Why I Am Anglican

For the Book of Common Prayer

2010-06-06T15:51:00.001-04:00

When I started planning how I would propose to my wife, I wanted to have something special to say before I pulled out the ring and asked her to marry me. In particular, I wanted it to come right from my heart. But I am not quick with words, and I was not confident in my ability to come up with something on the spot. Then it occurred to me that our relationship was so deep and meaningful that if I wanted to express my feelings about it, I needed to prepare ahead of time, think it through, and write it out, so that it could be really special and touch her heart. Upon having this realization, my appreciation for the Book of Common Prayer also grew.

The BCP is an Anglican prayer book that contains prayers, instructions and liturgies for various services, and other historical church documents. It even has schedules for passages to be read during church services and daily devotions (called the Lectionary and the Daily Office, respectively). It was originally written during the English Reformation by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, so that the people in the Church of England (which was part of the Catholic Church at that time) could worship in their own language, rather than in Latin. Since then, it has been translated, culturally adapted, and updated for new languages, cultures, and time periods, but many of the forms and prayers have stuck around because they have been found meaningful across cultures through time and space.

The Book of Common Prayer is important to Anglicans because prayer is central to what we do as Anglicans. The Anglican church is a praying church. Prayer shapes us in ways that we don't fully understand. So the Anglican reformers thought it important for us to have prayers that are grounded in Scripture and the Tradition of the Church. They carefully wrote prayers for us that are well prepared, well thought out, and full of truth (which is how I wrote my proposal speech to my wife - and she said yes!).

Here's an example from the prayers for mission (Morning Prayer II, p. 101 of the 1979 BCP):

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.

Reading, praying, and worshiping in this tradition has changed me. It takes my focus away from needing to come up with things to pray that are novel so that I can be reminded of what's true and focus on saying what needs to be said. It helps me remember who God is and what He has done for me when I come before Him in prayer. It helps me see the things I need to pray for that I wouldn't have seen on my own. Most importantly, it gives me a framework from which I can listen to God and be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit with fewer distractions.

For the Sacraments, Part I

2010-05-11T22:53:00.001-04:00

Apologies for my recent delinquence in posting. Things have been very busy the past few weeks with packing, moving, unpacking, and visiting a seminary. Hopefully things have settled down enough that I can start posting on a regular basis again.

Today, I'm going to talk about the Sacraments. Understanding the Sacraments, and having a sacramental worldview in general, is an important aspect of Anglicanism, yet for me, it was initially difficult to accept from an evangelical framework. I'm going to attempt to explain what Sacraments are, the Sacraments themselves, and how they can be reconciled with an evangelical understanding of Christianity.

A Sacrament is an event or action that conveys God's grace to those who believe. There are many other ways that Sacraments are described; probably the most common that I've heard is "an outward sign of an inward and spiritual grace." Sacraments are of great comfort to Christians because they are a physical manifestation of God's grace; they can be seen, touched, and tasted. They are particularly helpful in times when faith is weak, because they are concrete rather than abstract, and they are backed up by the words of Christ.

The Church has traditionally recognized seven Sacraments. Among Anglicans, the two Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist (aka Communion or The Lord's Supper) are considered to have primary significance; the other five (Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination, Confession, and Unction/Healing) are considered to be either "Lesser Sacraments" or not Sacraments at all. But Baptism and Eucharist are special because Christ commanded His followers to baptize those who believe (Matthew 28:19) and to remember Him by practicing the Eucharist (Luke 22:19).

What do we mean when we say that Baptism and Eucharist are Sacraments? I think of it this way: we believe that Sacraments are what they signify. In the case of Baptism, we believe that the washing of water conveys the ultimate reality of sin being washed away. In the Eucharist, we believe that when we partake of the bread and wine, we are really receiving the body and blood of our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us.

