The church shaping the world - or vice versa?

Regular readers know that a major theme of this blog is defending historic Christian liturgy against efforts to conform (or chase) the church to modern cultural norms and mores. The second segment on Tuesday’s Issues Etc. podcast was “Responding to evangelical clichés: The church must transform the culture.” Host Todd Wilken interviewed Bryan Wolfmueller, a fellow LCMS pastor, a regular Issues Etc. guest and host of the Table Talk Radio podcast.

Wilken stated the premise, the belief among evangelicals that “The church's job — or one of its jobs … is the transformation of the culture.” He argued that while the church seeks to change the culture, “very often in evangelicalism, it’s the culture that’s transformed the church.”

Referring both to the historic Catholic and modern evangelical process†, Wolfmueller argued that “when you try to avoid the culture, something opposite happens: you end up absorbing the culture.”

He continued:

“With contemporary worship, the idea is to be accommodating and accessible to the culture, so the culture is setting the agenda for how the evangelical church is worshiping. And now, more and more, it’s also setting the theological agenda. ...  The more you try to avoid the culture, in some profoundly ironic and related way, the culture has a strong influence on your doctrine and practice.”

Both men argue that the solution is the Lutheran doctrine of “Two Kingdoms,” which keeps separate the sacred and the secular in opposition to Roman Catholic Church and its historic assertion of temporal and spiritual authority. (Anglicans wouldn’t use this phrase, but clearly there is a distinction  in Anglican thought between areas where the Christian Church has a position and others where it does not.)

Finally, Wolfmueller argued that the work of Jesus is not to save (or destroy) the culture, but to save sinners. My recent work studying church planting has reminded me (again and again) that Sunday worship is only one of the responsibilities of the church, and so we can’t forget as (the b-school crowd would call it) this ultimate bottom line.

† This passage suggests a particularly ironic juxtaposition with his previous week’s discussion of evangelical clichés entitled “That’s Too Roman Catholic,” a criticism of Lutheran and other liturgical Protestants.

Media and the Great Commission

At the ICCA, a series of sessions featured examined topics of specific interest to Anglo-Catholics. One is the church planting workshop that I helped support. Another was a session on how traditional Anglican must deal with (confront? ignore? respond to?) the 21st century mass and niche media.

The session featured perhaps the two best-known American Anglican journalists (in the decade since tmatt went Orthodox):

• David Virtue, the New Zealand-Canadian has been covering the Anglican communion from the US since 1995 — first as an email list, and today as a (lively) website.
• Kevin Kallsen, who since 2008 has been running AnglicanTV which today is implemented as a YouTube channel.

David Virtue
Photo by J. West

I have traded emails with Virtue off and on for the past decade. I had never met Kallsen before, but a friend (from my final TEC days) was a regular correspondent for AnglicanTV before “swimming the Tiber.”

I wasn’t able to attend the entire session because I was on a competing (and very informative) session on church music. However, I caught the end of Kallsen’s talk (and stayed for the Q&A), when he made some provocative points.

One is that churches need to learn from great consumer companies (notably Apple). While packaging counts — such as approachability — it’s also essential to be genuine.

The other was that technology has changed society “and there’s no going back”. He showed the famous photos of the crowd in St. Peter’s square for Benedict (in 2005) and Francis (2013) — in less than 10 years, the idea of a smartphone (with camera) has become ubiquitous. (There were lots of cellphone cameras during the ICCA sessions and services as well).

Conversely, Virtue said that

Technology is a tool — not God. Technology has been give a godlike status. We need to see through the lens of the Gospel.

At the same time, Luther’s success — in disseminating his critique of the Church and launching what became Lutheranism — depending on cutting edge technology: the printing press. (In other words, it’s hard to image his having such an impact if the 95 Theses had to be hand-copied for distribution to the peasants.)  Virtue also reminded everyone of the old saw: “there are no new heresies, just old heresies dressed up in new form.”

The two differ on the core marketing problem facing traditional Anglicans:

• Kallsen: many frustrated with TEC (and other Protestant revisionists) don’t know about traditional Anglican alternatives and so are going to Rome and the Ordinariate; we need to do a better job of getting our visibility and message out there.
• Virtue: “People don’t want to know” because they want their existing routines, facilities, the familiar. They are deluding themselves that because their rector is traditional, they won’t be affected by the changes in the national church. (To this I would add that some dioceses — such as Dallas 30 miles east of here — are pretending that they can stand up to the national church while that option became moot almost a decade ago.)

Clearly reaching the Millennials will require using modern technology and messages. But my interpretation of both men (plus my recent travels regarding church planting) suggest it is essential to preserve the substance and sincerity of what we believe and are offering to future (or returning) Christians.

PS: At the Congress I met blogger Mark Marshall, who was also blogging the conference.

