinced that modern Roman Catholics, particularly Thomists, would recognize themselves in Bavinck’s description of their own approach to mystery; it is the balanced sense of wonderful mystery represented in this quote that imbibed a way forward for me in autumn of 2002.

[1] Herman Bavinck, God and Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 3 vols., Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2004), 29

Introduction

What follows is a piece that I needed to write for myself and those around us who love us and pray for us. If you are hunting for polemic, I pray you will be greatly disappointed here. Rather, this is a personal reflection about personal reasons that my family and I joined the Episcopal Church. It is an attempt to articulate these reasons which have led me away from pastoral ministry in the vibrant Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) to pursuing holy orders in The Episcopal Church (TEC) which is at the best in dire tumult.

Our confirmation in the Episcopal Church on June 1, 2008 was the culmination of a complicated process that started while we were serving in Russia from 1998-2002, flowed through Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) and was tutored by John Calvin and other pre-modern scholastic reformers. This is a short documentary of self-realization and pilgrimage. It is one with which you will likely find all sorts of inconsistencies and yet it is my journey, together with my wife and daughter. I hope you will also find a sincere pursuit of the Lord Jesus who lives and reigns with the Father and Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Webber, Robert E. Ancient-Future Worship : Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008 $14.99 (paperback) 192 pages. “Worship does God’s story,” writes Robert Webber. Those four words are the rubric for the entire book published as the final volume of the Ancient-Future series. Written on the popular level, Webber argues for a return to the ancient paradigm for worship as the way forward.

Ancient-Future Worship is a decent introduction to the liturgical world. The book is directed to Evangelicals who are perhaps weary of over-programmed church-growth oriented church life. Its aim is to call Christians to a worship that “discloses the work of Jesus Christ.”[1]

The book is divided into two parts, preceded by an introduction that serves as a summary to the book as a whole. The first part, Rediscovering God’s Story in Worship, seeks to inform the reader of the scriptural and historical basis for the four pillars of worship in Webber’s paradigm. Worship is the reenactment of God’s redemptive work in space and time and in this sense worship does God’s story. Worship also remembers the past and anticipates the future works of God in the present. Consequently, the fullness of worship encompasses the fullness of the biblical witness in both the Old and New Testaments.

The second part of the book deals primarily with the application of the rediscovery of Part One to the tripartite transforming worship of the Christian Church (i.e., Word, Eucharist and Prayer). Webber explains that the role of the Word of God in worship is to transform participants by implicating them into the Divine Narrative in History. The Eucharist transforms worshipers as they participate in the presence of God. The section on prayer seeks to return the reader’s paradigm towards public prayer. “The story of God,” Webber writes, “is the substance of the inner content that shapes the outer form of public prayer. Worship prays God’s story.”[2]

In his conclusion, Webber informs the reader of the primary and secondary sources that have impacted him in his journey towards “Ancient-Future Worship.” Church Fathers such as Ignatius and Athanasius have composed the ancient component of Webber’s sources, while his contemporary influences are almost exclusively Eastern Orthodox. Last, the Appendix is a call to Evangelicals to turn away from the modern and cultural trappings that “camouflage God’s story or empty it of its cosmic and redemptive meaning.”

Each chapter employs a reader friendly layout, using headings and including summary sections at the conclusion of each chapter.

The recapitulation of redemptive history is set forth as a core purpose of worship. As such, an emphasis on Trinitarian worship comes to the fore. Redemptive history entails God’s work in the Garden of Eden to Christ Jesus’ Second Advent bringing Paradise with Him. Consequently, worship is the convergence of the past and the future into the present, concentering divine transcendence and immanence.

There is iterative concern for the fullness of God’s story being brought to bear upon Christian worship. Webber reflects on why congregants may struggle with liturgical worship saying, “one reason is because we tend to be New Testament Christians rather than Bible Christians.” [3] To put it another way, embracing the entire Christian metanarrative in Sunday worship is an exercise of implicating oneself (participating) in God’s story and shaping one’s worldview for worshiping the Lord in the mundane.

