Sunday, February 29, 2004 AD
My third visit to Christ (Lutheran) Church, my wife's first. Divine Service with Holy Communion (which we sat out). Sermon on John 18, "Whom do you seek?", first of a Lent series on "Questions of the Passion". A wonderful contemporary hymn on Jesus as the Lamb of God.
We had to rush straight off after the service, as my family were coming to us for lunch. Driving home, I was finding it difficult to second-guess how my wife was feeling about the service, and was concerned she might have hated it. I finally plucked up the courage to ask, "Dare I ask what you thought of it?"
"It was wonderful", she replied. Indeed, in some ways she was more positive about it than I was, though still having more reservations about Lutheran theology than me.
So it looks like we are now going to be going there regularly - let's see how things work out, but at the moment, it's looking very positive. This is a real answer to prayer.
We had to rush straight off after the service, as my family were coming to us for lunch. Driving home, I was finding it difficult to second-guess how my wife was feeling about the service, and was concerned she might have hated it. I finally plucked up the courage to ask, "Dare I ask what you thought of it?"
"It was wonderful", she replied. Indeed, in some ways she was more positive about it than I was, though still having more reservations about Lutheran theology than me.
So it looks like we are now going to be going there regularly - let's see how things work out, but at the moment, it's looking very positive. This is a real answer to prayer.
Friday, February 27, 2004 AD
The "webhamster" at the Classical Anglican blog-hosting service was kind enough to try to dissuade me from joining what he described as the "slow, sad exile" from Anglicanism. The current betting is that he failed, largely because my leaving is not actually directly connected to the whole Gene Robinson thang, but to a combination of my own personal/family circumstances and to a growing, positive conviction of the truth of Lutheranism. But the webhamster did suggest I post a longer item expanding on the reasons I gave him for the move, so here goes.
There are really three key aspects to my departure from Anglicanism: the first was leaving our previous church, for reasons unconnected with the wider Anglican crisis (at that time a cloud no larger than a man's hand), but rather with a general crisis in evangelical Anglicanism that is too-often overlooked (namely, what does it actually mean today when an Anglican describes themself as an "evangelical"?). The second was trying, and failing to return to the fold. The third was discovering Lutheranism.
Step One: leaving our old church
Our position was that we'd left our C of E church nearly three years ago, as it came increasingly to be evangelical in name only: the vicar was steadily abandoning biblical teachings on original sin; Scriptural reliability; the historicity of Adam, Abraham & Moses; judgment & hell; substitutionary atonement; and (the final straw) even justification by faith (the more recent news that he was now shifting position on homosexual relationships - apparently, it turns out the Bible doesn't address the issue of faithful, monogamous same-sex couples - came as no surprise whatever). (Sadly, this flight from evangelical doctrine is far from unusual within "evangelical" Anglicanism in the Church of England.)
Well, actually the final straw was the birth of our first son: whatever we might have felt able/willing to put up with, we didn't want our son growing up hearing nothing but (i) error in church, and (ii) us complaining about error on the way home from church.
Since then we've been in an independent evangelical church (which, at the time of our switch, was pastored by a friend of ours). I'd continued to "self-identify" as an Anglican, retaining my memberships of Reform and Church Society, subscribing to Virtuosity and CaNN etc. But where my position differs from many in the "slow, sad exile", is that the issue has not been "Should we leave the Anglican church?", but "Is there any way for us to get back in?"
Step Two: trying to return
Option one was a church about 20 minutes drive from us, a staunchly conservative evangelical church whose vicar is a member of Reform, and of which one of our elder son's godmothers is a member. But there were two problems. First, it was further away than we would have liked. Secondly, the weekly "gatherings" were just too "low church", low church to the point of outright irreverence - symbolised for me by the sight of fleece-wearing ministers singing with their hands in their pockets, though a more serious objection was the minimal liturgy, illogically used: one item a week, in the same position in the service, but completely different each time: one week a confession, the next a declaration of faith (but never one of the ecumenical creeds), the next an expression of praise. There was a slight sense of tokenism to it. And overall, the services lacked any real sense of the "vertical" element. (However, we could possibly have lived with this church had it been closer to us, and had it not been for "the Lutheran thing").
Option two was a church about 3/4 minutes away from us, historically an evangelical church. We knew it was a bit "broader", a bit more "open evangelical", a bit more "charismatic" than we'd ideally want. But it was a local church, and we were willing to give it a fair crack of the whip.
One Sunday we went along, and it was a complete disaster: the first time we have ever walked out during a sermon. A laywoman “preached” on the topic, “Too busy not to pray”. Having defined prayer as “an interface”, she went on to lead the congregation in a visualisation exercise. My wife decided at this stage she'd had enough, and that one of the benefits of a local church was she could leave me sitting there while she walked home. I got as far as the end of the exercise, at which point we were told to "Imagine the water lapping at your feet as you stand by the shore… that’s what prayer is, an interface, letting God wash over you". I picked my wife up in the car about half-way home.
The church concerned posts the texts of its sermons online, and looking at these it became apparent that, while that Sunday had represented a nadir, the general standard of preaching was not much better. In any event, from my point of view at least, it was increasingly the case that trying this church had been a last-ditch attempt to find a way to avoid going over to Lutheranism.
