Category Archives: Anglican

Lee on the BCP

I’ve just finished Jeffrey Lee’s Opening the Prayer Book which is volume 7 in The New Church’s Teaching Series. Reading this was a very thought-provoking experience on a couple of levels. On one hand, the work itself is interesting, written in a colloquial and engaging fashion, and makes a definite case. As I was reading, I found myself stopping and asking how and why I would say something differently, approach something from another angle. Having just finished looking at Vicki Black’s book, I noted commonalities and consensus between the two with which I would not agree that gave me good questions around what is generally believed and taught and the degree to which I agree with this taught consensus. I also found myself asking how I define theology and spirituality, where I would draw the line between the two, and why (and to what degree) such a line matters. As I said—a thought-provoking read.

There is much that I like about this book. In particular, Lee emphasizes two critical points:

  1. Liturgy and the life of faith are dynamically interconnected. The liturgy—experienced to its full—changes lives.
  2. The prayer book enables a system of Christian habits oriented by our corporate liturgical prayer. Eucharist and the Office aren’t simply alternate choices for Sunday morning, but are part of a coherent pattern of Christian worship with deep historical and theological roots.

Lee talks about history and relates it to the prayer book, but he has not written either a prayer book history or a history of the rites of the prayer book. Instead, he discusses history in order to demonstrate that there is an historically grounded pattern of worship of which the current American prayer book is the participant par excellence. He then presents a theological orientation to the prayer book, locating its center in the Easter Vigil, then moving from the paired Eucharist and Office to the other rites of the book.

One of his central theses is that the current American prayer book displays its excellence through apparently contradictory impulses of complexity and simplicity. That is, he sees the massive multiplication of liturgical options as a sign of healthy organic growth that, at the same time, simplifies the rites as a whole because the basic foundational pattern of the rites is more apparent even through the flowering of options. The ’79 rites more fully cohere with the ancient intentions of Christian worship than even earlier Anglican rites, and thus their framework offers a superior entre into the Christian liturgical experience despite the contents of the elements in the framework. (Those familiar with Gordon Lathrop’s work will see his fingerprints all over this perspective and Lee cites him a number of times.) This gives Lee the freedom to embrace the trajectory of liturgical diversification represented by Enriching Our Worship and similar initiatives with open arms: as long as the framework coheres with his sense of the pattern, the content can be fluid.

It’s an interesting perspective, but not one with which I can wholly agree. Such a perspective when taken too far can become quite cavalier about the actual content of Christian worship; Lee doesn’t go there, but neither do I find him drawing the boundary lines that would have to be drawn concerning content.

Perhaps my central point of disagreement with Lee is in his synthesis of Christian liturgical history and his notion of a single correct primitive pattern of Christian worship from which the past departed, to which the Reformation pointed, until ultimately recaptured by the Liturgical Renewal Movement. Following this kind of a pattern it’s inevitable that the word “medieval” will become a swear word as it represents the nadir of falling away from the primitive pattern. And such is certainly the case throughout this book. As a student of medieval liturgy, this struck me as a bit short-sighted…

On one hand, I fault failures in his synthesis. In particular, he falls into the trope (also found in Black’s book) that in the (Western—the East is never in view) medieval period, liturgy and its spirituality became the sole preserve of the clergy and monastic elite who alone inhabited and understood it. First, this ignores the vibrant tradition of lay liturgical spirituality represented by the Books of Hours and prymers. Second, I believe it assumes a much more educated clergy than the sources do. Latin literacy of average parochial clergy would not have been that much greater than many of their congregants requiring a different perspective on the assumed (and perhaps largely constructed) gulf between the understanding of the laity and the clergy.

On the other hand, such a synthesis raises again the theological problem of the Holy Spirit. If the entire body of Christendom—East and West—fell into such significant error around our fundamental worship practices, what exactly was the Holy Spirit up to with reference to the Church? Did it take a millennium-long nap and only conveniently wake up for the Western Reformation? Sorry—I have a really hard time buying it… Yes, the Liturgical Renewal Movement did some great work. Yes, there are aspects of our current prayer book that seem to better reflect the spirit of apostolic worship than our caricature of a thirteen century non-communicating High Mass. And yet, I can’t go along with the notion that the medieval liturgical experience, the spirituality that supported it, and the thinking, writing, and praying that came out of it (think Julian of Norwich, for example…) was entirely an aberration.

At the end of the day, I find Lee’s book to be a big step closer to what I’m looking for than others. Its emphasis on a pattern of Christian liturgy informing Christian life and on the prayer book offering a system of habits is most salutary. However, its historical synthesis and its over-emphasis on framework as opposed to content give me pause. I could see myself use this in a discussion group, using it as a text to be engaged and wrestled with rather than subscribed to.

Up next, Louis Weil’s A Theology of Worship likewise from The New Church’s Teaching Series…

SCP Conference!

Registration is open for the upcoming Society of Catholic Priests meeting. This year, it’ll be taking place near CDSP in Glendale, California from October 10th through the 13th.

The SCP has graciously asked me back this year as a presenter. Here’s the official schpeil I wrote up for my talk:

Attentiveness: Liturgical and Scriptural Formation and the Anglo-Catholic Social Tradition
Dr. Derek Olsen, Theologian-in-Residence at Church of the Advent in Baltimore, MD

How does social consciousness relate to a movement best known for elaborate liturgy and ceremonial? What is the role of liturgical prayer in solving the ills of the world outside our naves? Drawing on Scripture and the Anglo-Catholic tradition of liturgical prayer, Dr. Olsen will discuss how a vibrant liturgical spirituality draws us into–rather than away from–engagement with and advocacy for justice and reconciliation in the political and social orders.

Writing is well under way, and I think we’ll be going in some interesting directions!

I feel quite strongly that the SCP is an important organization for the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada right now. Our churches need a group that will speak clearly about Anglican doctrine, liturgy, and spirituality grounded in the richness of our catholic heritage. I still feel that a lay group is needed and have been doing some writing and networking around this (on and offline) that has yet to bear concrete fruit. However, along this line, I want to bring to your attention a change in policy for the upcoming SCP meeting:

 For the first time in its existence, the SCP has decided to open up a limited number of guest registrations to lay people who may be interested in and contribute to our common life. BEFORE YOU REGISTER HERE, please send an e-mail to thescpinnorthamerica@gmail.com with information regarding why you would like to attend the Conference. The SCP Council will consider each registration on a case-by-case basis. Once approved, you can register your place here.