Related to the Christian metanarrative in Scripture is a welcomed emphasis on the objective nature of worship. This objective worship is embodied not merely propositional, a corporate endeavor not a private enterprise, a weighty calling not comfortable entertainment. “The primary focus of worship then and now is not me, the worshipper, but God, who redeems the world.”[4]

This reader deeply appreciates the concern given to the worship of God in Ancient-Future Worship. Webber circumscribes the liturgical question of how form relates to content and provides constructive avenues for Christians concerned about historical worship to traverse.

While the discussion and interaction with the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church is fruitful, Webber’s more or less exclusive commitment to the Eastern Liturgy seems arbitrary and at times dismissive of the Western Tradition, which ironically shares much of the same liturgical traditions. This is especially true in Western Rite Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholics.

Evangelicals from a certain Reformed perspective more oriented to Redemptive History may inadvertently feel a bit slighted. The emphasis on the Christian metanarrative has historically been central to theologians like John Calvin, Gerhardus Vos, and more recently in the field of worship, Hughes Oliphant Old.

Overall, Ancient-Future Worship is worth the read. Its irenic tone will engage the reader in a much needed conversation with the self, the contemporary culture, and the Church as God’s people have worshiped the incarnate-risen-and-exalted Christ throughout the centuries.

[1] Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Worship : Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008), 108.

[2] Ibid., 151.

[3] Ibid., 67.

[4] Ibid., 97.

The Church has been the recipient of Christ’s redemptive work in history and is itself part of that redemptive history.  Every Sunday the story of Redemption is reenacted an proclaimed in Word and Sacrament.  But did you know that every year the Story of Redemption is told through the Church Calendar.

That’s what the Christian seasons are all about. From Christmas to Easter and back again, the Church calendar is a reenactment of the redemptive narrative that God spoke in the person of Jesus Christ in which we participate today. Fr. Bob Corley, Curate at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Dallas, has written a short article on the Church Calendar that I think you might find informative and helpful.

For those following the crisis in the Episcopal Church, the 2008 Global Anglican Futures Conference that concluded just last week has issued a Statement on the Global Anglican Future, outlining the direction they see as best for the Anglican Communion. The GAFCON members officially, launch the GAFCON movement as a fellowship of confessing Anglicans, publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of the fellowship, and encourage GAFCON Primates to form a Council.

Presently, there is a crisis in Anglicanism. Large numbers of Bishops are currently meeting in Jerusalem for the first ever Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON 2008). They are meeting to discuss the future of the Anglican Communion and we pray give leadership to it at a time when it is being systematically ripped apart. I commend to you the blog of Fr Greg Brewer who is on the Board of the Anglican Relief and Development Fund and Rector of the Church of the Good Samaritan, Paoli, PA. His blog is a chronicle of his experience first hand at GAFCON. Dr Os Guiness spoke at GAFCON on the Gospel and Secularism. Here’s a quote from Fr. Brewer’s blog chronicle:

Dr. Os Guinness on “The Gospel and Secularism”: The whole modern world represents the greats opportunity for the Gospel since the apostles. It also represents the greatest challenge to the Gospel. Never underestimate the profound anti-Christian assumptions of secularism. Never have evangelicals had clearer views on the authority of Scripture, but never has evangelical behavior been more chaotic and permissive that it is today. Those who choose to look to contemporary culture to guide their faith decisions, lose the authority of Scripture and cut themselves off from Christianity around the world.” (This quote was edited for spelling)

You may listen to the address via streaming audio on the GAFCON website or playing it here locally using the link above.

I have a feature in my blog engine that alerts me when people cite a post I have written. While that sounds like a cool feature, it was quite strange when I saw today for the first time a citation of an article I wrote, entitled “A Reformed Liturgical Diet,” from October 2006. The article itself is an exegesis of the Westminster Shorter Catechism which was aimed to show that Reformed churches have historically had a much higher view of the Sacraments than present day instances.

