Confessing Evangelical

Well, so far I can say from firsthand knowledge that I believe that pages 1 to 289 and 345 to 480 of the Book of Concord (Kolb edition) are "a true and unadulterated statement and exposition of the Word of God". By my calculation, that makes me approximately 64.5% Lutheran. So far so good :-)

A new addition to the growing Lutheran blogosphere: Blogsburg Confession. A big "hi" to Blogsburg - good to have you with us (thanks also for your comments left on my earlier post on closed communion under your equally mysterious former nom-de-blog, FDN).

Came across a very helpful article on the Modern Reformation website by Paul McCain, entitled Holy Communion or Unholy Chaos? The Ecumenical Movement's Use of the Lord's Supper. He looks at how close(d) communion - far from being some narrow-minded idea cooked up by a few Lutherans - is in fact the historic position of the Church. The Church's teaching has always been that the Lord's Supper is an expression of our true unity in the faith, not (as promoted by the Ecumenical Movement) a means of papering over the cracks to establish an apparent "unity" in which doctrinal error is tolerated as "legitimate diversity".

McCain writes:

How is it possible that the most holy night of our Lord's life has given rise to dissension and disunity in Christendom? How can it be that our Lord's Sacred Meal has become the cause of turmoil, confusion and a splintering of fellowship among Christians who trace their theological ancestry to Rome, Wittenberg, Geneva or Zurich?

What should the Church's response to this disunity be? There are two options. The first option is the response of historic Christianity: To lament the disunity, to pray and to work for agreement, but until genuine agreement is reached, to avoid communing together in order to avoid giving expression to a unity that does not yet exist. The second option is the response of the Ecumenical Movement: To assert that in spite of a lack of unity in the confession of the true faith, Christian churches commune together. The Ecumenical Movement's use of the Lord's Supper as a tool toward union has turned Holy Communion into an unholy chaos.

Read the full article here.

It is indeed tragic and unfortunate when true Christians cannot commune together. No-one wants that situation to continue. But the true tragedy is doctrinal division and error: and trying to use the Lord's Supper to side-step that tragedy will only make - has already made, is already making - matters worse, as it sends out such clear signals that doctrinal division and error do not really matter.

Funnily enough, one of the best expressions of this can be found in the Catechism of the (Roman) Catholic Church:

The more painful the experience of the divisions in the Church which break the common participation in the table of the Lord, the more urgent are our prayers to the Lord that the time of complete unity among all who believe in him may return.

Even if we disagree with Rome on what "complete unity" means and involves, that is still an excellent summary of the position.

Here's a phrase for Lutherans (and other "Reformation Christians") to reclaim: "leading (or bringing) people to Christ".

Within much of evangelicalism, this phrase is used to describe the process of leading someone through a "sinner's prayer", as the culmination of sharing the Gospel with them. This is presented as the greatest honour and blessing that God can bestow on the ordinary Christian: the opportunity to "lead someone to Christ", and Andrew's example in John 1:41,42 is frequently cited.

I have never led anyone to Christ in that sense. For years I longed to have the opportunity to "lead someone to Christ", and felt deeply guilty about my failures to be sufficiently "bold" in my "witness" so as to be able to "lead someone to Christ". Sure, I'd told people the Gospel, but I'd never "closed the deal".

But if you're going to lead someone to Christ, you need to know where Christ is. Andrew didn't lead Simon Peter through a prayer - he physically led him to where Jesus could be found, and left it to Jesus to call Simon Peter to himself.

So where can Christ be found today? Where are we to lead people to? Well, this is linked in many ways with my earlier post on Salvation Won and Salvation Distributed: Christ is present wherever the salvation he won for us is distributed. Not metaphorically "present", and not just present in the general sense of divine omnipresence, but actually present in a saving sense to distribute forgiveness, life and salvation to us.

So when we tell someone the Gospel, Christ is present. Christ is present in Baptism; he is present in the Gospel promises declared in the Absolution; he is present in the preaching of his Word, and especially the preaching of the Gospel; and above all, he is present - literally, physically present - in the Lord's Supper, under the forms of bread and wine.

In short, when we invite people to church, we are inviting them to come where Christ is present in Word and Sacrament - we are leading them to Christ, just as surely as Andrew led Peter to Christ. What happens then is between Christ and the people we invite, just as Andrew stepped out of the picture once he had introduced Peter to Christ.

So it turns out I have led people to Christ: I've (on occasion) told them the Gospel; I've invited them to church; I quite literally led - or rather, carried - my older son to Christ, when he was baptised, and hope to lead his younger brother to Christ before too much longer. Indeed, I lead my family to Christ every week, behind the wheel of our car. And leading people to Christ in this way is indeed the greatest honour and blessing that God can bestow on the ordinary Christian.

GK Chesterton again, on an even more important topic: beer.

Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer's day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented.

- from the essay, Wine When it is Red

Amen, brother. Posted in honour of Daniel's decision to categorise his blogroll links by reference to beer.

"Only Brits would come up with the idea of brewing beer without carbonation", he writes. Excuse me? Daniel, don't let's get started on transatlantic beer comparisons. There are words in the English language to describe American beer, but unfortunately they're all forbidden by Colossians 3:8... :-)

Think GKC should have the last word again:

Man is always something worse or something better than an animal ... Thus in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal ever invented anything so bad as drunkenness - or so good as drink

Great quote from GK Chesterton:

It is very hard for a man to defend anything of which he is entirely convinced. It is comparably easy when he is only partially convinced. He is partially convinced because he has found this or that proof of the thing, and he can expound it.

But a man is not really convinced of a philosophical theory when he finds that something proves it. He is only really convinced when he finds that everything proves it. And the more converging reasons he finds pointing to this conviction, the more bewildered he is if asked suddenly to sum them up.

Thus, if one asked an ordinary intelligent man, on the spur of the moment, "Why do you prefer civilization to savagery?" he would look wildly round at object after object, and would only be able to answer vaguely, "Why, there is that bookcase ... and the coals in the coal-scuttle ... and pianos ... and policemen."

The whole case for civilization is that the case for it is complex. It has done so many things. But the very multiplicity of proof which ought to make reply overwhelming makes reply impossible.

- from "The Paradoxes of Christianity", in Orthodoxy

Chesterton is talking about defending/promoting Christianity in general, and I can strongly identify with what he is saying. Much the same also applies to Lutheranism in particular: there are multiple converging reasons why I find Lutheranism persuasive and attractive, whether it be Law/Gospel, the sacraments, the centrality of justification and forgiveness of sins, vocation, the two kingdoms, the music of JS Bach, or just the towering and vivid personality of Luther himself. It's hard to know where to begin!

This contrasts with my previous Calvinism, whose central Big Idea - the Sovereignty of God - can be simply identified, stated, defended and promoted, but which (when placed at the centre of one's theological system and spirituality) somehow fails to do justice to the full range of the biblical data (God so loved the world), and seems frequently to be in danger of driving one insane, as single, simple big ideas are prone to do: a point Chesterton makes elsewhere in Orthodoxy, in particular when he points out that:

... the strongest and most unmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic's theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way

Now I'm not at all saying that Calvinism is a lunatic theory, or that it necessarily drives its adherents insane (sometimes it merely drives them Lutheran...). But it is undeniable that in the wrong hands it can have that effect (two words: Arthur. Pink.). Chesterton again (speaking this time of how, contrary to popular opinion, poets are far less likely to go mad than logicians and mathematicians):

...only one great English poet went mad, [the Calvinist, William] Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination ... the poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

Examples of where Calvinism can have more logic than is good for one's mental balance: does celebrating Christmas violate the regulative principle? Does Scripture mandate any church music other than unaccompanied (metrical) psalms? Does playing football with your chidren in the park on a Sunday afternoon constitute Sabbath-breaking? Are we allowed to make a free offer of the gospel to unbelievers (who may, after all, be reprobate)? Even if most Calvinists are, in practice, happy opening Christmas presents, singing hymns and enjoying a kickabout in the park, the very fact that these questions can arise, and frequently lead to such intense controversy, tells its own story.

(By the way, anyone reading this who hasn't read Orthodoxy: stop reading this now, and run - don't walk - to your nearest bookshop, buy a copy, and read it, today. You won't regret it, I promise. One of the finest, sanest, most quotable, and most unusual, Christian books ever written, ever).

I assume I'm not the only person who feels that - however much sympathy one must have for what the Spanish people have been through this past week, and however much it's really none of my business who they choose to vote for, and however ignorant I may be of the dynamics and undercurrents of Spanish politics - that it is not sending out a terribly helpful signal to Al Qaida to have a sequence of events that seems to go like this:

1. One week from election, Government tipped to win again, despite unpopular decision to join in war on Iraq.

2. Devastating bomb attack, apparently the work of Islamic "militants", who are apparently motivated in part by said Government's support for said war.

3. Electors throw said Government out on their collective ear.

The good people of Spain are of course entitled to their opinion, but ... well, from the point of view of the rest of us - particularly those living in countries that might be planning on having elections anytime soon - this doesn't exactly help, does it?

Yet another reason for loving Lutheranism: the doctrine of vocation. Sick of the Christian subculture? Fed up with being made to feel that your "secular" job is a bit "unspiritual" (unless you are able to evangelise your colleagues or make up for it by spending lots of spare time in "church" activities)? Then I recommend you spend some time this weekend reading Gene Veith's article on The Doctrine of Vocation.