Now, I know there are some folks out there who really ought to be at the meeting but who are not among the ranks of the ordained. Please consider this prayerfully, and get in touch with these folks if you’re able to attend.

If you are a clergy person and read this blog, and haven’t considered the Society and what it does, please do.

The registration page for the conference with more details and info on the other speakers is here.

Resourcing BCP Spirituality

Following my “almost manifesto” on the need to teach the spirituality of the BCP to the church rather than simply teaching points of historical development and an initial start in that direction, I’ve received a number of requests concerning what resources are available to do this.

It’s a good and important question to which I am attempting to find an answer…

In response to my post, JD Ballard put up a solid post that moves the ball a bit further down the field than mine.

I also started wondering about the popular introductions to the BCP that have been put out by the Church Publishing and others. I confess that my own studies of the BCP have come in through the back rather than the front, so to speak. That is, I’ve engaged it as someone grounded in the medieval English liturgical tradition and early history of the BCP and have largely skipped over introductory works. As a result, I’ve realized that it’s time to go ahead and do that.

I’m in the process of surveying some books on the topic and will post thoughts here as I read through them. My focus here will not be to offer a general review of the books and their content but to ask the narrow and specific question of how how well they work as resources for teaching either laity or clergy the spirituality of the BCP.

While it’s not necessarily an introduction, I’d be remiss if I didn’t start with Hatchett. Typically, clergy offices and the bookshelves of interested laity contain a copy of Marion Hatchett’s Commentary on the American Prayer Book. As a result, when clergy or lay leaders want to know or do something with a part of the prayer book, this tends to be where they go first. That’s a natural response. In fact, it’s a learned response because most folks who have taken formal academic coursework on the prayer book did this for homework. Unfortunately, it’s not the best response when dealing with the topic at hand.

Hatchett’s book is an excellent tool and does what it is intended to do very well. A quick glance at the table of contents shows how the book is structured and lets us know how it’s going to proceed. As most commentaries do (biblical or otherwise) it cleaves to the order of the text and moves systematically from part to part. For major portions, the text is organized in two logical units labelled “Background” and “Commentary”. The “Background” section gives a brief treatise on the history of the rite or concept as a whole touching on some theological themes or changes but speaking primarily about historical changes to the structure and/or content of the matter at hand. The “Commentary” serves to point out applicable rubrics, suggest when various options might be utilized, to point out theological differences between the ’79 book and earlier forms, and to identify the source of the prayer book text.

I go to Hatchett when I want to see how he draws a big-picture synthesis of a particular change to a rite or when I want to know when, where, and for what purpose a particular prayer was composed. That is, I’ll approach a prayer from the Gelasian Missal differently from one written in 1662 o in the 1930s. Not that the earlier one is necessarily better, but knowing the sources gives me insight into why certain concepts or doctrines are framed the way they were—what the prayer is and is not saying and what fights it’s either picking, avoiding, or totally oblivious of.

Knowledge of this sort is, for the most part, not particularly useful for entering into the spirituality of the text. Rarely does knowing the origin of something help me pray it better, more attentively, more intently. Understanding the organization of the rite does play into our ability to access its spirituality, but our spiritual appreciation of a rite’s movement is rarely tied to understanding the historical movement of distinct elements. Rather it’s understanding how the flow leads our spirits in particular directions and this is a not a topic that Hatchett has helped me see. Again—that’s not his intention either.

Thus, Hatchett gives us a very useful tool for understanding the history of our rites. I don’t agree with him in all particulars, especially in his syntheses (I’d accent certain things differently), but there is no other resources that gives such a clear identification of the sources of the prayer book elements. Its value for understanding and communicating the spirituality of the texts described is limited. Yet time and again when I hear presentations on liturgy they fall back into this pattern and model.

I’ve also been reading Deacon Vicki Black’s Welcome to the Book of Common Prayer in the Kindle form (hence no page numbers—sorry…). This is a brief introduction to the prayer book that serves as both an introduction and an apologia. That is, it’s aimed at communicating to a  broadly American protestant audience that may be slightly suspicious of a book of “wrote-down prayers.” The writing style is friendly and accessible, leaving aside the bulk of the liturgical jargon and explaining terms that would be unfamiliar. The perspective presented is a middle-of-the-road trending higher. Thus, it acknowledges that there will be differences between high and low liturgies and mentions that a thurible might be present at some elements (like a Eucharistic Gospel procession), but otherwise takes a Broad Church line.

The table of contents shows that the ordering of liturgies is somewhat different from the BCP itself; it follows the order in which the liturgies might be encountered by a visitor or seeker, starting with Baptism, then going to Eucharist, then the Offices, and then into the pastoral rites. However, the approach within the rites themselves is also cast within an historical mode. While Hatchett and I prefer to look at liturgies by beginning with the 2nd or 4th century and moving to the present day, Black resolutely begins with the perspective of the present prayer book, and looks at the history in light of where we are now, highlighting in particular continuities between present and past practice but also noting spots where we differ from either historical practice or other Christian groups.

Because it’s a short book with limited space for each topic, Black does a lot of synthesis in describing the history of churches and rites. Aside from a few factual errors my main disagreements with the book would be in how these syntheses are sketched. In particular, the relationship between the pre- and post-Reformation churches seems much to discontinuous for my liking and follows the standard narrative that all of the liturgies were taken away from the people and were the preserve of the clergy and religious. Books of Hours in this section are mentioned in passing only, and are explained as one-volume breviaries which fails to capture their spirit or their use. (This definition is corrected to a slight degree in the section on the Office but not to my satisfaction.) While this may seem a minor point, I’d argue that overlooking the place of the Books of Hours, prymers, and lay mass devotionals presents a much more discontinuous picture of English spirituality pre- and post-Reformation than was actually the case.

