The Practical Value of Studying Historical Theology

One of my theological intellectual goals has been to read through Richard Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. As an Anglican priest I feel that I should be able to say that I have read Hooker from beginning to end. So far I am about halfway through volume 2 (book 5) of the edition edited by Keble. As anyone who has tried knows, Hooker is hard to read. In addition to being very prolix and polemical, he writes about controversies that can seem very far removed from anything relative to the life of the Church today. But the more I plod through this venerable old classic the more I find just how contemporary and relevant it really is. Because the reality is that many of the old controversies addressed by Hooker live on in the Church.

Case in point, the other day someone told me that Anglicans spend too much time and money worrying about decorating churches. Hooker addresses this question in Book V, making the argument form scripture and tradition that God's people have always seen fit to erect and embellish houses of worship. Another example, many Christians in Hooker's day decried the typical Anglican practice of preaching short (or no) homilies, assuming that God's word had to be communicated through long sermons. Hooker dismisses this notion again in several chapters of Book V, commenting especially on the power of simply reading the word of God to bring about repentance and conversion. The same controversy can still be observed in the church today.

There are many other examples that I have found from Hooker of the continued practical value and relevance of studying historical theology. Therefore I would not dismiss it as some people are quick to do. Because the voices of the 16th century and earlier can still speak to the needs of the Church today. Maybe if the Church had truly heeded the words of these authors in their own day she would not be in the mess she is in today!

Infant Communion

One of the hotly debated topics in today’s congregations is that of paedocommunion. The issue is coming up throughout the Church, regardless of denomination. It extends beyond whether one believes Confirmation or Chrismation to be a sacrament and an integral part of the Rites of Initiation. The more conservatively-minded feel that some category of “age of reason” must be defined. The early Western Church seems to have been confirming all those who had been baptized since the last visitation of the bishop. This would then mean that those who were between zero and three years old (assuming the bishop were visiting at least every three years) would have been confirmed and ready for communion according to the view that the full Rite of Initiation needs to be completed first. Even this is not an obstacle to communion according to the Roman Catholic Church as they have begun the practice of “First Communion” several years before Confirmation is received. For those within the Reformed tradition, views of covenant theology and the fact that a child participates in Old Testament covenant meals, such as the Passover, seems to be the battling ground. Whether Reformed or Catholic, those advocating having children receive communion still emphasize the “family meal” aspect and that such things depend upon what God has done in Baptism and not on what we understand. Much has been written and many minds have been stretched.

In this debate, one thing which might be helpful is the medical concept of “Free and Informed Consent.” As the Eucharist, in Patristic terms, is the “Medicine of Life,” a similarity between this concept in medicine and sacramental theology is not incongruous. Basically, informed consent refers to the doctor making clear to you all aspects of the medical treatment you are to undergo. One point in favor of paedocommunion, in my mind, has been the fact that the mother when pregnant receives communion for both herself and her unborn. I have felt it strange that we would “excommunicate” a child for three to seven years for simply being born. This would seem to confirm the harshest criticisms of St. Augustine’s theology.

I have likewise thought some aspects of Confirmation inconsistent. I was told that once I was confirmed I would be an “adult” member of the congregation, but the laws of non-profit organizations still restricted me from voting at meetings or holding office until eighteen. So inconsistencies abound naturally. Such inconsistencies stick in the craw of many young people and parents. One can easily say that “whoever sits at my table; eats my food” and then it becomes an issue of which father of which family takes the paedocommunion view or which pastor of which congregation. Arguably, however, the child has rarely been “given” permission to receive confirmation or not, and, likewise, communion. We have usually agreed in the Western Church that leading (or directing) the child to receive Confirmation (and thus Communion) is the last noticeable spiritual obligation on the part of those parents and godparents who have brought their child to the font. Thus it is typical that the child sees Confirmation as “graduation” and it corresponds often with graduation from parochial middle school in Roman Catholic parishes.    