How liberating it is to realise that our daily work, our everyday vocations (whether in paid employment, as a husband or wife, as a parent, as a citizen, or whatever), all these are of value to God and are used by him to answer the prayer, "Give us today our daily bread". As Luther puts it:

All our work in the field, in the garden, in the city, in the home, in struggle, in government -- to what does it all amount before God except child's play, by means of which God is pleased to give his gifts in the field, at home, and everywhere? These are the masks of our Lord God, behind which he wants to be hidden and to do all things.

As Luther says elsewhere, God himself is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid.

It's also liberating to realise that, while we are all priests (1 Peter 2:4-10), that is not the same as saying that we are all ministers (2 Timothy 4:1-5). Our everyday life (as citizens, employees, members of families) has value as we live as a "royal priesthood"; we are to be ready to "give a defence", to explain the gospel and its relevance to how we live (and what a privilege it is when such opportunities arise!); but we are not required to beat ourselves up for failing to "preach the Word in season and out of season", when we are not ministers.

This is such an important part of what freedom for the Christian, freedom in the Gospel, means in practice: an end to quasi-monastic divisions between "spiritual" and "secular" activities, which burden ordinary Christians with unnecessary guilt.

Finally, it is also liberating to realise that some things (including, in my case, anything to do with plumbing or electricity) are not our vocation, and that we are therefore justified in getting someone else to use their vocation in doing it for us, if God has blessed us with the (financial) ability to do so. One very practical application of this teaching is that it should spare me the job of remodelling our garden wall and patio this summer!

Now if you'll excuse me, my week of working at my vocation as a lawyer is coming to an end, and my vocation as husband and father beckons...

The BBC has a "consultation" on its website asking for people's views on "what the government should do" about health issues such as obesity, smoking and alcohol abuse.

In fairly typical BBC fashion, all the questions are predicated on the idea that the answer to all these problems is for the Government to "do" something - ban this, make that compulsory. The format seems calculated to produce bogus statistics of the "74% support compulsory screening for STDs" variety.

Without wishing to overstate the case, the vision of the world conjured up by this survey reminds me a bit of Christopher Hitchens' great comment about North Korea, where "everything that is not absolutely compulsory is absolutely forbidden".

British readers - if you value your freedom to take responsibility for what you do to your own body - if the reason you are, like me, quite frankly a bit lardy is that you choose to be lardy - then I strongly suggest you go to the BBC website now and vote "no" to every question...

Pastor Rolf Preus (Luther Quest's "chaplain") recently posted a devotion on the Luther Quest site entitled, "Jesus' Prayer for our Forgiveness". The whole thing is worth reading, but particularly the following passage:

Forgiveness was won in Christ’s crucifixion. The Father answered the prayer His Son prayed. He forgave all those responsible for Christ’s death. That is, He forgave all sinners, for it was all sinners of all times and places who nailed Jesus to the cross. The sins for which He suffered are the sins God forgave. Since He suffered the punishment of all sins of all sinners, it was all sins of all sinners that God forgave. Forgiveness of all sins was won, earned, obtained, gotten, there on Calvary as Jesus was crucified for us.

Forgiveness was not distributed on the cross. The forgiveness that Jesus won on Calvary is distributed wherever Christ’s gospel is proclaimed because the proclamation of the gospel is nothing else than the declaration of the forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake. The forgiveness that Jesus won on Calvary is distributed wherever sinners are baptized in Jesus’ name and by His authority in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Mere water cannot wash away sins, but the water that is joined to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus can and does wash away sins. The forgiveness that Jesus won on Calvary is distributed whenever the minister speaks Christ’s words of absolution to the penitents. The minister’s words of forgiveness are not from the minister, but from Christ who took away our sin. The forgiveness of sins that Jesus won on Calvary is distributed wherever Christians come to the altar to eat and to drink the body and the blood of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper. The bread and the wine of this holy Sacrament are not merely signs of Christ’s body and blood. They are Christ’s body and blood. Where the paschal blood is poured, death’s dread angel sheathes his sword. We eat and we drink and we know with the certainty of faith that we are receiving with our mouths the body and the blood of Jesus even as we are receiving by faith the forgiveness of sins and eternal life

This distinction - between salvation won and salvation distributed - has proved enormously helpful for me, especially as someone moving away from the Calvinism represented by John Murray's Redemption Accomplished and Applied, and in need of a similarly clear, pithy description of God's work in saving us.

It summarises perfectly the distinction between Christ's work on the cross, winning forgiveness, life and salvation for all; and his work through the means of grace, of distributing that forgiveness, life and salvation, creating in us the faith by which we receive the benefits of this - demonstrating how all this is God's work. It's not Christ's work on the cross, plus our "decision" now; it's Christ's work on the cross winning salvation for us, and Christ's work through the Word and Sacraments distributing salvation to us, and creating and sustaining faith in us.