Black does weave in some comments on theology and spirituality. For instance, her discussion of how we engage the words of the liturgies—following the words of the book in common with the church and one another, but ideally not getting hung up on the words themselves—or her discussion on the spirit of the Daily Office as offering are helpful but brief. Again, she’s writing a brief introduction; spirituality is not her focus.

In summary, Black’s book does what it intends to do—to give an accessible introduction to the prayer book for those getting into it for the first time. History is its main paradigm. Attention to spirituality is present but not prevalent. While this book would be a good MOTR introduction, it cannot serve as a text for teaching prayer book spirituality without significant addition and adaptation.

This is where I shall pause…

I’m also reading Jeffrey Lee’s Opening the Prayer Book and will give it a post of its own once I’ve finished it and collected my thoughts; my initial sense is that this work is more what we’re looking for. I also intend to write-up a bit concerning where the teaching of prayer book history falls in the teaching of prayer book spirituality. In my experience and in the historical orientation of the books surveyed to this point, the teaching of history is often done in place of the teaching of spirituality or—perhaps more unfortunately—the teaching of history is mistaken for the teaching of spirituality.

Whatever Happened to Sin?

I spent almost an hour this morning hearing about sin and salvation, fall and redemption. I wasn’t at a church service; I was cleaning the kitchen. The girls are at an age where they clamor for “pop” radio in the car and on account of that I’d downloaded Adele’s album 21 and was giving it a full listen-through as I worked. For those not familiar, I’d describe Adele as a soul/blues singer in the classic mold; 21 is a break-up album. Though Jesus was notably absent, religious language and concepts—Christian, in particular—were an integral part of the lyrics. One could theorize that this prevalence of religious language is due to the genre—Blues and Soul have deep roots in the Black Church tradition and that certainly accounts for some of it.

On the other hand, on the way to and from the gym earlier this morning I was listening to Tom Shear’s latest effort, Bruise.  Tom’s Assemblage 23 is EBM/Industrial in the vein of VNV Nation—solid beats and electronica accompanying dark, introspective, philosophical lyrics. Again—sin, redemption, existence, eternality, and the presence/absence of God were explicit themes.

This is not the first time I’ve observed this. Christian language and thought structures form part of our cultural vernacular. Pop music and culture are familiar with notions of sin, fall, and redemption. Of course, the “redeemer/redemption” in question tends to shade somewhere from moralistic therapeutic deism to some vague moralism (about being “good”) to the power of love/positive thinking/whatever to some form of gross individualism.

You know where I’ve not heard much about sin? The Episcopal Church. Well, I take that back… The preaching at my church does tend to mention sin at least a few times each month—and that’s one of the reasons I go there. To clarify, I don’t hear much about sin in the public discourse of the Episcopal Church. Ok, fine, I’ll go ahead and say it: when I read things like this post on CWOB up at the Cafe, I cannot see if or where sin even fits into the theological structure from which the argument proceeds. It’s as if there’s an inverse relationship between language of/about “inclusivity” and language of/about “sin”. And it doesn’t have to be that way. My parish is inclusive; our preachers are openly gay—and yet we still hear about sin and our need to be redeemed from it by the saving action of God through Christ.

True, some of these public-speaking folks may talk about “structural sin” and use that as a short-hand for governmental systems and theories to the right of them, but there is an absence of personal sin apart from “exclusivity.”

They seem to insist that talk about sin is exclusive, it turns people off, it turns people away. People don’t want to hear about sin! Stuff like that just doesn’t make sense to people today! If that’s so, why is language of and about it so common and understandable in our broader culture? If today’s youth don’t understand it, why is it so endemic in pop music? Even those artists who bring up sin in order to advocate an enthusiastic embrace of it do so with the recognition that part of the thrill is the transgressive nature of the behavior. Which means they’re *still* operating out of a classic understanding of sin…

People—even young people—do have a concept of sin and redemption. The cultural view is fuzzy and, I’d suggest, often wrong because it lacks Jesus and accompanying concepts of virtue and sanctification, but to say that people don’t “get” sin is factually incorrect.

You can’t do church without reference to sin. This is wrong. This leads to a distortion of the Gospel.

The practice of spirituality is, to my mind, the inculcation of habits that maintain a proper relationship with God, our neighbors, and the rest of creation. To try and maintain these relationships without a healthy awareness of sin—our own and that of those around us—is folly. You cannot be in a “right relationship” if you have no sense of “wrong” or what can distort the shape or nature of the relationship.

My fear is that in the name of a misguided attempt at inclusivity and through the means of a flawed evangelism, we will succumb to the temptation to preach a watered-down message of moralistic therapeutic deism instead of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, MTD really is and will be more popular and more favorably received than the Gospel, but it is not our message!

I’m not, on the other hand, calling for a heavy-handed monomania on sin exemplified in those who delight in ceaselessly pointing it out in others or who swell with pride in excessive penitentialism. We need clarity. We were created good by a good God. We currently exist in a state of separation from that original intention. God reaches out—through Christ, his church and its sacraments—to reconcile us to himself even in our sin and invites us to cooperate in the cleansing of that original image and its decoration with the colors of the virtues (to steal an image from Didymus the Blind…).  The church needs the balls to both say it and mean it. Yes, some liturgical language can get overly wrapped up in sin and go overboard—I don’t think that’s an issue in the current prayer-book. Yes, we were created good—but a simple look around at the state of the world should be sufficient to remind us that we’ve deviated quite a bit from the original plan. Yes, some language  about sin and theories around Original Sin get too bogged down in sex and its nuts and bolts—it’s really easy to target in on sex and sin and thereby (intentionally?) miss all of the other ways that sin infects our lives and relationships.

One note to end on:

“There was at that time a meeting in Scetis about a brother who had sinned. The Fathers spoke, but Abba Pior kept silence. Later, he got up and went out; he took a sack, filled it with sand and carried it on his shoulder. He put a little sand also into a small bag which he carried in front of him. When the Fathers asked him what this meant he said, ‘In this sack which contains much sand are my sins which are many; I have put them behind me so as not to be troubled about them and so as not to weep; and see here are the little sins of my brother which are in front of me and I spend my time judging them. This is not right, I ought rather to carry my sins in front of me and concern myself with them, begging God to forgive me for them.’ The Fathers stood up and said, ‘Truly, this is the way of salvation.’ (Sayings of the Desert Fathers, 199-200)

When we no longer understand this, we no longer understand the Gospel.