The fact is, the main thing we've looking for has been a local church that believes and proclaims the gospel, that worships God in a biblical and orderly manner, and that will baptise our younger son. Having drawn a blank in the C of E, we found we were living within a couple of miles of one of the very few confessional Lutheran churches in the UK, a church which (on initial evidence), met those criteria. What's more, we found ourselves in growing agreement with the teachings and general ethos of Lutheranism.
Step Three: discovering Lutheranism
I don't propose to go into detail on this, having posted elsewhere on this topic. The suggested reading I set out in that earlier post says it all better than I could.
But among all the other factors (the centrality and clarity of Lutheranism's emphasis on justification, the sharp distinction of Law and Gospel, the emphasis on the theology of the cross, etc, etc), one stands out above - and in a sense "behind" - all others. That is the Lutheran approach to the Word of God, and in particular the emphasis on the Word's instrumentality and effectiveness, and the way this then carries over into its doctrine of the sacraments.
The point is that, while the benefits of the Gospel are received by faith alone, the effectiveness and truth of the Gospel depend on God's Word, not on human faith. The sacraments are the Gospel wrapped up in physical elements, and likewise depend for their truth and effectiveness not on human faith, but on God's Word of institution (eg, "This is my body"); though the benefits are received only by faith. (Contrast the position of the 39 Articles, in which the Lord's body and blood are received only by those who have faith, and baptism unites to Christ only those who "receive it rightly" - thus making the sacraments' effectiveness conditional on faith).
This approach to the sacraments has resolved issues that have troubled me ever since I returned to Christianity from atheism, ten years ago: namely, having been baptised as an infant, but only later really come to believe the gospel, what did it actually mean for me to say, "I am baptised"? I'd beaten off the baptistic challenge to my original baptism, without ever really getting a handle on what that baptism had meant (other than knowing it meant something). The Lutheran teaching on baptism finally scratched that itch good and proper (see my post on baptism, below).
I'm not saying these emphases are necessarily absent from Anglicanism in principle, just somewhat obscured by other things, and difficult (if not impossible) to find in practice. As I said in a post on my previous blog, in the Church of England one generally either has to choose faithfulness to the Gospel (usually combined, however, with more than a dash of Zwinglianism and "pop-Christianity") or liturgical order (usually combined with very much more than a dash of either crypto-Romanism or outright unbelief). It's rare you're going to find both, and there comes a point at which one has to say, "What I'm actually looking for here is called Lutheranism, and the best place to find Lutheranism is in a Lutheran church".
Conclusions
So it can be seen my move is not directly connected with the general crisis in Anglicanism. However, the Current Unpleasantness (as Chris Johnson calls it), and the likelihood of the Church of England being convulsed by the same issues within the next few months or years*, were scarcely incentives to return to the fold.
(* ISTM there are two runaway trains heading towards each other on the same stretch of track, with the dear old C of E tied to the rails in the middle. One train is the Global South and other orthodox, classical Anglicans, who at some point will require the C of E to decide which side it is on. The other train is the liberals and revisionists (and open evangelical "useful idiots"), who are pushing (or suffering to be pushed) the homosexual agenda within the C of E itself. Forgive me for lacking any desire for me and my family to be caught in the middle when the trains collide!)
So perhaps if my situation has any wider application, it is this: once you deeply unsettle people in the way the Anglican church has over the past few years, you make people reassess what they actually believe. When you do that, a certain proportion of them are going to change their minds. I was trundling along quite happily as a "39 Articles" Anglican, whistling as I read my library of JC Ryle books, and would probably have continued along those lines to the end of my days, however out of step I might have felt with much of contemporary Anglicanism. But finding no actual place where I could be an Anglican in practice, that opened me to the possibility of looking elsewhere.
There are really three key aspects to my departure from Anglicanism: the first was leaving our previous church, for reasons unconnected with the wider Anglican crisis (at that time a cloud no larger than a man's hand), but rather with a general crisis in evangelical Anglicanism that is too-often overlooked (namely, what does it actually mean today when an Anglican describes themself as an "evangelical"?). The second was trying, and failing to return to the fold. The third was discovering Lutheranism.
Step One: leaving our old church
Our position was that we'd left our C of E church nearly three years ago, as it came increasingly to be evangelical in name only: the vicar was steadily abandoning biblical teachings on original sin; Scriptural reliability; the historicity of Adam, Abraham & Moses; judgment & hell; substitutionary atonement; and (the final straw) even justification by faith (the more recent news that he was now shifting position on homosexual relationships - apparently, it turns out the Bible doesn't address the issue of faithful, monogamous same-sex couples - came as no surprise whatever). (Sadly, this flight from evangelical doctrine is far from unusual within "evangelical" Anglicanism in the Church of England.)
Well, actually the final straw was the birth of our first son: whatever we might have felt able/willing to put up with, we didn't want our son growing up hearing nothing but (i) error in church, and (ii) us complaining about error on the way home from church.
Since then we've been in an independent evangelical church (which, at the time of our switch, was pastored by a friend of ours). I'd continued to "self-identify" as an Anglican, retaining my memberships of Reform and Church Society, subscribing to Virtuosity and CaNN etc. But where my position differs from many in the "slow, sad exile", is that the issue has not been "Should we leave the Anglican church?", but "Is there any way for us to get back in?"