In a subsequent discussion on LQ, the question was raised, "[If forgiveness is distributed to us through the means of grace, then] where do I find forgiveness of my sins committed today? At the foot of the Cross? At my confession? In the pastors absolution? At my partaking of the Lords Supper? At my baptism?"

One particularly helpful reply said (emphasis added):

I'm just trying to encourage you not to put your sins and forgiveness on such a linear path. God already knows all the sins you'll commit in your life, and he forgave them all in your baptism. And he forgives you as often as you confess and receive absolution. And He will forgive you each time you receive his body and blood. His gifts he gives to us oh so abundantly and over and over meeting all of our needs.

How much do we need forgiveness? How much gospel do we need? How much grace can we have? How much building of our faith is enough? God just pours out his grace to us again and again and just because he does a thing more than once, does not in any way mean that the previous was less than enough. Your baptism was enough, but he gives you more. His absolution is enough, but he gives you still more. His supper is enough and even though you don't deserve it, He gives you yet more.

He does this because he loves you so and you are his child and he knows just exactly what you need - and he gave it to you in your baptism, he gives it to you again in absolution and he'll continue giving it to you in his supper. In this way, you are forgiven. You can know you are forgiven. And when you sin and are terrified, you can be forgiven again - each time with the words of the gospel administered to you for the forgiveness of sins and the strengthening of your faith unto life everlasting.

Wow! What a God we serve!

Wow, indeed.

The Telegraph reports today on the latest Anglican turmoil: this time the Anglican Church in Canada is on the verge of approving same-sex blessings. (Though to describe Anglicanism as being "on the brink of schism" is like saying that Elvis "is on the brink of death").

All this breaks my heart. For almost the whole of my life I've had strong links with Anglicanism. It's largely my love for the Prayer Book and the Articles that kept me from ever being completely satisfied with much of contemporary evangelicalism, which in turn is one reason why I've ended up "going Lutheran".

Anglicanism has, of course, strong affinities with Lutheranism, being very much a product of the "conservative Reformation", and with a distinct "family resemblance" between the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Augsburg Confession. And I still maintain that Anglicanism at its best is Reformed Christianity at its best (and sanest). This is, after all, the church of Cranmer, Whitefield, Ryle, John Stott and JI Packer, just to name a few who have had a big impact on me over the years. It's also a church that has given the world some glorious church music*. To see all this disappear down the toilet is a tragedy.

Do remember in your prayers the remnant who have not bowed the knee to Baal (see any of the "Anglican" links to the right.

(* speaking of glorious church music: buy this! buy this! Not cheap, and worth shopping around to find the best price, but you'll never regret it, I promise).

...don't worry, the Church of England still requires that these be two separate people :-)

But the Telegraph has a good leader column (registration may be required) on Rowan Williams' remarks on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials (see my earlier post, below), in particular his statement that, "I only hope that teachers are equipped to tease out what in Pullman's world is and is not reflective of Christian teaching as Christians understand it."

The Telegraph rightly describes this as "an all-too-pious hope" and continues:

The teaching of Christianity is so diluted that many - perhaps most - children attach little or no meaning to notions such as the Incarnation, the Crucifixion or the Resurrection. A theologian of Dr Williams's calibre may well analyse Pullman's "thought experiment" and relish debate with such an adversary. Children, however, need to be taught facts before they can engage in disputations.

They can hardly avoid Pullman's bestseller, but they might learn more from his masters, Milton and Blake. Better yet, they need to read the Bible and acquire a grasp of Christian doctrine. They would then be able to see Pullman for what he is: a gnostic genius whose fantasies tell them nothing about Christ or his Church.

Leaving to one side the question of what things have come to when it takes a newspaper editor to say all this more clearly than an Archbishop, that pretty much sums up my own feelings on the subject (on which I have posted before).

Pullman's books are the UK's answer to the Da Vinci Code, with the important exception that they are exceptionally well-written, imaginative and gripping (save for the preachy and didactic final 100-or-so pages), rather than being trashy potboilers. But for many people they seem to fulfil a similar function to the Da Vinci Code: enabling people who are basically ignorant of Christianity (but who, like our toddler refusing even to try a new foodstuff, just know they don't like it) to feel they're getting "the real deal" about the true nature and purpose of "the Church" and "religion" generally*. Even if that "real deal" leaves Christians grinding their teeth in frustration. Though at least Pullman had the decency to put his make-believe Church into a parallel universe.

*See, for example, the remarks made by the chairman of the panel that awarded The Amber Spyglass the Whitbread Prize, Jon Snow: "We are more taken, it has to be said, with Pullman's view of God than [C.S.] Lewis's."

Y'know, despite all the unkind comments being made about "trendy vicars", Rowan Williams may be on to something here: teaching Philip Pullman's books in RE lessons may be just the thing to eradicate any appeal the books might have for impressionable teenagers...