              Yet “informed consent” provides an interesting category that Augustine might think would unify his warring spiritual progeny. A doctor can never withhold information, but what doctor can provide all information associated with a prescription or procedure? No doctor can. Nevertheless, the child under a certain age is not endued with a developed reason to decide for himself. There is no “proxy consent” associated with children under a certain age. A child’s guardian always decides. The spiritual danger associated with receiving the Medicine of Life incorrectly is nothing less than death, a “side-effect” of not discerning the Lord’s Body and Blood correctly. Many say that none of us can understand the mystery completely. So are we always in danger of discerning the Lord’s Body and Blood incorrectly? Will we put the child in such peril? Or does this make the paedocommunion-advocating parent or denomination responsible for a child’s possible lack of discernment? You see, we do not think that a person can ever be completely informed about a medical procedure. But a child under the “Age of Reason” is never able to be culpably informed at all. We can certainly say, “Whoever eats at my table, takes my medications,” to mix metaphors. However, to say that a minimal explanation of that Sacrament’s perilous side-effects which can be given to a child under the Age of Reason is sufficient is irresponsible. One does not learn about a medication’s side-effects simply by growing up and partaking when a parent takes it, especially if taking it wrongly leads to death. Eventually, some information needs to be related and total free and informed consent needs to be accepted by our children.

            With these thoughts in mind, it is easier to see that a pregnant mother is obliged to take medications safely for the sake of her unborn and to take Holy Communion seriously for the same reason. Those wishing to push the reception of communion to a lower age seem to want to say that children are eligible based upon membership. They are concerned with over-rationalizing. But the issue isn’t rationalism or mystery. It is rather about the child’s culpability. A parent may be able to say, “take the medication now” but only the child, after a certain age, is able to discern whether or not he is spiritually clean or unclean and can participate in the New Covenant meal. We are uncertain when the “Age of Reason” arrives and, arguably, some parents may feel it has arrived sooner for their children. Therefore, becoming culpable may arrive sooner than a spiritual guardian realizes. We don’t know when the child is culpable, but we can determine, through catechesis and the ability for self-examination and confession, that the Age of Reason has arrived (even if the child was spiritually culpable several years beforehand). We can determine when our children are able to culpably answer for themselves (while not yet eighteen and fully autonomous). We can determine when they are receiving in a free and informed way, but only through rational dialogue and questions which reveal whether the child has an informed conscience.    

Seminary Boy

I love good religious biographies. Recently I read Seminary Boy by John Cornwell, of "Hitler's Pope" fame. This book is a memoir of the time he spent at the now-defunct minor seminary known as Cotton College in England in the 1950's-60's. It is a beautifully written book that sheds light on a bygone world steeped in tradition and religion, a world that would soon be consigned to the dustbin of history by the very Church that created it. At the end of the book the reforms of Vatican II are firmly ensconced in the Church, and the author, who left Oscott major seminary and strayed from the faith for many years, but later returned, finds himself lamenting the lost liturgy and traditions of his youth.

He does not have a book detailing the time he left the Church and why, to the time he returned, but should he ever write that book I will be the first one to buy it. In researching this book I did discover that he recently wrote a book on John Henry Newman that was highly praised by none other than Alasidar Macintyre whose seminal work, After Virtue, is a must-read for anyone interested in theology. To me, if Macintyre praised this work on Newman, it must be a good book. That is the next book by Cornwell that I hope to read.

Those who might want to avoid Cornwell because of his book Hitler's Pope (which incidentally Cornwell has reevaluated) would really be missing out on a great book - which is in no way antagonistic towards the Roman Catholic Church or Christianity in general - if they didn't out check this incredibly moving book!

An Anglican Recommended Reading List

Taking some cues from other websites, I have decided to add a list of "recommended reading" on the left hand side of the blog. These are all books that I have read and feel comfortable recommending to anyone who wishes to learn more about the Anglican tradition.

Obviously, the list is not exhaustive, and there are many other good ones in each category that one could recommend. I am still working on the list, so that explains the lack of categories and certain authors.

A number of these books overlap in terms of the subject matter. Horton Davies' Worship and Theology in England, for example, could fit in any number of categories. I've categorized everything the best I could.

Many of these books are still in print. Others can be purchased used fairly easily for a great price (I recommend Amazon or ABE Books).

I hope every out there finds these recommendations helpful. May the Lord bless and keep you.

Some Reflections on the History Channel's Recent Series "The Bible"

The following is from the April 2013 edition of my parish's magazine "The Centurion." Archived volumes of The Centurion may be downloaded from the St. Alban's Church website.