Step Two: trying to return
Option one was a church about 20 minutes drive from us, a staunchly conservative evangelical church whose vicar is a member of Reform, and of which one of our elder son's godmothers is a member. But there were two problems. First, it was further away than we would have liked. Secondly, the weekly "gatherings" were just too "low church", low church to the point of outright irreverence - symbolised for me by the sight of fleece-wearing ministers singing with their hands in their pockets, though a more serious objection was the minimal liturgy, illogically used: one item a week, in the same position in the service, but completely different each time: one week a confession, the next a declaration of faith (but never one of the ecumenical creeds), the next an expression of praise. There was a slight sense of tokenism to it. And overall, the services lacked any real sense of the "vertical" element. (However, we could possibly have lived with this church had it been closer to us, and had it not been for "the Lutheran thing").
Option two was a church about 3/4 minutes away from us, historically an evangelical church. We knew it was a bit "broader", a bit more "open evangelical", a bit more "charismatic" than we'd ideally want. But it was a local church, and we were willing to give it a fair crack of the whip.
One Sunday we went along, and it was a complete disaster: the first time we have ever walked out during a sermon. A laywoman “preached” on the topic, “Too busy not to pray”. Having defined prayer as “an interface”, she went on to lead the congregation in a visualisation exercise. My wife decided at this stage she'd had enough, and that one of the benefits of a local church was she could leave me sitting there while she walked home. I got as far as the end of the exercise, at which point we were told to "Imagine the water lapping at your feet as you stand by the shore… that’s what prayer is, an interface, letting God wash over you". I picked my wife up in the car about half-way home.
The church concerned posts the texts of its sermons online, and looking at these it became apparent that, while that Sunday had represented a nadir, the general standard of preaching was not much better. In any event, from my point of view at least, it was increasingly the case that trying this church had been a last-ditch attempt to find a way to avoid going over to Lutheranism.
The fact is, the main thing we've looking for has been a local church that believes and proclaims the gospel, that worships God in a biblical and orderly manner, and that will baptise our younger son. Having drawn a blank in the C of E, we found we were living within a couple of miles of one of the very few confessional Lutheran churches in the UK, a church which (on initial evidence), met those criteria. What's more, we found ourselves in growing agreement with the teachings and general ethos of Lutheranism.
Step Three: discovering Lutheranism
I don't propose to go into detail on this, having posted elsewhere on this topic. The suggested reading I set out in that earlier post says it all better than I could.
But among all the other factors (the centrality and clarity of Lutheranism's emphasis on justification, the sharp distinction of Law and Gospel, the emphasis on the theology of the cross, etc, etc), one stands out above - and in a sense "behind" - all others. That is the Lutheran approach to the Word of God, and in particular the emphasis on the Word's instrumentality and effectiveness, and the way this then carries over into its doctrine of the sacraments.
The point is that, while the benefits of the Gospel are received by faith alone, the effectiveness and truth of the Gospel depend on God's Word, not on human faith. The sacraments are the Gospel wrapped up in physical elements, and likewise depend for their truth and effectiveness not on human faith, but on God's Word of institution (eg, "This is my body"); though the benefits are received only by faith. (Contrast the position of the 39 Articles, in which the Lord's body and blood are received only by those who have faith, and baptism unites to Christ only those who "receive it rightly" - thus making the sacraments' effectiveness conditional on faith).
This approach to the sacraments has resolved issues that have troubled me ever since I returned to Christianity from atheism, ten years ago: namely, having been baptised as an infant, but only later really come to believe the gospel, what did it actually mean for me to say, "I am baptised"? I'd beaten off the baptistic challenge to my original baptism, without ever really getting a handle on what that baptism had meant (other than knowing it meant something). The Lutheran teaching on baptism finally scratched that itch good and proper (see my post on baptism, below).
I'm not saying these emphases are necessarily absent from Anglicanism in principle, just somewhat obscured by other things, and difficult (if not impossible) to find in practice. As I said in a post on my previous blog, in the Church of England one generally either has to choose faithfulness to the Gospel (usually combined, however, with more than a dash of Zwinglianism and "pop-Christianity") or liturgical order (usually combined with very much more than a dash of either crypto-Romanism or outright unbelief). It's rare you're going to find both, and there comes a point at which one has to say, "What I'm actually looking for here is called Lutheranism, and the best place to find Lutheranism is in a Lutheran church".
Conclusions
So it can be seen my move is not directly connected with the general crisis in Anglicanism. However, the Current Unpleasantness (as Chris Johnson calls it), and the likelihood of the Church of England being convulsed by the same issues within the next few months or years*, were scarcely incentives to return to the fold.
(* ISTM there are two runaway trains heading towards each other on the same stretch of track, with the dear old C of E tied to the rails in the middle. One train is the Global South and other orthodox, classical Anglicans, who at some point will require the C of E to decide which side it is on. The other train is the liberals and revisionists (and open evangelical "useful idiots"), who are pushing (or suffering to be pushed) the homosexual agenda within the C of E itself. Forgive me for lacking any desire for me and my family to be caught in the middle when the trains collide!)
So perhaps if my situation has any wider application, it is this: once you deeply unsettle people in the way the Anglican church has over the past few years, you make people reassess what they actually believe. When you do that, a certain proportion of them are going to change their minds. I was trundling along quite happily as a "39 Articles" Anglican, whistling as I read my library of JC Ryle books, and would probably have continued along those lines to the end of my days, however out of step I might have felt with much of contemporary Anglicanism. But finding no actual place where I could be an Anglican in practice, that opened me to the possibility of looking elsewhere.
Thursday, February 26, 2004 AD
Josh S has been pounding his keyboard into oblivion over at his blog today.