I used to compartmentalize. I used to think that Baptism was just a sign of the washing away of sin that happened when I had faith in Christ. I used to think that Communion was just a way to get me to think about Christ, something that was done out of obedience with no deeper meaning. I realized that I had been captivated by a modern mindset: one that keeps a bold line of separation between the physical and the spiritual. This mindset placed emphasis on my inward experience of faith over outward expression. I realized that God did not create life to be this way. He wants our thoughts and actions to have synergy, to convey the same message. I realized that the sacrificial system in the Old Testament and the Sacraments in the New Testament were created by God, because He knows us better than we know ourselves, and because He wants our faith to dictate our actions. This is hard. I'm sure it was hard for people in the Old Testament to make the proper sacrifices and have hearts of contrition. It's hard for me sometimes to receive the Sacraments with my heart in the right place. But God wants my heart and my actions, my faith and my obedience. And He is faithful, even when I am faithless.

So, back to Baptism. How can I believe that Baptism is a literal washing away of sins and still claim sola fide? I was interested to learn that Martin Luther did. As far as I understand, Luther explained it this way: because of Christ's command to baptize, when a minister of the Gospel says, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," Christ Himself is saying those words to you. And because Christ has said those words to you, your sins have been washed away, if you believe Him. Thus your faith is not in the act of Baptism but in Christ. This last part is important: you must believe Christ in order for your Baptism to have been effective in washing away your sin. If you do not believe Christ (i.e. you have no faith), your Baptism accomplishes nothing. This is how we accept the verses in the Bible that seem to be saying that Baptism saves you: your Baptism really does wash away your sin, if you believe in Christ's words. Eucharist works the same way: if you believe in Christ's words, you really do receive His body and blood. But if you do not believe, nothing is gained. This is how Luther got away with believing in Sacramental efficacy and sola fide.

So what if someone has faith in Christ but dies before they can be baptized? It is their faith that saves them. But for most Christians, death before baptism is not inevitable. The point is this: faith, baptism, and salvation can't be neatly compartmentalized. What about a person who has faith in Christ but refuses to be baptized? Most churches I know that don't believe in Baptism as a Sacrament would still consider that at least an act of disobedience to God. Ultimately, God is the judge. And though we obey His commands, our faith is in Him and in His word, not in our own effort.

I have a lot more to say on the Sacraments, but I hope this serves as an introduction. This is not the only way to think about the Sacraments, but it is a way of thinking that was helpful to me as I considered these things.

N.T. Wright on the Colbert Report

2010-04-20T09:00:00.002-04:00

This post is late this week, and it's going to be short and sweet, because we spent this last weekend moving to a new apartment, and I haven't had time to think about what to write about next. So I'm going to leave you with a clip of Steven Colbert interviewing N.T. Wright on the Colbert Report. For anyone who doesn't know, N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and is a prolific evangelical Anglican author. He's talking about his 2008 book, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. I've read it and it is a very good book.

N.T. Wright on the Colbert Report

My favorite quote from N.T. Wright (around 4:20 in the video): "The great thing about Anglicans is that we have no theology of our own; it's only: if something is true, the Anglicans believe it."

For the Nicene Creed

2010-04-11T09:13:00.000-04:00

The Nicene Creed is a statement of Christian belief that dates back to the first ecumenical council of the Church, the Council of Nicaea, in 325 A.D. It's a statement of Christian faith that was drawn up to define orthodoxy and to repudiate heresy. This wasn't easy to do, but it was necessary.

Statements of faith such as this are divisive. They define what is acceptable to believe and, either explicitly or implicitly, what is not. In doing so, they separate those who agree with them from those who do not.

I grew up in churches that had long, complex doctrinal statements. I've seen many churches go to lengths to define what they believe in painstaking detail - eschatology, principles of Biblical interpretation, which spiritual gifts they believe in, theories of the atonement, and so forth. What confuses me about this process is this: why is it necessary to be so specific? Haven't Christians disagreed about these issues for centuries? Aren't we supposed to get past our differences and work for the Kingdom of God? Shouldn't we choose unity over division? Shouldn't we be willing to listen to one another and hold opposing viewpoints if they are based on Scripture?