Brief Commercial

I have a more substantive post in the works, but I wanted to throw in a quick commercial before I forgot to do so…

As I said earlier, the Daily Prayer section of the new Forward Movement site is based off the St Bede’s Breviary code. However, also tucked away in the “Chapel” area is a section marked “Daily Devotions.” While this is a rather generic title, these are indeed the so-denoted Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families from pages 136-140 of the prayer book.

The Morning devotion includes a suggestion that “A hymn or canticle may be used; the Apostles’ Creed may be said.” Accordingly, I’ve included there links to a seasonal hymn, canticle, and the Creed. While the Early Evening devotion doesn’t contain the same rubric, I went ahead and put similar links there as well.

So–if you’re in the mood to do some prayer-book praying but don’t have time for a full office, you can find the (slightly) beefed-up Devotions here.

(Note: they’re designed to work based on your time of day but you can see the whole set by fiddling with the “office=” variable at the end of the url. To see morning, noon, early evening, and night just put in the abbreviations MP, NP, EP, or CP respectively.)

General Convention Update

Though in the midst of quite a lot of general busy-ness (yes, I owe several people emails–forgive me!) I wanted to at least say a few words on the current progress of General Convention and some resolutions that are near and dear to my heart…

Communion Without Baptism

There were two resolutions up that dealt with CWOB. One from Eastern Oregon, C040 [PDF], wanted to get rid altogether of the canon requiring Baptism before Eucharist; the other from North Carolina, C029 [PDF], wanted a “study” of the issue (costing $30,000…). To my surprise, these were both assigned not to the Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music Committee but to the Evangelism Committee. In all fairness, there was quite a lot assigned to PBLCM and I know that folks of the Ecumenism Committee had asked to review these but this is where they ended up. As I read it, if either of the resolutions had a chance of passing in any of the three committees, passage was more likely to occur in Evangelism: Ecumenism would have shot it down right quick and I suspect something similar would have happened in PBLCM. Despite my fears, the Evangelism folks made some good preliminary moves.

According to my sources, the Eastern Oregon resolution was a complete non-starter. The original text was scrapped and new text was drafted for it reiterating Baptism as the ancient and normative path to Eucharist but recognizing that in some places there is an exercise of pastoral sensitivity with the non-baptized. However, titles can’t change on resolutions meaning that this new resolution—whatever its text might have said—would still have been titled “Open Table” which would undoubtedly lead to confusion on the floor. Thus, they addressed the NC resolution. The committee apparently didn’t feel that with all the budget and structural woes that $30K for a study of CWOB was worthwhile. So, keeping the title, they scrapped some or all of the original text of C029 and imported the new paragraph they had written before.

This is really good news. In the most favorable setting for its passage, the resolution calling for abolition of the canon preventing CWOB was scrapped. The new text affirms Baptism as the ancient and normative practice of the Church prior to Eucharist. I wholeheartedly agree! What concerns me is how the language around pastoral practice will get shaped.

Nobody wants to see a communion rail lock-down; that’s just silly. What needs to be avoided, though, is any sense that Baptism is somehow optional. If we invite any and all to the Eucharist then we have precisely made Baptism optional. That’s not a pastoral practice, that’s deliberately turning our backs on the theology of the Prayer Book and the consistent witness of the Church up until the late 20th century.

What I would love to see in any discussion of pastoral discretion with regard to CWOB is the word “individual.”

The message that the resolution would send, then, is to say that pastoral discretion may be warranted in specific individual and unusual circumstances. A general call to any and all is not pastoral—nor is it evangelism; rather, it salves the consciences of those who want to see themselves as inclusive, but who don’t want to do the work of setting healthy boundaries and inviting all comers within those boundaries through the proper protocols (i.e., Baptism with water in the name of the Triune God).

If the word “individual” is omitted, then I’m concerned that such a resolution mentioning pastoral responses may be seen as permission to flout the canon without regard for our theological and sacramental integrity.

Holy Women, Holy Men

Bishop Martins made an attempt to get HWHM stricken from trial use at all in the next triennium. It failed, but what is currently up for a vote is definitely the next best thing!

The revised version of A051 [PDF] sends HWHM back to the Standing Commission for Liturgy and Music for further revision. In particular, it calls for clearer adherence to the 2006 guidelines. Now, personally, I think that adherence to 2006 is not enough; I’d like to see the 2006 guidelines merged with the 1994 guidelines as I said a while back.

Coincidentally, I’ve been reading a fascinating book by Robert Campany: Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China. One of my good friends from high school with whom I studied Japanese is a professor of Asian Religion now. He recommended this work to me knowing my interests in martial arts, qi gong, and cross-cultural asceticism. Campany looks less at particular ascetical practices and more at the discourse of, about, and around early medieval Chinese transcendents (aka “Taoist immortals”). His methodological chapters, in particular, pointed back to Peter Brown’s seminal work on “the holy man” in Christian Late Antiquity and to other scholars working on social memory and sanctity. Naturally, I couldn’t help reading this with a third of my brain focusing on the text at hand, a third of it considering how Sulpicius Severus uses both similar and different language about Martin of Tours in not just the Life but the additional epistles, and a third thinking about our current use/construction/modification of social memory and sanctity in HWHM… It makes me wonder how rigorously the whole enterprise has been approached from this angle.

In any case, the reformed version of A051 no longer presents HWHM for its first reading at the 2015 General Convention and sends it back for more work.

Forward Movement Prayer Site

Not really a resolution but something that has been sucking up a lot of my time is a new initiative unveiled at General Convention. Forward Movement is re-launching their web presence and one part of it is the new Daily Prayer site. This web app not only offers their signature Forward Day by Day devotional reading but also the Daily Offices from the ’79 Prayer Book! If any of this sounds a bit familiar—it should; the back-end code is a simplified form of the St Bede’s Breviary.

Scott Gunn approached me shortly after being named Executive Director of Forward Movement and asked if I’d be willing to collaborate on this and I happily agreed. I said I’d do the back-end work if I didn’t have to do the front-end/interface and recommended for that one of my favorite co-conspirators who shall remain nameless unless they choose to reveal themself… :-)

A mobile app is also in preparation but I can’t say exactly when that’ll launch; I’ll let you know when it becomes available, though!