More excellent Ruminations from "Pennsy", this time on why Lutherans aren't Protestant. Personally, I find the question a bit "pot-ay-to, pot-ah-to", but the Ruminator's comments on Lutherans as evangelicals are spot-on:

Lutherans are people of the Scriptures who profess the Word of God as, in Luther's words, "the true holy thing above all holy things". We are evangelical in the true sense of the word, professing the Good News of salvation by faith through grace and by no merit of our own. In fact, Luther's choice for the name of the churches that accepted his reforms was not "Lutheran" but "Evangelical", as Lutherans are still widely known in Europe.

That's exactly the sense in which I have been and remain a "Confessing Evangelical" - the term "evangelical" is far too important to surrender it to the assorted Arminians, Open Theists, legalists and Charismatics who parade under that banner today.

Part of my purpose with this blog is to demonstrate that becoming a Lutheran absolutely does not involve ceasing to be an evangelical: quite the contrary, it involves becoming more consistently and thoroughly evangelical than before.

This is very important on a personal level - numerous friends are likely to think we've gone completely off the rails, spiritually, by becoming Lutherans (especially because of the sacramentalism). Even if I can't persuade them to become Lutherans, I'm determined to prove that we are still evangelicals, through and through - not for polemical purposes, but out of love for people who will be genuinely and deeply concerned for our well-being.

What are we to make of celebrations of the Lord's Supper which don't include the Words of Institution? I was reflecting on this yesterday, as I sat uneasily through the "Lord's Supper" at our current church (where we were spending our final Sunday as regular attendees - next week we plan to go to our local Lutheran church). It followed the usual pattern - a separate service after the main service had finished; the pastor read a passage from Scripture and said a few words on it; and then two laypeople "gave thanks" for the bread and "wine" (i.e. grape-juice). The Words of Institution did not feature at any point.

So how do we describe this event? Was it indeed the Lord's Supper? Well, here's what Luther has to say about the "Sacrament of the Altar" in the Large Catechism:

It is the Word ... which makes and distinguishes this Sacrament, so that it is not mere bread and wine, but is, and is called, the body and blood of Christ ... The Word must make a Sacrament of the element, else it remains a mere element ...

Now here stands the Word of Christ: Take, eat; this is My body; Drink ye all of it; this is the new testament in My blood, etc ... It is true, indeed, that if you take away the Word or regard it without the words, you have nothing but mere bread and wine...

If all this means anything, it is that a "Lord's Supper" without the Words of Institution is not the Lord's Supper at all. Remembering the Lord's death for us is certainly an edifying activity, and employing bread and wine/juice as an aide memoire may or may not be helpful. But that's not the same thing as the Lord's Supper, which operates according to the equation:

(Bread & wine) + Word of Christ = (Body & blood) + forgiveness of sins

There is a parallel here with "re-baptism": if someone has already been baptised (whether as an infant or otherwise), you can immerse them in water as much as you like, but you won't be baptising them - baptism is actually done by the Triune God through human ministers ("in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"), and He only does it once.

Language matters: if we refer to Word-less meals as the Lord's Supper, and "re-baptisms" as baptisms, then this undermines the true meaning of the words - words whose meanings are not ours to fiddle about with. I did toy with the idea of using the term, "edification meal" to describe the former, as suggested in the title to this post, but can see that this is less than diplomatic, and is likely to cause more confusion than it solves!

Better perhaps to say (in ordinary conversation with another believer) that "they concluded the service by remembering the Lord's death with bread and wine", and "Fred was immersed last week" - factual and honest, without seeking to cause needless offence. Then if someone picks up on the use of such a circumlocution, that provides an opportunity to explain the Lutheran position (which is, in itself, a sharing of the Gospel with them - always a healthy thing for Christians to do for one another!). If they let it pass, at least one has maintained honesty and precision of language.

That last point isn't intended to sound "precious": our God is a God who makes promises, and promises depend on language. If we allow the currency of language to be devalued, then this makes it harder for faith to latch on to the promises that are addressed to us by God in human language.

(PS - I have to admit that I lacked the courage of my convictions, and took the "mere symbols" anyway. I am English, after all - mustn't rock the boat, old chap. "His blog posts are weighty and forceful [OK, I wish], but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.")

In a recent post, I alleged that, in many evangelical churches, every person participating in the Lord's Supper has 'a different take on "what Communion means 'to me'".'

At the time I wondered if I was being a bit harsh. But then, at our (no-longer) current church yesterday, during the "Lord's Supper" (I plan to post later to explain the quote marks) the member of the congregation who was "giving thanks for the wine" said something along the lines of, "we remember Christ's blood shed on the cross, and I guess each person here will have a different understanding of what that means to them."