I hold what might be considered a naïve view of ecumenism. My attitude toward other people works like this: Are you a Christian? If so, then let's work together for the Kingdom of God. If not, then you need to become a Christian so that we can work together for the Kingdom of God. The problem is that we've created more categories: people who claim to be Christian who we don't accept as Christian but we don't want to talk about it, or people who we accept as Christian but we don't want to work together with them because our beliefs aren't identical. I'm not sure who decided that either of these is acceptable for us as Christians. If the world is supposed to know that we follow Jesus because of our love for one another (John 13:35), we need to accept that mature Christians can differ in their theological views without compromising the faith. People can have different views on some issues that are based on Scripture without preaching a different gospel and needing to be condemned. Writing doctrinal statements that are narrow causes division rather than acceptance and love for one another.

Back to the Nicene Creed. If you asked an Anglican for a doctrinal statement, you would most likely get the Nicene Creed, or something based on it. It goes like this:

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and four our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

--Nicene Creed from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, p. 358

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. It is catholic, meaning that it is universal, and made up of all people who have faith in Christ. It is apostolic, meaning that it is in continuity with the church started by the Apostles (and by Christ himself). More importantly, it is one, whether or not we acknowledge it. That is not just a reality for the next life, it is a reality for our lives today.

These are the essentials of the faith. I'm not saying that this is exhaustive, but this creed has stuck around for over a millennium and a half because people have accepted it as a standard for orthodox Christian belief for that long. I love saying this creed and knowing that it's not something that was made up recently but that it has been said by Christians for hundreds of years. I love saying it every week in church because it reminds us of what unites us, rather than what divides us.

For the Tradition of the Church

2010-04-03T23:13:00.001-04:00

Hail thee, festival day! blest day that art hallowed forever;
Day whereon Christ arose, breaking the kingdom of death.

-"Salve Festa Dies," R. Vaughan Williams, 1906

Happy Easter! It's a great time of the year to be a Christian. I've already been to three church services this week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday. Tomorrow we'll have the Easter Vigil at our sunrise service, with breakfast and another service to go after that. What are some of your favorite Easter traditions?

Today, I'd like to talk about the Tradition of the Church. In order to do so, I'll probably meander through several topics, hoping that somewhere along the way the truth can be found.

In order to explain what I mean when I say "the Tradition of the Church," I need to talk about truth. Specifically how Christians perceive spiritual truth (or any truth at all) and how we discern the will of God. Anglicans believe in a three-tiered approach to truth which is sometimes called the "three-legged stool" of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. Scripture is our primary authoritative source of spiritual truth because it is the Word of God. In places where Scripture is not immediately clear, we trust in the Tradition of the Church. This means that we believe that the Holy Spirit has worked in the Church to help the Church understand Scripture for the past 2000 years, and we are interested in what He has said. We don't believe that the Church is somehow infallible or always gets it right, but we generally trust in interpretations of Scripture that have lasted for centuries over those that have been innovated recently. Also, the Church is subject to Scripture and is not allowed to invent things that are contrary to Scripture or interpret one part of Scripture such that it contradicts another part. Finally, God has given us the gift of Reason, which basically means that we are allowed to think. We can interpret Scripture in ways that are new, exciting, and culturally relevant, as long as they are consistent with the whole of Scripture and the historical teaching of the Church. Reason also has to do with the ways in which we process our experiences. For example, if I want to determine if the Holy Spirit is leading me in a particular way, I would consider what Scripture has to say on the topic and whether the Church has said anything relevant. I might ask for advice from other Christians, so that they can also contribute their Reason.

I used to believe that tradition was bad. From passages like Mark 7 and Matthew 15:6, I believed that having traditions, especially Christian traditions, was bad because traditions necessarily distract from God and the truth of His Word. The truth, however, is that everyone has a tradition from which they interpret Scripture. Everyone has particular ideas about interpreting the Bible and about truth that either they made up or they were taught by someone. The problem with the Pharisees was not that they had traditions, but that they had traditions that were not from God's Word that they were teaching as if they were God's Word and instead of God's Word. That certainly is evil. So is it possible to have good traditions?