As one who deeply loves, cherishes and practices expository preaching, you can imagine my shock when the name of the post citing “A Reformed Liturgical Diet” was entitled “Expository Preaching under attack.” I would have appreciated the opportunity to interact with the post 2 years ago; however, since I didn’t then, I will do so now. So before you go any further, please take a moment to do the following:

1. Read my original post A Reformed Liturgical Diet
2. Read Expository Preaching under attack at the Two-Edged Sword blog including the comments.

A Two-Edged False Dichotomy

First, for the record, I believe deeply that expository preaching is crucial in the churches of Jesus Christ. So I take exception to the way I have been misrepresented. Preaching is “Christian storytelling” and it is every bit as sacramental as the Lord’s Table. God, after all, is not words of any language. He certainly transcends the confines of vocabulary and exegesis. Nevertheless, the Church has been picked up and carried throughout history through the Spirit’s attending to the preaching of the Word of God. In fact, I would say that to the extent we unfold the Word of God to the people is the extent to which God empowers the sermon. The point of my article is to urge readers back toward the balanced liturgical diet given us in the Scripture of Word and Sacrament. To pit the preaching of the Word over against the Sacraments is a false dichotomy, at least in the Christian economy.

Second, historically speaking the Reformers were fighting for an increased frequency of the Lord’s Table in worship. At the time of Luther the Eucharist was celebrated only once a year and then the laity only received the cup. Calvin is fairly clear that he would have preferred a weekly communion but had to settle for quarterly with the council at Geneva. So it is a bit strange to me, historically speaking, to hear modern-day Reformed so dismissive of sacraments for which our tradition gives instances of those who were once willing to give even their lives for them. Calvin’s seminary graduates had a life expectancy post graduation of about six months. Influences on Calvin, perhaps we should call them teachers, such as Peter Martyr Vermigli in turn had great impact on Thomas Cranmer such that the 1552 Book of Common Prayer is dedicated to Vermigli.

Third, when “Mr. Baggins” comments that “These guys don’t know what they’re talking about. They are attacking preaching itself,” I am compelled to remind us all that my piece was an exegesis of the Westminster Shorter Catechism on the subject of the Lord’s Table itself. I have spent a bit of time in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, in particular to study the nature of the Sacraments in the life of the Reformed churches. I do not want to impute such lack of engagement to Lee at Two-Edged Sword; however, Mr. Baggins makes assertions without even hobbit sized amounts of substantive argumentation. Consequently, it is hard to see how he is not dismissing the Westminster Confession and significant influences on its development like John Calvin and other Magisterial Reformers all in one broad stroke.

In short, I would expect that Lee and I have different universes of discourse in approaching the question of the role of the sacraments in the life of the Church. John Chrysostom would never have gone for preaching apart from the sacraments and yet he is held up as substantiating Mr. Baggins assertions. What I leave you is not a gauntlet (for I have no desire to engage in polemics here); but, instead an exhortation to consider how Chrysostom, himself a huge influence on Calvin and other reformers, would approach the balance that has historically always existed between Word and Sacrament.

It occured to me this morning, while observing fellow parishoners receiving Holy Communion, that there seemed to be a distinct impression from the Reformation in the distribution of the elements. It is my understanding that in the period prior to the Reformation churches celebrated the Eucharist generally once a year and when it was celebrated laity received only the bread, never the wine.

One of the things the Reformation fought to recover in the Church Catholic was both the frequency and unity of the Eucharist that they perceived present in the Church Fathers. It is communion with the undivided Christ that is promised in the Eucharist. As such both kinds, bread and wine, which the Lord commissioned, should be used. Further, with such weighty thing as communion—communion with the Living and Incarnate Christ being offered—it made sense to incorporate the Eucharist back into the regular corporate worship of the Church.

I do not know at this point how this plays out in Roman or Eastern Orthodox churches (or for that matter churches outside of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Dallas); however, what I see at St. John’s is that it is the Lay Eucharistic Minister and the Sub-Deacon, both being laity, who serve the consecrated chalice to the parish during Holy Communion. Perhaps this is a visible reminder that the chalice has been returned to the people that they might celebrate their full and gracious bond to the undivided and perfect Christ.