This fuzziness about the meaning and purpose of Lord's Supper is pretty endemic among evangelicals. This contrasts with the Lutheran perspective, which is wonderfully clear, focussed and Scriptural. To summarise (based on the Small Catechism):

1. The Lord's Supper is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, for us Christians to eat and to drink, instituted by Christ Himself.

2. The benefit of the Lord's Supper is that forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation are given us through these words, "Given and shed for you for the remission of sins".

3. We receive these benefits simply by believing those words, "Given, and shed for you, for the remission of sins", as we eat and drink.

Simple, clear, liberating - a release, for me, from years of trying to work myself up into the correct "frame of mind" for "getting the full benefit" out of Communion, while being unclear on what that "benefit" is actually intended to be, and hence what the correct "frame of mind" is. Which is probably why I've "got more out of" the two occasions on which I've attended Divine Service at my local Lutheran church, than in years of attending Anglican and non-conformist Communion services - despite not having actually received the bread and wine at the Lutheran church on either occasion.

The Ruminating Lutheran cleric has just posted an interesting-looking item about worship and liturgy:

This order of service is not unique to Lutherans. We did not invent it. It is the ancient form of worship that has been developed among Christians the world over from the very beginning of the New Testament era. It is based exclusively on scripture and is focused completely on Jesus Christ and His saving grace on the Cross of Calvary.

Because of our sin, we cannot come to God, but God must come to us. This is what takes place in the Divine Service. Through the Word and Sacraments God speaks to His people. He reminds us of our sinfulness and failure to love completely and He then forgives us and assures us of the grace we have in Jesus Christ.

This grace is central to our lives as Christians and we must treat it with all reverence and respect. It was not of our doing and it is not ours with which to tamper. Therefore WORSHIP IS NOT A MATTER OF NOVELTY OR ENTERTAINMENT, MUCH LESS A MATTER OF ATTEMPTING TO PLEASE THE MASSES.

Because of our sin, we cannot come to God, but God must come to us. This is what takes place in the Divine Service: I'm sure that's the dividing line between traditional, liturgical worship and the informal praise-a-thons of today: whose is the main actor in our worship? Is it us, seeking to ascend to God and achieve a spiritual "high" through our singing of songs (which is almost inevitably the message sent out by a lot of "contemporary praise and worship")? Or is it God, drawing near to us in Word and Sacrament, to forgive us our sins?

(Thanks to Josh for pointing this one out).

Superb Mark Steyn piece on liberal responses to the Passion film, on the Jerusalem Post. Key quote:

Chances of any Jew getting his teeth kicked in by one of Mel's customers? Zero per cent. Okay, let me cover myself a little: Point-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-whatever per cent...

...When metropolitan columnists say Mel's movie makes you want to go Jew-bashing, they're really engaging in a bit of displaced Christian-bashing.

Ever since 9/11, there's been a lame trope beloved of the smart set: Yes, these Muslim fundamentalists may be pretty extreme, but let's not forget all our Christian fundamentalists – the "home-grown Talibans," as The New York Times's Frank Rich called them, in the course of demanding that John Ashcroft, the attorney-general, round them up.

Two years on, if this thesis is going to hold up, these Christians really need to get off their fundamentalist butts and start killing more people.

A good item on Faith and Baptism has just been posted on the LCMS FAQs page - explaining to someone of baptist persuasion how the Lutheran position on Baptism ("a position sometimes not well understood") is fully consistent, indeed entirely in harmony, with the salvation by grace through faith.

"In a word, Baptism is a marvelous testimony to the unmerited grace of God" - not least, one might add, when the person being baptised is a helpless infant.

A great quote on a Luther Quest discussion about the Meaning of Lent, reporting on an Issues Etc broadcast which spoke of how Lent is about focussing on Christ, rather than being about focussing on our sins.

Where are your sins? They're on the cross-- taken by our Savior-- forgiven.

As Dr. Nagel states in the 2nd hour of Sunday's program: 'Anything that deflects from Him, that pays attention to ourselves, is bad Lent.' [emphasis was his]

Dr. Nagel goes on to tell about a Luther sermon on the stilling of the storm. The boat's about to be swamped. They're all about to drown. But then the realization: "If we drown, He does too." Todd Wilken then responded, with Dr. Nagel's agreement: "That's the confidence of the season of Lent. What God is going to do to you, O sinner, he has to do to Jesus. So you can see where you stand with God by looking at Jesus. Where do you stand with God? Sins are paid for, and death no longer holds you-- no more than it can hold Jesus."

As chief Lollard Daniel Stoddart gently pointed out in a comment on Josh's blog, my switch from Anglicanism to Lutheranism is pretty recent. Indeed, I could be accused of being something of a theological flibbertigibbet, given that in ten years I've gone from atheist, to conservative evangelical (v.briefly diverted into liberalism), to vaguely charismatic (with occasional, tentative forays towards Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy), to Reformed, and now (on the verge of) Lutheran.