But it has to be said, his basic point is spot on, when he complains about the way people attack Lutherans for practising closed communion:
A real eye-opener for me. I've been programmed to see the Lutheran position as the problem, whereas in fact its the doctrinal chaos of the rest of Protestantism that is the real issue. Innumerable errors have taken up "squatters' rights" in the church, and it is a bit galling to be told by someone who is squatting in your own house that, "You should stop being such a breadhead and accept you need to share the house with others."
But it has to be said, his basic point is spot on, when he complains about the way people attack Lutherans for practising closed communion:
Confessional Lutherans have basically believed the same thing for 500 years, and we're not planning to change any time soon. And since I'm a bit upset right now, I'm going to point something out:
Whiny Protestants argue to me that because the church is currently so fragmented, we need to practice open communion in order to have any semblance of unity and get things off the ground again. My response is simple, and offensive: WE'RE NOT THE ONES WHO CONTINUALLY INVENT NEW HERESIES. Protestants can't seem to stop dividing and inventing ever-newer and ever-weirder doctrines. Business model of church growth? Charismatic renewal? You guys come up with that crap, and then we have to work to keep it out (and in the LCMS, we're losing the battle because so many Lutherans are Protestants at heart). And now you say that because YOU can't stop coming up with stupid crap like church growth, spekkin' in tongues, credobaptism, immersionist legalism, denial of the Real Presence, denial of baptism unto the remission of sins (As Mr Nicey-Nicey said, "it's in the Bible and the Creed. Get over it"), confusing the Trinity, confusion of Law and Gospel, once saved always saved, and that only BEGINS the list; but because YOU can't discipline yourselves doctrinally and practice something even remotely RESEMBLING self-control instead of having a big, giant, neverending orgy of heresy, LUTHERANS need to start acting more like you "for the sake of the Church." Oh gee, yeah, that makes perfect sense. That's like saying because you can't control your sexual promiscuity, we need to redefine marriage for the good of society. Oh wait, people are already saying that.
A real eye-opener for me. I've been programmed to see the Lutheran position as the problem, whereas in fact its the doctrinal chaos of the rest of Protestantism that is the real issue. Innumerable errors have taken up "squatters' rights" in the church, and it is a bit galling to be told by someone who is squatting in your own house that, "You should stop being such a breadhead and accept you need to share the house with others."
OK, let's see, it's now about ... three days ... since I set up this blog, and it's already leapfrogged over those fine folk at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals to sit proudly at number 1 when you google "confessing evangelical". That's not really on, is it?
I blame Google's takeover of Blogger, myself...
I blame Google's takeover of Blogger, myself...
Chris Williams raised the issue on his blog of Women and Theology. Now I personally think Chris set up a false dichotomy at the end of his article, and (however much he works out) I fear for his physical safety should he ever attempt to tell the woman he marries to "leave the theological stuff to me ... just trust me to give you the truth" (just kidding, Chris).
However, his article is completely on the money as regards ordained women. After all, merely by getting ordained, a woman is revealing a certain attitude towards "uncomfortable" passages of Scripture, however "sound" she may be on other issues.
And statistically, chances are a woman in a dog collar is not all that sound on the other issues (please note: we're talking statistical tendencies here, not saying "all women ministers are ipso facto heretics"). Traditionalist Anglican group, Cost of Conscience, carried out a survey a few years back on beliefs in the Church of England. Details can be found here, and there is a useful summary of the key findings here.
But the key findings (taken from the second linked document) are as follows. Read 'em and weep:
Yup, that's right. Only one third (give or take 5%) of women ministers in the Church of England believe in the Virgin Birth. And I wonder about that Holy Spirit finding at the start of the quote: how many of the respondents really mean the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who has spoken by the prophets? And how many simply mean "holy spirit" (in the liberal sense of "religious people being nice to one another")?
There may also be an influence here from the Charismatic movement - it doesn't really matter what you believe (doctrine divides, after all), what matters is that you have an experience of the Holy Spirit at work in your life. Saying you don't believe in the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection no longer disqualifies you from calling yourself a Christian. Saying "I don't believe the Holy Spirit is at work in my life", does.
The website for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England includes some comments on the Cost of Conscience survey from ELCE Chairman, Reg Quirk. Well worth reading.
What's really weird is that, if I do convert to Lutheranism from Anglicanism, people are going to ask why...
However, his article is completely on the money as regards ordained women. After all, merely by getting ordained, a woman is revealing a certain attitude towards "uncomfortable" passages of Scripture, however "sound" she may be on other issues.
And statistically, chances are a woman in a dog collar is not all that sound on the other issues (please note: we're talking statistical tendencies here, not saying "all women ministers are ipso facto heretics"). Traditionalist Anglican group, Cost of Conscience, carried out a survey a few years back on beliefs in the Church of England. Details can be found here, and there is a useful summary of the key findings here.
But the key findings (taken from the second linked document) are as follows. Read 'em and weep:
On every item of the creed [women "priests"] were lower than their male counterparts.
Only the belief in the Holy Spirit showed an equivalence within the margin of error (M 77% F74%)
Certainty about God the Father revealed a 9% gap (M 83% F 74%) and belief in the Trinity an 8% gap (M 78% F 70%)
But it is on the person of Jesus that the real chasm emerges.
Convinced Jesus died to take away the sins of the world (M 76% F 65%).