During Lent the television and media world was abuzz about the History Channel’s exciting series known as The Bible. The creators of the series, Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, conceived the project in part because the Bible is the foundational text of western culture, and yet more and more people are unfamiliar with all of its content. In an fantastic op-ed piece from the Wall Street Journal the producers noted that for generations a person’s intelligence was determined by how well he or she knew the Bible! What does such a statement imply about our contemporary society where so few people know the Bible?

Overall the miniseries was very well done. It had something for everyone... probably because because the Bible has something for everyone. Those tempted to nitpick about how various stories and details were presented should remember that the Bible is a very big book that covers thousands of years of history. Artistically speaking, it is impossible to capture all of the details of the various stories in four or five two-hour episodes. The series certainly holds its own with other famous dramatizations of the Bible, such as The Ten Commandments, and The Passion of the Christ. In some cases it even outdoes those old classics.

Many people from St. Alban’s watched this series and commented on how interesting and exciting it was. The net result from watching it will hopefully be that people will get curious enough about the Bible to actually sit down and read parts of it. There is no substitute actually sitting down and reading and studying God’s word! No movie, or TV show can replace opening the pages of this book and studying the written words, if for no other reason than that there is plenty of non-historical material in the Bible, such as poetry, that simply cannot be dramatized, and yet is important to know.

One of the things that I appreciated most about the miniseries is that it got me thinking once again about how I read and understand it the Bible. This is called hermeneutics - the science of interpreting the Bible. Hermeneutics is a most critical aspect of reading and studying the Bible. While most of us are not experts in this area, it is good to know that it exists, and that the Bible is book that needs to be interpreted. Watching a series like “The Bible” can be especially helpful in this regard.

Because it is an ancient library of texts, written over many generations, by a great many people from all over the world, the Bible can be a difficult book to adapt for film and TV. So producers often have to make creative decisions as to how to develop the story in such a way as to make it appealing and understandable. And they often add extra-biblical elements to make the story flow better on screen. These additions are interpretations. Usually, in the better produced shows like “The Bible” they are perfectly harmless, and even helpful. But nonetheless, producers of programs like “The Bible”need to be very careful in how they choose to interpret biblical texts through these embellishments, because sometimes they might convey something that is their own idea rather than something that is found in the text of the Bible.

In the same way, we sometimes take a little bit of creative license when we read the Bible. We imagine how scenes must have played out, how people’s voices sounded when they said certain things, and so on. We also might be tempted to fill in perceived or real historical and doctrinal gaps. All of this is unavoidable. But like TV and movie producers, we too must be very cautious when we do this. We have to be extremely careful about reading our own assumptions into the text and its world because we may put something there that is not meant to be there! While it is impossible to have an “Olympian” (i.e. pure, unbiased) view of the Bible, or anything else for that matter, we should at least be conscious that we bring to the text our own assumptions, and that sometimes those assumptions for various reasons are not always valid or correct (historically, theologically, morally, etc.).

That is but one thing that I got from watching this series. What did you get out of it? In a few weeks or so the church will have this series available to those who wish to view it. We also hope to be screening a much more in-depth series on the Bible on DVD at another parihsioner's house in the not-too-distant future. Please keep your eyes peeled for times and dates. In the meantime, remember that the best way to learn the Bible is to read and study it daily. And more important, the better we know the Bible the better we will know not only God and Christ, but also ourselves.

James Bond & C.S. Lewis

Two novelists of the 1950’s, Ian Fleming and C.S. Lewis, both of whose works soared in sales previous to their deaths in the early sixties, had some interesting similarities. Ian Fleming died in 1964 and C.S. Lewis in 1963. Just a little while earlier, in 1962, Sean Connery played the Ian Fleming character, James Bond, in the highly successful film Dr. No. In it, James Bond combats an evil organization known as SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). Although the Communist powers are always involved somewhere, this is not Fleming’s imaginative threat to civilization. This is a noteworthy fact, given that while the novels were being written, Communism was the most perceived threat to civilization. It is not as if one couldn’t identify them as a threat in a novel, many journalists and novelists did. But I think the fact that Fleming chose SPECTRE and not the KGB as Bond’s archenemy may hold some of the reason for the success of the novels.