One could be forgiven for saying, "Hmmm, wonder how long this latest phase is going to last?" Who knows, you may be right. Perhaps CaNN's webcreature will succeed in persuading me of the merits of Orthodoxy. And I certainly felt pretty convicted by the Lutheran in a Tipi's comments the other day:

Some people can be serial fanatics; that is, they are obsessed by something new every week (or year, or decade), sometimes ruthlessly casting off or disowning their old achievements in the process. Some have "renaissance mentalities" and are interested in everything; this can be deadly in an information age.

Heck Twylah, you haven't even met me and you seem to know me better than my mother ;-)

But in my defence, I'd like to point out that there are certain constants that have been there all the way, and that have ultimately kept me from veering off the road into the various ditches of liberalism, charismaticism, Roman Catholicism or whatever. In vaguely descending order (1 & 2 being far and away the most important):

1. Commitment to the truth and reliability of Scripture, but also to its instrumentality, its use by God to actually do things, rather than just being a textbook for "living the Christian life".

2. Commitment to substitutionary atonement and justification by faith alone.

3. A conviction that the sacraments should matter more than they do to most evangelicals - and in particular, a commitment to infant baptism - but combined with a degree of confusion over what the sacraments actually do.

4. Frustration with the shallowness and novelty of much contemporary evangelicalism, which often seems determined to give the impression that Christianity was invented in around 1960.

5. A love of liturgy, not just for aesthetic reasons, but as a perfect vehicle for the Gospel.

To be precise, numbers 3 to 5 have been the factors keeping me dissatisfied with much of evangelicalism, while numbers 1 & 2 are the factors that have actually kept me evangelical despite it all. But in the light of that, you can probably see why Lutheranism scratches an awful lot of itches for me. And why, for various reasons, moving on to what some people might see as the obvious "next stages" of Orthodoxy or Roman Catholicism would require infinitely greater upheavals in my core convictions (esp. numbers 1 & 2) than changing from Reformed Anglicanism to confessional Lutheranism.

Interesting how the first thing some people seem to pick up on about Lutheranism is "sin boldly" (see earlier post). Indeed, some people seem intent on latching on to this as the "smoking gun" of Lutheranism, and indeed Protestantism generally: "See! This is where justification by faith gets you: rank antinomianism! Moral chaos!"

The first thing to say about "sin boldly" is that Luther did not promulgate this phrase ex cathedra and order it to be printed on the front cover of every copy of the Small Catechism. He said it in a private letter to a friend, Philip Melanchthon - a friend, moreover, who needed jolting out of his dithering inability to take any action for fear it might be "sinful". Luther's true point becomes abundantly clear when you look at the context of the quote:

If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness, but, as Peter says, we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. It is enough that by the riches of God's glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly--you too are a mighty sinner.

Luther's point was to say, "In this life, any action you take is going to be sinful to some extent: so in the end, you've just got to get on with it, and look to Christ's blood to cover your sins."

What this comes down to is the pastoral application of the "proper distinction between Law and Gospel". As Walther puts it, "the Word of God is not rightly divided when the Law is preached to those who are already in terror on account of their sins or the Gospel to those who live securely in their sins" (Proper Distinction, Thesis VIII).

Walther goes on to explain that to someone who is still living securely in their sins, "not a drop of evangelical consolation" is to be given. But "to the brokenhearted, not a syllable containing a threat or a rebuke is to be addressed, but only promises conveying consolation and grace, forgiveness of sin and righteousness, life and salvation."

Melanchthon was squarely in the category of "those who are already in terror on account of their sins", who are "brokenhearted". Accordingly, Luther proclaimed the Gospel to him in a bold, pointed way, as one who knew his friend well. Had Melanchthon actually been committing "fornication and murder" without fear of the consequences - or had there been any danger he might do so - no-one can seriously suggest that Luther would have waved him along with a cheery "sin boldly".

In the context, to take offence at Luther's injunction to "sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly" is to take offence at the Gospel itself (see Romans 6, esp. verse 1 and 15).

We all of us have times when these are appropriate words to address to us: when we are paralysed by the fear of doing wrong, as if it lay in our power to do something 100% "right". At those times, to take what seems to our limited understanding to be the best option available, while telling ourselves to "sin boldly", can be an appropriate consolation. And equally, we all have times when these are the very last words on earth that anyone should be addressing to us.

Anyway, I think I need to go and have a beer. Cheers!

I've sort of promised myself not to use this blog to put the boot into the Anglican church. My departure is "more in sorrow than in anger", and anyway has less to do with the general implosion of the Anglican Communion than with my own changing convictions (see below).