Similarly on Jesus bodily resurrection (M 68% F 53%)
Jesus the only way to be saved (M 53% F 39%)
Jesus born of a Virgin (M 58% F 33%)
Yup, that's right. Only one third (give or take 5%) of women ministers in the Church of England believe in the Virgin Birth. And I wonder about that Holy Spirit finding at the start of the quote: how many of the respondents really mean the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who has spoken by the prophets? And how many simply mean "holy spirit" (in the liberal sense of "religious people being nice to one another")?
There may also be an influence here from the Charismatic movement - it doesn't really matter what you believe (doctrine divides, after all), what matters is that you have an experience of the Holy Spirit at work in your life. Saying you don't believe in the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection no longer disqualifies you from calling yourself a Christian. Saying "I don't believe the Holy Spirit is at work in my life", does.
The website for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England includes some comments on the Cost of Conscience survey from ELCE Chairman, Reg Quirk. Well worth reading.
What's really weird is that, if I do convert to Lutheranism from Anglicanism, people are going to ask why...
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 AD
Just been for my second visit to Christ Lutheran Church. Wonderful to go to a church service where one is in agreement with pretty much everything said and sung, rather than my usual recent experience in non-Lutheran churches of squirming in my seat as I hear Law and Gospel not so much confused as tangled up in knots, or as the worship of God descends into trivia and irreverence. Think I may be home at last...
I'm grateful for the new pastor at our current (independent evangelical) church having such decided baptistic views. No, really I am. Being repeatedly told that Baptism is an "act of obedience" - Law - forced me to consider more seriously what it meant for Baptism to be "Gospel", and that in turn led to my embracing the Lutheran (biblical) position on the subject; as well as becoming more joyfully aware of what it means personally to be able to say, "I am baptised" (see previous post, below).
The baptist position - that baptism is a work of righteousness, of Law - leads to some unfortunate confusions of Law and Gospel, particularly where infants are concerned. The baptist position is that you can't be baptised unless you [can convince the elders in your church that you] believe. Infants can't believe, we're told (of course, the Bible tells us something different, but that doesn't make much sense to us, and human reason has to take precedence here), so they can't be baptised. QED.
But then this leads to the next problem: how then can children be saved? Now, the issue of what happens to unbaptised children who die in infancy is an abyss too deep for me to begin to fathom: IMO, God's approach on this is clear - he doesn't want us speculating over things we've not been told, he wants us to use the means by which he has promised children can be saved, i.e. baptism.
But of all the answers given to this question, the least satisfactory has to be the one to which baptists are almost inevitably drawn: the "age of accountability". Children below a certain age are too young to have moral guilt for their actions. So they don't need saving, so it doesn't matter that they can't believe and hence can't be baptised.
This is what I meant by confusing Law and Gospel. Ultimately the baptist position boils down to this: the Gospel ain't no help in saving children, because "children can't believe". So instead, we have to water down the Law, find some loopholes in it. So children aren't saved by faith in the the Gospel promises, they're saved by an exclusion, a get-out clause, in the Law: namely, the wholly-invented, unbiblical concept of an "age of accountability".
This is really about children who live unbaptised rather than children who die unbaptised - ISTM there are promises in the Bible to which Christian parents can look for comfort where a child dies unbaptised, though nothing like so many, so clear and so rich as the promises attaching to baptism. But whether my youngest son lives or dies, I don't want him to rely for his current standing before God on some loophole in the Law - I want him to receive and share in the promises of the Gospel, like his brother and his parents. In other words, I want him to be baptised.
The baptist position - that baptism is a work of righteousness, of Law - leads to some unfortunate confusions of Law and Gospel, particularly where infants are concerned. The baptist position is that you can't be baptised unless you [can convince the elders in your church that you] believe. Infants can't believe, we're told (of course, the Bible tells us something different, but that doesn't make much sense to us, and human reason has to take precedence here), so they can't be baptised. QED.
But then this leads to the next problem: how then can children be saved? Now, the issue of what happens to unbaptised children who die in infancy is an abyss too deep for me to begin to fathom: IMO, God's approach on this is clear - he doesn't want us speculating over things we've not been told, he wants us to use the means by which he has promised children can be saved, i.e. baptism.
But of all the answers given to this question, the least satisfactory has to be the one to which baptists are almost inevitably drawn: the "age of accountability". Children below a certain age are too young to have moral guilt for their actions. So they don't need saving, so it doesn't matter that they can't believe and hence can't be baptised.
This is what I meant by confusing Law and Gospel. Ultimately the baptist position boils down to this: the Gospel ain't no help in saving children, because "children can't believe". So instead, we have to water down the Law, find some loopholes in it. So children aren't saved by faith in the the Gospel promises, they're saved by an exclusion, a get-out clause, in the Law: namely, the wholly-invented, unbiblical concept of an "age of accountability".
This is really about children who live unbaptised rather than children who die unbaptised - ISTM there are promises in the Bible to which Christian parents can look for comfort where a child dies unbaptised, though nothing like so many, so clear and so rich as the promises attaching to baptism. But whether my youngest son lives or dies, I don't want him to rely for his current standing before God on some loophole in the Law - I want him to receive and share in the promises of the Gospel, like his brother and his parents. In other words, I want him to be baptised.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004 AD
Well, I think I'm settling into my new home reasonably well. Got the place looking enough like the old blog (with some crucial differences in the links - hi to all you Lutheran guys over there) to feel comfortable.