Sacraments and the Catechism at the Cafe

I said a bit ago:

I think it’s time for a back-to-basics primer on what the prayer book teaches on the Eucharist to provide a real starting point for any discussions going forward.

Well, it’s up today at the Episcopal Cafe…

I’m shooting for a basic perspective on the sacraments that a broad majority of Episcopalians can get behind. Yes, there will be outliers even from that, but I think it’s a start to get us on the same page—in the BCP.

On Silence and Sundays

The Lead points us today to an article in the Guardian by Mark Vernon about a lecture series conducted by Diarmaid MacCulloch. I’m certainly going to have to listen to it (via this link here) but, having not yet done so, I want to make two comments on the reporting of this event; first a comment, then a critique.

Vernon reports MacCulloch as speaking against the avoidance of silence in Christianity in general which is (apparently) part of a critique of the institutional church’s suppression of the interior life. Evagrius Pontus seems to be lifted up as the ignored martyr, pilloried for interiority and the stand is killed off… This seems a gross over-generalization and I expect that it’s coming from Vernon rather than MacCulloch. Yes, historically the church has taken issue with some of its most forward-thinking teachers of mysticism and ascetical theology: Origen, Evagrius, his spiritual heir John Cassian, and a number of later folks wither received suspicion or rejection from later folks when their speculative or ascetical theology fell a-foul of the prevailing dogmatic theology. However, the practices and teaching of Origen, Evagrius, Cassian, and the Desert Fathers and Mothers did find fertile ground in the monastic movement and—as both Dom Leclercq and DeLubac pointed out—a return to Origen and the other sources by spiritual movements has always heralded a period of spiritual flowering and rebirth.

The other side of this is to point out that Vernon (and possibly MacCulloch) seem to be speaking of Western Christianity which has decidedly taken the kataphatic path of spirituality, that which focuses upon what can be positively said about God that therefore privileges linguistic and dogmatic expression—talk. The East has broadly chosen the apophatic path of spirituality that focuses upon the via negativa and what cannot be said about God but only experienced.

Bottom line: the church in the West and the Anglican churches specifically have done a poor job speaking about and promoting the interior life. We need to do a better job of this!

Now for the critique which also picks up on the previous point… What really jumped out at me in the Lead’s excerpting and coverage of this article is this paragraph:

The legacy of this tradition is that, today, if you go to a mass or morning worship, there will be barely a moment’s silence. Quakers aside, it is as if there is a de facto ban on silence in public worship. When people gather together, they should rehearse approved truths. The inner life, left alone, foments heresy and subversion.

Now—what’s the assumption here? That the Sunday morning public worship is the expression of everything that’s important, worthwhile, and taught by a particular tradition. And it’s dead wrong.

Sunday mass is an important part of your complete spiritual life—no question about it. But to either say or imply that it should be the totality of your spiritual life is a big mistake and is not something that the Church has taught. Nevertheless, some of the major shifts in 20th century American religion are grounded in this assumption. Let’s face it—the widespread revisions to the Mass lectionary in both the Roman Catholic post-Vatican II effort and its protestantization in the Revised Common Lectionary feed directly in to this fallacy. The idea expressed in these reconfigurations is that more and more Scripture has to be poured into the Sunday morning service, more and more weight has to be laced upon that time slot because that’s when our culture chooses to “do” religion.

On one hand, we’ve got to be real: the majority of people in our churches do now and always will see religion as a phenomenon relegated to Sunday morning. That’s unfortunate, but is the way things go. Some religion for some people is better than none…

On the other hand, we have done a very poor job of communicating of communicating the Church’s historic teachings about the spiritual life and where and how silence is found within them. We are not doing a good job of communicating that all Christian formation, Christian liturgy, and Christian experience is not intended to be crammed into an hour to two-hour block occupying Sunday morning. We are not presenting a clear, on-focus message about either Christian maturity or Christian proficiency. And, to be frank, this is one of the huge problems that I have with both Holy Women, Holy Men and the Communion Without Baptism movements. HWHM is a celebration of diversity for diversity’s sake; CWOB is a celebration of the extraordinary channels of God’s grace. What we’re lacking, though is any sense that there is a norm—that there are clear classic disciplines for cultivating the relationship with God, and that there are consistent and ordinary means through which God gives grace to the covenant community.  By highlighting diverse routes and a multiplicity of ways, we increasingly lose (and obscure) the sense that the Church offers any firm guidance for those who seek a deeper relationship with God. Just because some have chosen and found their own way does not mean that the Church does not offer a particular well-trod path.

At this point, of course, I can’t help but loop back to the original topic. One of the major mistakes that moderns make when they encounter the work of the great Christian mystics is misunderstanding their context. Speaking particularly about the medieval mystics, they cannot and should not be considered apart from the liturgical life that grounded their mystical freedom. Too often people try to set up a stark dichotomy between the teachings of the mystics and the paths of the institutional church. But the freedom of the mystics is intimately bound to their practice of the Church’s liturgy particular in the Mass and Office (or Mass and prymer for some…). To set the Mass in stark opposition to contemplative practice is just wrong—it’s not just misunderstanding the Mass, it’s misunderstanding the contemplative life as well.

Sacramental History and CWOB

This is a piece I wrote for a collection now in the final stages of editing. It’s targeted for the adult formation in your typical parish (hence the phonetic spellings of some items…)

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Introduction

The sacraments, particularly Baptism and Eucharist, have been an important part of the Anglican tradition from even before the time that Anglicans became a distinct body within the global Church. Looking across the centuries of Christian sacramental practice, we see quite a lot of change based on different beliefs that appeared in different times and different places. The sacramental rites and who had access to them shift as the understandings of those rites shifted.  However, we find through all of these practices a significant common thread: the sacraments can never be viewed in isolation; they are intimately connected with one another to form a broader pattern of Christian discipleship.

The Early Church

The evidence of the first few centuries is notoriously spotty; the church grew in obscurity from its humble beginnings and once it began to flourish, it became the target of suspicion and then suppression from the Roman authorities. As a result, we get only bits and pieces from the first three Christian centuries.