But I couldn't resist this one. Following a glorious "gotcha" post from Chris Johnson, which revealed that ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold had recycled an old letter and sent it to the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church (easy mistake...), Douglas Leblanc has published a handy cut-out-and-keep letter template for busy Primates.

There is a simpler template available for non-ECUSA archbishops, which (rumour has it) was due to be included on the new-look ECUSA website: a handy online form for excommunications:

1. Name: [___________________]

2. Province: [___________________]

3. Number of Anglican communicants in your province (to the nearest ten million): [__]

4. Reason for excommunicating the Episcopal Church (please tick all that apply):

* Gene Robinson [ ]
* Same-sex blessings [ ]
* Frank Griswold's latest reference to "forcefields" [ ]
* I've been meaning to do it for years, but only just got round to it due to time-pressure of fifteen thousand baptisms a week in our diocese [ ]
* All the other bishops I hang out with were doing it, and I thought, "what's the harm?" [ ]

Thank you. Please click "Submit" to send us your e-Bull of Excommunication. Please note that at busy times on our server it may take several minutes for your e-Bull to be processed.

Data Protection: The Eames Commission may wish to contact you from time to time with information about alternative forms of impaired communion that may be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive such information from the Eames Commission, please tick this box [ ]

Update - 5 March

The above item got posted by someone on the Virtuosity site, who then went on to point out some completely justified criticisms of it - in particular, the danger of caricaturing the Global South, which was not remotely my intention. But if this item causes any offence, I suggest you read the Virtuosity exchange before flaming me...

Josh S seems to have called a temporary halt to hostilities in the closed communion debate.

But the whole closed communion issue does raise the interesting issue of "unpopular beliefs" - beliefs that a particular Christian confession or tradition has that other traditions find really out of order. Sometimes these are "core" beliefs that are central to that confession's day-to-day existence ("Lead Balloon Type A"), but others are merely necessary corollaries to those core beliefs ("Lead Balloon Type B").

For example, in Calvinism, the sovereignty of God is a Lead Balloon Type A: many people hate Calvinism's conception of God's sovereignty, but it is central to Calvinistic theology and spirituality. However, "limited atonement" is a Lead Balloon Type B: Calvinists are not motivated by the desire to exclude people from Christ's saving work, rather they wish to preserve the efficacy of that work (rather than leaving salvation ultimately in the hands of "our choice). Limited atonement is then a corollary of this: the logic being that, given a choice between a universal atonement and an atonement that actually achieves something, the effectual atonement wins, even if that means you have to limit the numbers. Arminians choose the other option, of a universal (but ineffectual) atonement. (From a Lutheran perspective, both the Arminian and Calvinistic schemes are inappropriate attempts to resolve a paradox which the Bible chooses to leave unresolved, teaching as it does both universality and effectiveness).

In fact, the same can also be said about the whole TULIP scheme in Calvinism. TULIP was a polemical device constructed in opposition to the five points of Arminianism, and is seen as a necessary corollary to God's sovereignty and omniscience, which is where the action "really" is for the Calvinist.

So also for Lutheranism. The Lutheran views on Baptism and the Lord's Supper are Lead Balloons Type A: every other type of evangelical protestant goes into spasm at the mere mention of the words "baptismal regeneration" and "the Real Presence" (as I can testify from personal experience, until a matter of months ago). However, they are absolutely central to Lutherans' conception of the Gospel, and of what it means to be, and live as, a Christian.

On the other hand, "closed communion" is a Lead Balloon Type B: everyone else hates it, as they feel Lutherans are accusing them of not being proper Christians. And Lutherans do not jump out of bed in the morning saying, "I am baptised - oh, and closed communion is a Good Thing". Rather, it is a corollary of what Lutherans believe about the Lord's Supper: that it involves a confession by those participating that they all agree with what is going on, and on the content of the Christian faith, rather than (as happens in many evangelical churches) every single person having a different take on "what Communion means 'to me'". Of necessity, that means you need to exclude people who do not share that confession, but that is not something from which Lutherans derive any pleasure. They* would much rather everyone could simply share their belief in the Lord's Words of Institution, and in the teachings of Scripture.

(* Not quite "we" yet; not quite...)

CaNN have kindly linked my post on leaving Anglicanism (in between continued emailed attempts at dissuasion from their webcreature - whose latest suggestion as an alternative to Lutheranism is Eastern Orthodoxy. Still unsuccessful, but taken in the spirit intended!).

The entry reads as follows:

- CONFESSING Evangelical: Knock, knock, knockin' on Lutheranism's door. We figure it's the 'sin boldly' thing, and all the beer ... (confessingevangelical.blog)

A scandalous, unworthy allegation ;-)

The tragedy of this story is that it reveals how vast segments of the church have simply no idea what function or purpose the Law is intended to have. Not a clue.

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.

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.

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:

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...

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:

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...

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.

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