To be honest, "Confessing Evangelical" is what I should have called this from the get-go. It's a much better summary of where I'm coming from than "Confessing Anglican" ever was. That title sent me down blind-alleys relating to the Book of Common Prayer and all the rest of it, rather than keeping my focus on the Gospel, the Gospel as so wonderfully rediscovered and confessed by those whom God used to rescue the church from itself in in the Reformation.
Even though there are crucial differences between the different Reformation confessional positions - and it's a switch of view relating to some of these that has necessitated my move - the basic shape and pattern of Christianity established by the various Reformers (Luther, Calvin, Cranmer etc) is one which still has a great deal of value today; especially when compared with the monotony of "pop evangelicalism" currently spreading across the entire church landscape.
Basically, my current position is that I was until recently an Anglican evangelical, but attending an independent evangelical/baptist church (for reasons I won't bore you with now). Having been exploring Lutheranism for several months, I'm now sufficiently persuaded of the truth and attractiveness of Lutheranism that I am trying out the local Lutheran church with a view to seeking membership if all goes to plan. (Hence the slightly cryptic subheading for this blog).
So, "Confessing Evangelical" it is. One advantage is that, in the (hopefully unlikely) event that I end up not being received into the Lutheran Church, I won't need to change blog - just demote those Lutheran links down the batting order a bit... :-)
To be honest, "Confessing Evangelical" is what I should have called this from the get-go. It's a much better summary of where I'm coming from than "Confessing Anglican" ever was. That title sent me down blind-alleys relating to the Book of Common Prayer and all the rest of it, rather than keeping my focus on the Gospel, the Gospel as so wonderfully rediscovered and confessed by those whom God used to rescue the church from itself in in the Reformation.
Even though there are crucial differences between the different Reformation confessional positions - and it's a switch of view relating to some of these that has necessitated my move - the basic shape and pattern of Christianity established by the various Reformers (Luther, Calvin, Cranmer etc) is one which still has a great deal of value today; especially when compared with the monotony of "pop evangelicalism" currently spreading across the entire church landscape.
Basically, my current position is that I was until recently an Anglican evangelical, but attending an independent evangelical/baptist church (for reasons I won't bore you with now). Having been exploring Lutheranism for several months, I'm now sufficiently persuaded of the truth and attractiveness of Lutheranism that I am trying out the local Lutheran church with a view to seeking membership if all goes to plan. (Hence the slightly cryptic subheading for this blog).
So, "Confessing Evangelical" it is. One advantage is that, in the (hopefully unlikely) event that I end up not being received into the Lutheran Church, I won't need to change blog - just demote those Lutheran links down the batting order a bit... :-)
The final carried-over post from my old blog - just because it's the most recent one.
I finished the Pullman book this morning - a shame that a series that started out so well should end up a such a slog. It's hard to believe anyone's written a novel as didactic or moralising as the last 100 pages of The Amber Spyglass since the latter year's of Queen Victoria's reign.
The weakness of God is stronger than (Pull)men
Well, I’m grinding to the end of The Amber Spyglass, determined just to enjoy the story and not to give Philip Pullman the satisfaction of being annoyed by his sixth-form assault on Christianity (which, as everyone knows, exerts a domineering and tyrannical influence over almost every aspect of life in modern Britain. Erm…).
Without giving too much away, Pullman’s book is basically an “evangelistic” work, proclaiming the “good news” of God’s non-existence, and calling upon people everywhere to give themselves to building the “republic of heaven”. This is combined with a depiction of the Roman Catholic Church which even Titus Oates or Ian Paisley might find a little OTT.
But one essential plank of Pullman’s “evangelistic” strategy is to make God appear, not terrible or evil, but simply weak and pathetic. It’s clear that Pullman’s worldview has no room for a God who is weak, pathetic - or who dies. He seems to believe that putting such an image of God in people’s minds will help inoculate them against Christianity (it’s clear that one of his aims is to create the right sort of “mythic structures” in his readers’ minds).
But of course, the whole message of Christianity centres on the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ: when God himself, in his Son, made himself weak, pathetic and helpless. God in the manger; God on the Cross.
If Pullman cannot see this, then this explains the total absence of Christ from his books - there is simply no way of fitting Christ into Pullman’s worldview. That is where the worldview falls apart.
That also gives me some small, faint hope for Philip Pullman - the fact that he cannot fit Christ into his worldview opens the possibility that one day Christ will force his way into Pullman’s worldview and shatter it; that Pullman will see that a weak and helpless God - one who needs to be carried around (as a baby), one who can be held in contempt by men and killed (as a man) - far from being the ultimate nail in Christianity’s coffin, is in fact the God who loves him and has, in his Son, laid down his life for him.
I finished the Pullman book this morning - a shame that a series that started out so well should end up a such a slog. It's hard to believe anyone's written a novel as didactic or moralising as the last 100 pages of The Amber Spyglass since the latter year's of Queen Victoria's reign.
The weakness of God is stronger than (Pull)men
Well, I’m grinding to the end of The Amber Spyglass, determined just to enjoy the story and not to give Philip Pullman the satisfaction of being annoyed by his sixth-form assault on Christianity (which, as everyone knows, exerts a domineering and tyrannical influence over almost every aspect of life in modern Britain. Erm…).
Without giving too much away, Pullman’s book is basically an “evangelistic” work, proclaiming the “good news” of God’s non-existence, and calling upon people everywhere to give themselves to building the “republic of heaven”. This is combined with a depiction of the Roman Catholic Church which even Titus Oates or Ian Paisley might find a little OTT.