Our first real glimpse of the sacramental teaching of the Early Church after the writing of the New Testament is a short little book called the Didache (pronounced “Did-a-kay”). Difficult to date, most scholars believe that it was written sometime at the end of the first century or the very beginning of the second. It is the first surviving Christian writing to make a statement on the direct relationship between Baptism and the Eucharist (but is hardly the last). It states: “But let none eat or drink of your Eucharist except those who have been baptized in the Lord’s Name. For concerning this also did the Lord say, ‘Give not that which is holy to the dogs’” (Did. 9.5). It’s only fair to locate this statement within the larger context of the whole treatise. The Didache was written as a baptismal instruction manual. It begins with a section describing “The Way of Life and of Death” that lays out the ethical conduct required to live as a disciple of Christ. It begins by describing the demands of discipleship. Then it describes the Baptismal rite, then the Eucharistic rite, and it’s after the description of the Eucharist where we find the admonishment that only the baptized should receive the Eucharist. In this initial foundational document, Baptism is the introduction into a life of discipleship—the Eucharist is the food that sustains it.

Justin Martyr, an apologist who died for his faith, wrote a defense of that faith around the year 150. In it, he too linked the same themes that we see in the earlier Didache: “…And we call this food ‘thanksgiving [eucharist]’; and no one may partake of it unless he is convinced of the truth of our teaching, and has been cleansed with the washing for forgiveness of sins and regeneration, and lives as Christ handed down” (First Apology 66.1). For Justin Martyr, the Eucharist is the food of discipleship that is preceded not solely by Baptism but by faith, by Baptism, and by a life marked by discipleship.

As we move farther into the second century we can take a broader view because our evidence allows us to gain insight into more aspects of Christian life.  Hippolytus of Rome wrote a set of liturgical instructions around the year 215 that laid out the ideal process for Christian initiation and living. Those who wished to become part of the faith were examined to see if they lived acceptable lives. People with certain jobs were automatically denied. Some of these are not surprising: pimps, prostitutes, sorcerers, magic amulet-makers, priests of pagan cults. Others might be more surprising: soldiers, actors, painters, and civil officials. Essentially, anyone who either was connected to the practices of idolatry or those who held the power of life and death—including condemning others to death—had to renounce their profession or be turned away. Those acceptable were enrolled as catechumens (pronounced “kat-a-kyu-mens”) and were instructed in faith for up to three years before they were selected for Baptism. The criteria Hippolytus gives us is significant: “When those to be baptized have been selected, their life is to be examined: Have they lived uprightly during their catechumenate? Have they respected widows, visited the sick, practiced all the good works?” Baptism was not dependent upon knowing a certain amount (that was a given based on the period of instruction beforehand) but on whether the catechumens were living lives of tangible discipleship.

After selection for Baptism, Lent became a special time of intensive pre-Baptismal preparation where formerly hidden parts of the Christian teaching were revealed; the catechumens were formally given the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer along with exorcisms. Hippolytus then describes Baptism at the Easter vigil with the bishop presiding. The candidates are baptized and anointed. Then we get our first record of the rite of Confirmation: the bishop seals the newly-baptized with oil and lays hands on them. After this rite, they receive their first Eucharist. Again we see the basic pattern of discipleship inextricably bound with the reception of the sacraments.

The vision that we get from Hippolytus—Baptism at the Easter Vigil followed immediately by Confirmation and by Eucharist—becomes the standard pattern that we will see through the third and fourth centuries. Indeed, the fourth century is the age of the great catechetical lectures; several of the Church Fathers such as Cyril of Jerusalem and Ambrose of Milan wrote and gave lectures preparing the catechumens for the life of discipleship as well as post-Baptismal lectures that explained the meanings of the rites that they had experienced. In order to reserve their experience of the Christian sacraments for the time in which they could participate in them fully, however, the Eucharistic liturgies of the fourth centuries have a specific point during the prayers and before the Eucharist where all of the catechumens were dismissed.

The Medieval Era

With the fall of Roman authority in the West, the move of Christian Rome to the Greek-speaking East in Constantinople, and the large-scale migrations in tribal Europe, the social and religious patterns of the fourth century experienced tremendous disruption in the West between the late fourth and sixth centuries. By the end of this time, Baptism was typically administered to infants. Because of the infant mortality rate and the spread of a biologically-grounded understanding of original sin, Christian parents felt a need to have their children baptized as soon as possible lest they die outside of the Church. The chrism of Confirmation still required a bishop, however. In some places, Baptisms were held at the Easter Vigil when possible and the infants were communed even if the bishop was not available—for those who lived near urban centers and cathedrals, Confirmations would follow the week after. For those who lived in more rural areas, Confirmation would occur the next time the bishop was in the area…in theory. In practice, though, Confirmation was put off not just months but often years; Baptism and Confirmation began to take on separate lives of their own.

By the medieval period, Confirmation seems to have been a sacrament often honored in the breach. In the thirteenth century there were a number of rulings by local English Synods that sought to compel  Confirmation. One council insisted that children be confirmed within their first year or else their parents were forbidden to even enter the church building. Another mandated that Confirmation had to occur before the age of seven. Yet another insisted that Confirmation happen before three; if this did not happen, the parents were required to fast on bread and water until the time that the Confirmation occurred!

Furthermore, reception of the Eucharist became less and less common. Due to fears of profanation of the sacrament, most laity received the Eucharistic bread infrequently. At the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, Pope Innocent III decreed that all Christians had to receive the Eucharist at least once a year, at Easter, and that sacramental Confession had to precede it. In relation to this Eucharistic ordinance and in frustration at the dearth of Confirmations, the Council of Lambeth meeting in 1281 under Archbishop Peckham decreed that only those who had received Confirmation would be allowed to receive the Eucharist.

At Baptism, the parents and sponsors promised to teach the fundamentals of discipleship—the Ten Commandments, Creed, and Lord’s Prayer. In turn, the priests were required to teach these to the people in the vernacular. Although the infants could not understand, the Creed and Lord’s Prayer were still handed over to them during Lent, and often early medieval sermons during Lent and the Easter season explained them to the people.