  

In the fifties, we are talking about post-war England, a world where literate men have set down their weapons and returned to office work, walking their dogs, and attending their wives’ tea and cocktail parties. To a greater or lesser extent, attending their parish church was involved. Furthermore, there was something plaguing the man of the fifties and he felt it very deeply. He had fought a war and now he had returned to a different kind of war. It was the war in which the challenge to make money was a daily battle. As a returning veteran said in the 1946 film The Best Years of our Lives, “Last year it was kill Japs, this year it’s make money”. Finding a way to do business better than the other company involves certain challenges and temptations. To get intelligence from the competitor, to extort, terrorize and be vengeful are all temptations which a business man is prone to and it is exactly what SPECTRE is. SPECTRE is a money making organization and not an espionage organization which is spying patriotically.

           

It was in this fifties world that organizations like the Free-Masons, Rotary, Kiwanis Club and veterans associations thrived on the membership of men of war turned men of business. It was this culture in which Playboy magazine was born and became popular. Have you looked at a picture of Hugh Hefner smoking his pipe and compared it with C.S. Lewis smoking his pipe? Ian Fleming was interviewed by Playboy magazine shortly before his death. Needless to say, C.S. Lewis, James Bond and Playboy magazine remain popular half a century later. Yet they had their beginning in a world in which the hardest kind of soul for the Church to reach, the family-man-making-money-while-middle-aged, was trying to find his place in the world again.

             

Let us look more closely. Unlike some spies, James Bond is a gentleman, relatively speaking. Ian Fleming once described James Bond and said, “He’s not a Sidney Riley”. Anyone knowing about the spy Sidney Riley knows that Riley was no gentleman. James Bond is the kind of spy that an Englishman wearing the old-school tie and carrying an umbrella can identify with. When we come to C.S. Lewis, we find a veteran with whom a veteran can identify. Lewis was no saint, struggled with his faith and struggled with lust. We now know him as a saintly writer of Christian devotion and children’s books. Nevertheless, he did not consider himself a saint and married a divorced woman, something an aging bachelor in the fifties was surely tempted to do.

             

When it came to his convictions, C.S. Lewis, like the Englishman of the fifties, was a quietly devout Anglican, so much so that many reading his works are completely unaware of his denomination. It isn’t, of course, that he wasn’t outspoken. But I wonder sometimes if we met him on the street today if we would not wag our fingers in his face. Unlike some contemporaries, like Thomas Merton, who found their faith in their bachelorhood, he didn’t go off to a monastery. Therefore, in the medieval sense of Summum Bonum, he did not seek the highest good and enter the contemplative life. On the Evangelical side of the spectrum, he did not take his anti-atheistic convictions on the road like Billy Graham. He continued to fight, indeed, in one of the most intellectual arenas in Christendom. Yet he did not follow the logical course to the highest good as sometimes visualized within Catholic and Protestant circles. He did, however, follow the course which would lead to his blessedness.

C.S. Lewis sanctified a kind of Anglican gentleman writer, a kind which included Ian Fleming, as well as Somerset Maugham and Rudyard Kipling, both of whom also wrote spy novels. C.B. Moss, the Anglo-Catholic theologian, argued that figures like Kipling and Lord Baden Powell, with their Masonic leanings, represent the worst of English Christianity because of their Pelagian do-good-ism. In their defense, men like Kipling and Powell (who practiced espionage) were patriotic gentlemen and nominally Christian. When I say, “nominal”, I mean Masonic leaning and devoted to basic duty, not given to following the logical course leading to the Summum Bonum, which Moss might well consider true Christianity. What most reading Kipling’s If consider mere Christian gentlemanliness, Moss seems to consider “broad and lazy” English churchmanship. Despite Moss’ objections, Kipling and Powell’s ‘do-good-ism’ is precisely the kind of Christianity which a man returning to his desk in 1946 could see as relevant to his life. It was this kind of basic and practical churchmanship which Lewis was able to tap into and profoundly illuminate in a way not seen, perhaps, since William Wilberforce.