But one essential plank of Pullman’s “evangelistic” strategy is to make God appear, not terrible or evil, but simply weak and pathetic. It’s clear that Pullman’s worldview has no room for a God who is weak, pathetic - or who dies. He seems to believe that putting such an image of God in people’s minds will help inoculate them against Christianity (it’s clear that one of his aims is to create the right sort of “mythic structures” in his readers’ minds).
But of course, the whole message of Christianity centres on the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ: when God himself, in his Son, made himself weak, pathetic and helpless. God in the manger; God on the Cross.
If Pullman cannot see this, then this explains the total absence of Christ from his books - there is simply no way of fitting Christ into Pullman’s worldview. That is where the worldview falls apart.
That also gives me some small, faint hope for Philip Pullman - the fact that he cannot fit Christ into his worldview opens the possibility that one day Christ will force his way into Pullman’s worldview and shatter it; that Pullman will see that a weak and helpless God - one who needs to be carried around (as a baby), one who can be held in contempt by men and killed (as a man) - far from being the ultimate nail in Christianity’s coffin, is in fact the God who loves him and has, in his Son, laid down his life for him.
Here's another post that, for purely personal reasons, I didn't want to lose when my Confessing Anglican blog goes down:
‘I am baptised’
Reflecting today on the above phrase, which comes from Luther (the Latin is something like baptizmato sum, but I’m too ignorant of Latin to know whether that’s right and too lazy to look it up). This was the phrase that, years ago reconciled me to the fact that my infant baptism was a valid baptism, and that my not getting rebaptised upon returning to Christianity from atheism was not just copping out/inertia. It’s a phrase I’ve often had in mind since.
But today, new vistas opened for me in that phrase - the baptism issue moved from “I now agree with this interpretation of those texts rather than that interpretation”, to one of seeing just why it is so precious and essential to be able to say, “I am baptised”.
The issue is this; how does the gospel actually come to us? How does the gospel stop being facts “out there” and become life and salvation for us, for me personally? What is the point of contact between the gospel events - the life, death and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sins - and our own lives?
Often, the answers look inward one way or another:
* in Arminianism, it is “my decision for Christ” that counts
* in Calvinism, it is the sovereign work of God, but it is still an inner work, an effectual calling by the Holy Spirit working in our hearts
* for charismatics, it’s the baptism/filling of the Spirit that counts again, an inward work
* but in Lutheranism, it is the Word and Sacraments that are the point of contact, and Baptism is the initial point of contact. While the benefit of baptism, the benefit of the gospel promises, is received by faith, it is the promises applied to us in baptism that are the point of contact: something outside us, not something within.
It can be hard keeping all the blessings of the gospel in mind; hard to summarise what the gospel is to us, what it means for us. But in baptism the whole gospel is rolled up and placed into the water for us by God’s Word - forgiveness of sins, new life, union with Christ, death to sin, the promise of eternal life, in a word salvation (just look through the biblical references to baptism to see this - eg Romans 6, 1 Peter 3, Galatians 3:27 etc etc).
“I am baptised” thus becomes a shorthand for “all the blessings, all the promises of the gospel are mine in Christ - not because I look within myself and find this or that evidence, but because ‘I am baptised’ - because God has taken the promises and applied them directly to me in the waters of baptism.”
And then we also enjoy the privilege and blessing of God also coming to us and applying the blessings of the gospel to us in the preaching of the Word and the Lord’s Supper - but all this is “simply” living out what has already been given to us, signed sealed and delivered, in baptism.
So, as I said, today’s the day the baptism issue - already a crucial theological/intellectual factor in pushing me towards Lutheranism - became much more than that: a means by which I feel I now see the meaning of the gospel, the sheer excitement and blessing of the gospel, perhaps more clearly than I have ever seen it in my life.
After years of struggling to hold the gospel together in my head, now I can look instead to the waters of baptism that were poured onto my head, and the promises placed in those waters, and say, “I am baptised”.
‘I am baptised’
Reflecting today on the above phrase, which comes from Luther (the Latin is something like baptizmato sum, but I’m too ignorant of Latin to know whether that’s right and too lazy to look it up). This was the phrase that, years ago reconciled me to the fact that my infant baptism was a valid baptism, and that my not getting rebaptised upon returning to Christianity from atheism was not just copping out/inertia. It’s a phrase I’ve often had in mind since.
But today, new vistas opened for me in that phrase - the baptism issue moved from “I now agree with this interpretation of those texts rather than that interpretation”, to one of seeing just why it is so precious and essential to be able to say, “I am baptised”.
The issue is this; how does the gospel actually come to us? How does the gospel stop being facts “out there” and become life and salvation for us, for me personally? What is the point of contact between the gospel events - the life, death and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sins - and our own lives?
Often, the answers look inward one way or another:
* in Arminianism, it is “my decision for Christ” that counts
* in Calvinism, it is the sovereign work of God, but it is still an inner work, an effectual calling by the Holy Spirit working in our hearts
* for charismatics, it’s the baptism/filling of the Spirit that counts again, an inward work
* but in Lutheranism, it is the Word and Sacraments that are the point of contact, and Baptism is the initial point of contact. While the benefit of baptism, the benefit of the gospel promises, is received by faith, it is the promises applied to us in baptism that are the point of contact: something outside us, not something within.