Consider Jeremiah 6:16:

Thus says the LORD: "Stand by the road, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls."

Traditions are what gives our lives meaning. What would life be like if we did everything differently every day? Chaotic and frenzied, not restful, and not sustainable. Not reflecting the character of God, who does not change.

Back to truth: the Tradition of the Church is important because it helps us stay Christian. I've heard it explained this way: perhaps you, as a Christian, enjoy reading the Bible, because it is God's Word, and you enjoy listening to what God has to say to you through it (I mean "enjoy" in a deep sense here, not just warm fuzzy feelings). Would you not, then, even more enjoy reading the Bible with a pastor, someone who has studied God's Word and can provide insights that you may have missed and can answer questions that you may have? If so, why not read the Bible with the whole Church? Why not listen to what the Church has said about the Bible for the past 2000 years? I believe that when Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would "guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13), He was referring to us not just individually but corporately as well. (In fact, most heresies have arisen from people claiming to have been individually guided by the Holy Spirit into some particular truth.)

Of course, as you may have guessed, the Tradition of the Church also deals with corporate worship. Indeed, before I became Anglican, my entire notion of "tradition" when it came to churches was limited to prayer books and hymnals. But I misunderstood this aspect of tradition, as if singing old hymns or praying old prayers was somehow only because someone felt that they needed to be "preserved" (in the worst case, this seemed to be handed down from on high from the denominational authorities). Let me suggest to you that this is not the case, at least in Anglicanism. We pray using old prayers in the Book of Common Prayer and sing old hymns because they are still meaningful. They have stuck around for centuries because countless people for generations have found them to be true and have been comforted by their words. There is a timeless quality to them. That's not to say that we don't also have a use for things that are new. In fact, one could say that the Tradition of the Church allows for or even requires Christian worship to be adapted to new languages, cultures, and time periods. So the Anglican church strives for balance between tradition and innovation, between the old and the new.

The point of what I'm saying is this: every Christian in a sense is given something to build on, hopefully based on the foundation of Scripture. I used to believe that it was my job to get rid of everything that was not the foundation and start building something new from there. Yet if every generation destroys what the previous generation has worked to build, what good is it? What picture of Jesus does that show to the world around us? I believe that it is our responsibility to continue building on what has been built since the time of Christ, trusting the Holy Spirit to help us get it right and to show us the cracks that need patching.

For the Unity of the Church

2010-03-27T11:36:00.028-04:00

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

John 17:12

I can give many reasons for becoming Anglican, but the one reason that stands out to me the most is the unity of the Church. Jesus prayed for it in John 17. Paul urges us in 1 Corinthians 1:10 to end our divisions and be united in mind and purpose. So I believe that it is God's desire to see the body of Christ, the Church, be unified.

Paul also tells us that in 1 Corinthians 12 that we have all been baptized into one body - the body of Christ. Each part of the body is necessary; each part of the body has its own function that is needed by the whole body. Growing up as a non-denominational Christian, I came to believe that this passage applies to a local body of Christians, a single congregation. I believed that denominations were bad because they divided the Church. The solution to this was to attend a non-denominational church and to think congregationally. Unity was achieved in theory by recognizing that everyone who had faith in Christ was part of the Church and in practice by attending events like Promise Keepers and the March for Life with other Christians.

I'm no longer satisfied by that way of thinking. I believe that Christ wanted more than an "I'm a Christian, you're a Christian, we're okay" kind of unity when he prayed that we would "be one, even as we are one." I'm not a scholar and I haven't done a lot of thinking or study on the Trinity, but I do know this: there is one God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are pretty unified. They are different persons and have different roles, but they are always working together for a common purpose: to bring glory to each other. That's a deep kind of community. That's the kind of community that Jesus prayed for in the Church - the whole thing. All of it. Jesus Christ wants everyone who believes in Him for salvation to have the same relationship with one another as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have with each other.