While the practice of the sacraments in the medieval West differed from that of the fourth century of the Church Fathers, the fundamental pattern was the same: Baptism, Confirmation, Confession, then Communion. With the virtual universal adoption of Christianity in the West, the connections between the sacramental rites and the life of discipleship became less obvious. The presence and practice of Confession between a vital link between the Great Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, and Christian discipleship. Drawing its power from Baptism, requiring thoughtful reflection about intentional habits of life, and receiving advice for Christian living from the confessor-priest, the demands of discipleship were placed in direct relationship with Eucharistic reception.

The Prayer Book Tradition

In the very first Anglican prayer book, the English Book of Common Prayer of 1549, there are two services of Baptism, a public and a private, one following the other with the second to be reserved for cases of “great cause and necessity.” Both services (the public especially) would not be so foreign to Hippolytus as it contains the same basic principles: renunciation of the devil, affirmation of the Apostles’ Creed, threefold wetting (either by dipping or sprinkling rather than full immersion), then an exhortation to fulsome Christian living. The purpose was the same as we see from the initial prayer which ends as follows:

“We beseech thee (for thy infinite mercies) that thou wilt mercifully look upon these children, and sanctify them with thy Holy Ghost; that by this wholesome laver of regeneration, whatsoever sin is in them may be washed clean away; that they, being delivered from thy wrath, may be received into the ark of Christ’s church, and so saved from perishing: and being fervent in spirit, steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, rooted in charity, may ever serve thee; and finally attain to everlasting life, with all thy holy and chosen people.”

The children are baptized into a community—the ark of Christ’s church—and sanctified with the Holy Spirit, binding them to the rest of the holy and chosen people likewise baptized. Furthermore, they are baptized for discipleship—service of God characterized by the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love.

There are two main differences between this service and that of Hippolytus. The first is that it was set to occur after the New Testament reading and before the canticle at either Morning or Evening Prayer; it was not set within the context of a Eucharistic service, and the newly-baptized were not communed. Second, it was intended for infants while Hippolytus envisioned adults. The gap between the two is filled by the role of the Godparents who take the children’s promises on themselves and then receive a final exhortation that connects the core catechesis, the necessity of discipleship, and the role of the community. After the minister reminds them of their duty to instruct the children in the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments, he ends the service thus:

“And that these children may be virtuously brought up to lead a godly and Christian life; remembering always that Baptism doth represent unto us our profession; which is, to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and to be made like unto him; that as he died, and rose again for us, so should we (which are baptized) die from sin and rise again unto righteousness; continually mortifying all our evil and corrupt affections, and daily proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living.”

This is the end of Baptism—a life of virtue in the example of Christ. This is why we are baptized, this is why we must learn the core instructions of the faith. It’s not (solely) for the sake of knowledge but for action, for faithful daily living.

Following Baptism is the service for Confirmation; there’s a section right after the title “Confirmation” that says a few words about its purpose. For Confirmation to occur—as was stated at Baptism—children had to be able to repeat “in their mother tongue” the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments along with the contents of the catechism that followed that offer brief explanations of these three items. This section then offers three reasons for Confirmation, the first reason picking up the same themes from the Baptismal service itself and directly connecting Baptism with Confirmation by means of discipleship:

“First, because that when children come to the years of discretion, and have learned what their Godfathers and Godmothers promised for them in Baptism, they may then themselves with their own mouth, and with their own consent, openly before the Church, ratify and confess the same; and also promise, that by the grace of God they will evermore endeavour themselves faithfully to observe and keep such things as they by their own mouth and confession have assented unto.”

Learning the words is not enough; they must also promise to observe and practice the demands of discipleship encapsulated in the Creed, Commandments, and Lord’s Prayer. The final note after the Confirmation rite states briefly: “And there shall none be admitted to the holy Communion until such time as he be confirmed.”

Speaking to admission to holy Communion, these same themes of discipleship appear there in the exhortation which precedes the invitation to Eucharist. The exhortation breaks into four main sections. The first reminds the hearers of Paul’s command that those coming to the table examine themselves before hand, knowing that those worthily receiving receive a great benefit, but harm comes to the unworthy. The second focuses specifically upon the hearers’ pattern of life: if they are in patterns of habitual sin, they must repent of them before coming. The third recalls to mind the salvific acts of God on the congregation’s behalf while the fourth exhorts their thanks for the gift of the sacrament and its reception. After the prayer of consecration, right before the reception of the sacrament, the principal themes of this exhortation are condensed into the call for confession:

“Ye who do earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and henceforth in his holy ways; Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort; and make your humble confession to Almighty God meekly kneeling.”

This exhortation—however brief—makes clear that the combination of Baptism and Confirmation is not all that is required: active discipleship is the stated requirement. The confession and absolution that follow should not be seen simply as a cleansing of sin—they are also a naming of acts that describe what the congregation has failed to do with an eye towards mending their ways and returning to full discipleship.

The prayer book tradition begins, then, with a continuation of the classical Western pattern: Baptism, Confirmation, Confession, then Eucharist. While the confession in the prayer book rite is a general one, private confession is recommended in the exhortation but is not required.

The American 1928 Book of Common Prayer follows substantially in the tradition laid down almost 400 years before. Baptism is still about inclusion into the Church, the Body of Christ; Confirmation is still required for admission to the Eucharist; Confession still occurs before reception (although it has shifted to before the consecration). The exhortations are still present although moved out of main body of the rite.

Here and Now

The American 1979 Book of Common Prayer represents a major revision from the mainstream of the Anglican Tradition. With the influence of the ecumenical Liturgical Renewal Movement, Roman Catholic and Mainline Protestant Churches alike aligned their liturgical practices back towards the pattern represented by the fourth century rites. Following suit, our current prayer book melds fourth century traditions with historic Anglican ones. The rethinking of our rites that accompanied these efforts included some substantial modifications of our sacramental theology.