             

To conclude, the kind of man who returned to his desk in 1946 was the kind of man who also espoused this basic patriotic Christianity and might be tempted to read Fleming and Playboy when his wife wasn’t looking. When he watched his best friend spill his blood on the battlefield and woke up with nightmares for the rest of his life, he didn’t think to himself that he did it for Anglo-Catholicism or Methodism or the Southern Baptist Convention any more than he did it for the Labor party or Republican party. He did not sacrifice for the sake of some logically complex and idealistic ‘highest good’. In the end, he did it for the basic good of freedom and ‘Mere Christianity’. He was glad to see as he returned to his desk day after day during the fifties that there were still men fighting against atheism and the worst of unethical business practices. Whether it was James Bond or C.S. Lewis, he identified in these personalities something he himself was – merely heroic.        

The Bishops' Course of Study

The previous post and comments brought to my remembrance a book I read a number of years ago called "Faith and Freedom: A Study of Theological Education and the Episcopal Theological School." This book was written by George Blackman and published in 1967 (Seabury Press). Most of the book is a detailed history of the foundation of the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, MA, which is now known as Episcopal Divinity School because it merged with the Philadelphia Divinity School in the 1970's.

The first chapter, however, details the history of theological education in the earliest days of the Episcopal Church. It is an interesting story, and there are many parallels with the continuing church that came along centuries later.

For at least the first fifteen years after the close of the American Revolution the Episcopal Church was too preoccupied with trying to survive than to worry about training would be clergy. Bishops such as William White were, for the sake of providing a congregation with a minister, willing to make sacrifices in terms of selecting and training candidates.

Like ministers from other traditions, Episcopalian clergy in these days read for orders under the direction of a parson, and using his library. The weakness of this was the same then as perhaps it is today and always will be: the comprehensiveness of the course of reading was limited entirely by the resources of the parson's library and his idiosyncrasies.

As Bishop White believed this to be a shortcoming of his own theological study he made sure that the ordinands he prepared were exposed to a very wide variety of books. But this did not solve all of the problems associated in those days with reading for orders. The other problem was that it was hard for ordinands to make it out to study with their mentors with great frequency. Often they were together just once a month, and when they as much information as possible was jumbled together and crammed down their throats… hardly a systematic way to read and learn theology.

So in 1804 steps were taken to improve the quality of theological education. General Convention proposed that the House of Bishops establish what later came to be called "The Bishops' Course of Study." Bishop White himself is thought to have developed the course, which was basically a reading list that contained sections on apologetics, Scripture, and Church history. Once this course was read, and only then, did the candidate progress to the study of systematic theology ("divinity" as it was then called). Systematics included courses of reading on liturgics, and pastoral theology - including polity and canon law. The list of books in each category is very extensive (and listed in the volume under discussion) and consisted almost entirely of English theologians. Black notes that while the bishop's knew the amount of reading material was too much for most students the purpose of it was to establish an ideal, and perhaps provide some choices of books if a particular one was too difficult.

The notable thing about the list is that even though the books were readily available and still in print none of them were new books. They were what could be described as venerable classics. Many, in fact, had been standard divinity texts for over 50 years. And in the late 1860's General Seminary, Virginia Seminary, and the Episcopal Theological School still required many of these texts to be read. In fact this book list lead to the formation of General Seminary, as the need was seen to have a place where formal instruction in accordance with this curriculum could be given. Eventually, of course, the Bishop's Course of Study was eclipsed by the seminaries it helped create. But for many years it held sway over the Church.

It seems to me that while there are a number of lessons that the continuing church, or any extremely small church or denomination, can be learn from this history. One of the main ones is as follows. With the absence of our own seminaries it would be wise to establish a permanent reading list of classic texts that is meant to supplement a course study taken in a mainline, generic seminary. My diocese has a five book (I think) reading list for men in the discernment process. This is a step in the right direction. But once a person is enrolled in a non-Anglican seminary then what? He should be required to read specific books from a standard book list to supplement his theological education and make up for any gaps. I was given a number of books by my mentor, which was very helpful. I'm sure other clergy do this for men preparing under them as well. This is all good and well, but what there should really be is a comprehensive, standardized diocesan list, as in the early days of the Episcopal Church, that is used by men in seminary as well as those reading for orders. This would help create a standard of learning among the clergy, which would go a long way in building and forming stronger parishes and Christians.