What does Anglicanism have to do with all of this?

I believe that Anglicanism is more than just another denomination: I believe that it is a framework from which a deeper unity in the Church can be achieved. I still believe that denominations are bad because they divide the Church. But the danger of the non-denominational church movement is that each church, despite its best intentions, can essentially become its own one-church denomination and, rather than encouraging unity, actually encourage division in the body of Christ. Let me offer a few thoughts on why I believe Anglicanism has the potential for uniting the Church:

Anglicans believe in visible unity. What this simply means is that we believe that there is more that unifies us than simply our faith in Christ. For example, the Anglican church around the world uses the Book of Common Prayer (in various translated versions of course), which ensures that we worship together using similar forms and similar prayers that cross linguistic and cultural barriers. Bishops in the church are another sign of unity; in fact their job is to work for unity in the church through teaching and defending the faith from heresy. We don't believe that these things are essential for Christianity or even that they are strictly Biblical, but we basically just believe that they are a good idea.

The Anglican church is a humble church, or at least a humbled church. Anglicans don't think of the Anglican church as "the only true church" as some churches do, and we don't think we have a corner on the truth as some denominations do. We have leaders who are not perfect. In fact, it's often pointed out that the Anglican church was started over Henry VIII's desire to have his marriage annulled (this is not false, but only half the truth; more on that later). In short, Anglicans are well aware of their humanity. In some ways, we don't have a lot to be proud of. We accept that the church can be and sometimes has been in error, and we pray for the Holy Spirit to show us the way ahead.

Anglicanism has a history of bringing together people with differences. Traditionally the Anglican church has been characterized as having three "streams":

Evangelical Anglicans, who emphasize the Reformed Protestant heritage of Anglicanism, the teaching of Scripture, and evangelism;
Charismatic Anglicans, who emphasize the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, including all of the spiritual gifts described in the Bible; and
Anglo-Catholics, who emphasize the Catholic heritage of Anglicanism, the Sacraments, and tradition.

This is pretty significant. Churches have split and whole denominations have been founded over smaller differences than these. But Anglicans realize that these are preferences, not essentials. And Anglicans (not just Charismatics) trust the Holy Spirit to guide the Church in all truth as Jesus promised, because we believe that God has gifted us with different perspectives so that we can learn how to work together. Because a lot of Christian truths are ultimately mysteries. So we can have charity with one another as we seek the truth together so that we can together become the body of Christ. That's what Anglicanism is all about.

An Introduction

2010-03-21T19:05:00.000-04:00

This blog is the start of a new adventure for me. I've been reflecting a lot lately on Anglicanism and how my life has changed since I became Anglican. I've decided that my story is something I want to share with people I care about. Being an introvert, I believe that the best way to do this would be to write down my thoughts first before sharing them. I hope that using this blog format will be the best way to stimulate discussion while giving me the time I need to thoughtfully, prayerfully, and carefully express what's on my heart. And I invite you to join me in my adventure.

I was raised as a non-denominational Christian. My family has attended evangelical Bible churches since before I was born. I memorized long passages of Scripture from a young age that remain in my memory to this day. In high school and college, I began to ask deep questions about my faith and about Christianity that ultimately led me to become Anglican. At first, I felt like I was leaving my evangelical Bible church roots behind. What surprised me, as I continued to grow, was that I was actually rediscovering my evangelical faith all over again and growing deeper into it. Like G.K. Chesterton in chapter 1 of Orthodoxy, "I have kept my truths: but I have discovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that they were not mine."

My purpose in this blog is to further explain my journey, so that other evangelical Christians might come to see what I see in Anglicanism. The three main questions I hope to answer are:

What is Anglicanism?
Why did I become Anglican?
Why does it matter?

I hope to publish posts weekly.