It can be hard keeping all the blessings of the gospel in mind; hard to summarise what the gospel is to us, what it means for us. But in baptism the whole gospel is rolled up and placed into the water for us by God’s Word - forgiveness of sins, new life, union with Christ, death to sin, the promise of eternal life, in a word salvation (just look through the biblical references to baptism to see this - eg Romans 6, 1 Peter 3, Galatians 3:27 etc etc).
“I am baptised” thus becomes a shorthand for “all the blessings, all the promises of the gospel are mine in Christ - not because I look within myself and find this or that evidence, but because ‘I am baptised’ - because God has taken the promises and applied them directly to me in the waters of baptism.”
And then we also enjoy the privilege and blessing of God also coming to us and applying the blessings of the gospel to us in the preaching of the Word and the Lord’s Supper - but all this is “simply” living out what has already been given to us, signed sealed and delivered, in baptism.
So, as I said, today’s the day the baptism issue - already a crucial theological/intellectual factor in pushing me towards Lutheranism - became much more than that: a means by which I feel I now see the meaning of the gospel, the sheer excitement and blessing of the gospel, perhaps more clearly than I have ever seen it in my life.
After years of struggling to hold the gospel together in my head, now I can look instead to the waters of baptism that were poured onto my head, and the promises placed in those waters, and say, “I am baptised”.
As my old Confessing Anglican blog won't stay up unless I keep paying for it, please indulge me while I re-post a couple of items from that site. The first one was my "farewell to Anglicanism", posted on 18 February:
Well, I guess this is goodbye then...
Think it’s time to accept that, for the time being, this is an ex-Confessing Anglican. It has ceased to be, rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible etc.
Still not 100% sure whether Lutheranism is where I’m going to end up, but visited the local ELCE church last Sunday and will be going back there next week.
Why Lutheranism? Not really because of frustrations with Anglicanism or my current (non-Anglican) church, though these certainly played a part in making me reconsider where I stood. It’s much more a positive decision - one I don’t plan to go into in detail here, but really stemming from a conviction that the Lutheran position is correct, especially on the Sacraments*, and that the Gospel is found with greater purity in the Lutheran churches than anywhere else.
(* the “tipping-point” came when I realised that texts such as, “This is my body” and “Baptism now saves you” are there to be believed rather than explained, or rather explained away).
[...]
Suggested reading
If you want more information on Lutheranism, any of the following can put all this much better than I ever could:
Luther’s Small Catechism - the most important basic summary of Lutheran teachings, and a wonderfully warm, human, Scriptural piece of work. It’s been described as the only Reformation confession of faith that can be prayed, and that’s exactly right. To buy a copy, with a useful explanation, click here (UK) or here.
A Presbyterian on the Wittenberg Trail - article by Rick Ritchie on how he moved from Calvinism to Lutheranism, mainly through through exposure to Lutheran teaching on the Sacraments *** Highly Recommended ***
The Spirituality of the Cross (or click here for US purchases) - Gene Veith’s excellent summary of Lutheran teachings, covering the cardinal points of Lutheran theology: the Word of God, justification by faith, the means of grace, worship, the theology of the cross, vocation, the two kingdoms and the church.
Well, I guess this is goodbye then...
Think it’s time to accept that, for the time being, this is an ex-Confessing Anglican. It has ceased to be, rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible etc.
Still not 100% sure whether Lutheranism is where I’m going to end up, but visited the local ELCE church last Sunday and will be going back there next week.
Why Lutheranism? Not really because of frustrations with Anglicanism or my current (non-Anglican) church, though these certainly played a part in making me reconsider where I stood. It’s much more a positive decision - one I don’t plan to go into in detail here, but really stemming from a conviction that the Lutheran position is correct, especially on the Sacraments*, and that the Gospel is found with greater purity in the Lutheran churches than anywhere else.
(* the “tipping-point” came when I realised that texts such as, “This is my body” and “Baptism now saves you” are there to be believed rather than explained, or rather explained away).
[...]
Suggested reading
If you want more information on Lutheranism, any of the following can put all this much better than I ever could:
Luther’s Small Catechism - the most important basic summary of Lutheran teachings, and a wonderfully warm, human, Scriptural piece of work. It’s been described as the only Reformation confession of faith that can be prayed, and that’s exactly right. To buy a copy, with a useful explanation, click here (UK) or here.
A Presbyterian on the Wittenberg Trail - article by Rick Ritchie on how he moved from Calvinism to Lutheranism, mainly through through exposure to Lutheran teaching on the Sacraments *** Highly Recommended ***
The Spirituality of the Cross (or click here for US purchases) - Gene Veith’s excellent summary of Lutheran teachings, covering the cardinal points of Lutheran theology: the Word of God, justification by faith, the means of grace, worship, the theology of the cross, vocation, the two kingdoms and the church.
Monday, February 23, 2004 AD
Less than a month since I started blogging, and here I am on my third site.
For the moment, this will be running in parallel with my existing Confessing (Ex-)Anglican blog. Having moved in the space of three weeks from Anglican with growing Lutheran leanings, to being pretty much convinced of the truth of Lutheranism, it's become a bit inconsistent to retain a "classicalanglican.net" domain name...
For the moment, this will be running in parallel with my existing Confessing (Ex-)Anglican blog. Having moved in the space of three weeks from Anglican with growing Lutheran leanings, to being pretty much convinced of the truth of Lutheranism, it's become a bit inconsistent to retain a "classicalanglican.net" domain name...