Our current prayer book makes clear that Baptism—not Confirmation—is full initiation into the Church (BCP, p. 298); Confirmation is no longer required in order to receive the Eucharist. The demands of discipleship are laid out in the form of the Baptismal Covenant. Those being baptized or their sponsors commit to belief in the Apostles’ Creed but also commit to five specific patterns of behavior: continuing in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship particularly through the breaking of bread and the prayers, repentance and returning to God after sin, proclaiming the Good News of Christ by word and deed, seeking and serving Christ in all persons, and striving for justice and peace and respecting the dignity of all (BCP, p. 304-5). These patterns of life sketch the boundaries of discipleship.

The Confirmation rite removes the questions and answers that had characterized it from the beginning of the Anglican tradition. Instead, the heart of the service is a recapitulation of the Baptismal Covenant (BCP, p. 416-7).Confirmation is a reaffirmation and a mature claiming of the patterns of discipleship taken on in Baptism.

A general confession still precedes reception of the Eucharist. The version in Rite I differs only in wording and spelling from the1928 and 1549 forms. The version in Rite II has been rewritten so that the demands of discipleship are sketched in the confession itself rather than in the exhortation preceding it. Rather than focusing on specific acts, the confession sketches categories by which we either maintain or fall short of perfect discipleship: “in thought, word, and deed” and also “by what we have done, and by what we have left undone” (BCP, p. 360).  Recalling both the two tables of the Ten Commandments and Christ’s own Summary of the Law we acknowledge discipleship’s requirements when we say that “We have not loved [God] with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves” (ibid.). Our contrition and request for mercy that follows is itself a fulfillment of the Baptismal Covenant’s second promise to repent and return to the Lord. The concluding lines express our hope for the result of God’s grace: that we can fulfill discipleship’s demands through a proper reorientation towards God.

One final element clarifies and sharpens the Eucharistic theology of our present prayer book. Where formerly there was one post-communion prayer, now there are two. Despite this change, the structure of both prayers is the same: they begin with a recognition that those who have received are “living members” of the Body of Christ, and move to a request to be sent out to fulfill the works of discipleship. (BCP, pp. 365, 366). Those who belong to the visible Body of Christ receive the sacramental Body of Christ and, as the empowered Body of Christ, are authorized to perform the works of Christ.

Conclusions

Across the ages Christian communities have not embodied the sacraments in identical ways. However, there are some fundamental patterns that are constant.

  1. The traditions and the liturgies of the Church have never treated the sacraments as distinct and isolated rites.
  2. The central common thread connecting the primary sacraments of the Church is discipleship.
  3. The sacraments and the grace that they communicate are not simply a generic sign of God’s favor but is precisely grace for a cruciform life of discipleship .
  4. Baptism is the act of initiation into the communal and visible Body of Christ which is the Church, the community of disciples.
  5. Eucharist is food for the Church where in the midst of the communal Body of Christ bread and wine become the sacramental Body (and Blood) of Christ given to feed the life of discipleship.
  6. The sacraments are always communal actions: Baptism is Baptism into the full community of faith; Confirmation is Confirmation into a local community of faith; Confession is an alignment back to the norms of the community; Eucharist is the communal celebration of its identity and integration into Christ.

Most discussions about Communion without Baptism only consider it from the perspective of an individual attending one liturgy. This is an inadequate perspective that fails to properly treat either the communal nature of the sacraments or their intimate connection with discipleship. Rather than discussing “Communion Without Baptism” the Church would be far better served by a discussion around the “Sacramental Path to Discipleship.” Is how we greet strangers important? Absolutely. Is hospitality a Christian virtue? Absolutely. But our most hospitable act towards strangers is to introduce them to the sacramental path to discipleship that will bring them into a community that embraces God’s promise of resurrection life most fully.

We as a Church have received the sacraments for a purpose. They bind us deeper into the life of grace into which God invites us. But without committing to embracing that resurrection life offered—and sharing it with those we meet—we mistake the nature, purpose, and aim of these sacramental gifts.

Pedantic Lectionary Note on Romans 1

As your official source for pedantic lectionary minutae, I must call attention to the appearance (or lack) of Romans 1:26-7 in the Daily Office lectionary. These two verses appear to contain Paul’s clearest statement on same-sex sexual relations and, as such, have been greatly and hotly debated in recent years. Thus, the absence of these two verses is usually taken as a sign of the co-opting of the ’79 prayer book by the “gay agenda.”

As today’s Speaking to the Soul points out, however, these same two verses were specifically avoided in the Daily Office lectionary of the 1928 prayer book as well, suggesting that the creeping “gay agenda” may not be the only consideration here. However, there is one pitfall and one minor technicality concerning the aforelinked article’s method that I feel compelled to bring to your attention.

The article successfully navigates the pitfall and it is this: you can’t pick up just any 1928 prayer book and expect to see the lectionary dating from 1928. There was a revision to the lectionary tables in 1943 (the nature and character of which I have neither the time, space, nor desire to delve into at the moment…). Thus, ’28 prayer books printed after that point may or may not have the original 1928 Daily Office lectionary. As I said, they dodged this and did indeed refer to a 1928 lectionary.

What the article misses, however, is the relation or lack thereof between the Sunday Daily Office readings and the full-on readings in course. Allow me to clarify… Since the 1559 book, prayer books have, functionally speaking, had three lectionary cycles superimposed on one another throughout the year: the continuous reading in-course (this is the base layer), the appointed Sunday lessons (which are selections from what was “edifying” as defined by the editors), and the Holy Day readings (which are lightly sprinkled on top of the other two).

Yes, the 1928 Daily Office lectionary does omit Romans 1:26-27 during the Sunday reading (Romans 1:17-21, 28-32) and that’s a significant point to note. However, more significant is to look at the state of Romans in its reading in-course where Scriptural coverage rather than “edification” is in the fore-ground. Looking for it there, we note that Romans is being read in-course at Evening Prayer from the Ninth Sunday after Trinity to the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.  Monday after the 9th Sunday after Trinity appoints Romans 1:1-17; the next day goes directly to Romans 2:1-16. The whole section from Rom 1:18 to the end of the chapter is omitted. This evidence actually makes the omission even stronger. The 2 verses are omitted where the rest of the latter half of the chapter appears in the Sunday cycle and the in-course cycle fails to remedy the lack.

For comparison purposes, the American 1896 lectionary appointed all of Romans 1 for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday, the 16th of February, and the 7th of August.