The once and future undivided church

One Church, One Faith, One Lord "Restoring the Conciliar Church and Her Mission" July 13-July 17, 2015 Fort Worth, Texas A conciliar gathering of Catholic Anglicans rooted in the past. Ready for the future.

With the International Catholic Congress of Anglicans nearing its completion, I have to say that Forward and Faith and other organizers were wildly successful in addressing their designated theme.

It’s really hard to summarize more than five hours of keynotes on this topic, citing Christian thinkers from the patristic fathers through the Reformation to the 1920s Anglo-Catholic congresses to today. However, these ideas to me seem essential in being able to articulate Anglican (or Anglo-Catholic) distinctives in contrasting one’s local Anglo-Catholic parish to the other Protestant alternatives.

Fortunately, AnglicanTV recorded these keynotes. These include:

• Monday: Abp. Valentino Mokiwa on Frank Weston and his successes both in leading the earlier congresses and spreading the faith to Africa (which is now spreading it back to Europe and the US)
• Tuesday: Prof. Edith Humphrey on “The Nature of the Church: Apostolic, Conciliar and Concrete”



Bp. Michael Nazir-Ali

• Wednesday: Bp. Michael Nazir-Ali on “The necessity of Unity in Truth for the Church’s Mission,” 
• Thursday: Bp. Keith Ackerman on “The Anglo Catholic Congresses and Restoring the Anglican Mind,” a paper by Rev. Arthur Middleton, retired canon of Durham Cathedral
• Thursday: Alice Linsley, a former ECUSA priest who now argues against women’s ordination
• Update: Friday’s sermon by REC Bp. Ray Sutton also addressed this topic.

The focus of all the speakers was on the original undivided church, from the Apostolic church of the 1st century (as recounted in Acts and the Pauline letters) to the Great Schism of 1054. In the name of conciliarity, I heard a lot more about the seven ecumenical councils of 325-787 — subscribed by FiF, and the Eastern churches — a superset of the four subscribed by some Protestants (including the REC) and a subset of the 21 endorsed by Rome.

Nazir-Ali and Linsley argued that the ECUSA and CoE theological innovations of the past 50 years (notably women’s ordination) have both broken from the original faith of the undivided church, and also impairs the possibility of Anglican reconciliation with either Rome or the East.

Prof. Edith Humphrey

Edith Humphrey

The most through argument came from former Anglican (now Orthodox) seminar professor Edith Humphrey, who presented a historical research paper (posted at Virtue Online). She began by quoting the 1902 observation of Alfred Loisy:

Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom, and what arrived was the Church.

She then laid out a three-fold definition of the one true undivided church:

1. Apostolic, by reviewing the evidence of the three-fold ministry in first two centuries of the faith, as recounted by Acts and early church leader such as the 2nd century bishops Papias and Irenaeus.
2. Conciliar, the mutual accountability of the bishops to each other (rather that total independence or control by one supreme pontiff) — as Acts 10-11 and the seven ecumenical councils.
3. Concrete, the tangible connection of the faithful through baptism, communion and fellowship.

Finally, she quoted the optimistic view of C.S. Lewis in his essay “On the Reading of Old Books”:

We are all rightly distressed, and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seen from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity. I know, for I saw it; and well our enemies know it.

The True Faith

Linsley quoted from an eclectic mix of Christian thought on the need to repair the divided church. One quote was from Wednesday morning’s hymn — “The Church’s One Foundation” — the 19th century classic by S.J. Stone:

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping;
Their cry goes up, "How long?"
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.

From Basil the Great in On the Holy Spirit:

Every man is a theologian; it does not matter that his soul is covered with more blemishes than can be counted. The result is that these innovators find an abundance of men to join their factions. So ambitious, self-elected men divide the government of the churches among themselves, and reject the authority of the Holy Spirit. The ordinances of the Gospel have been thrown into confusion everywhere for lack of discipline; the jostling for high positions is incredible, as every ambitious man tries to thrust himself into high office. The result of this lust for power is that wild anarchy prevails among the people; the exhortations of those in authority are rendered utterly void and unprofitable, since every man in his arrogant delusion thinks that it is more his business to give orders to others than to obey anyone himself.

From CS Lewis in God in the Dock:

We are to defend Christianity itself—the faith preached by the Apostles, attested by the Martyrs, enbodied in the Creeds, expounded by the Fathers. This must be clearly distinguished from the whole of what any one of us may think about God and man. Each of us has his individual emphasis: each holds, in addition to the faith, many opinions which seem to him to be consistent with it and true and important. And so perhaps they are. But as apologists it is not our business to defend them. We are defending Christianity; not “my religion.”

She argued the importance of rallying the church and its moral leadership: “We are bombarded by lies daily. The Church is the single institution to identify and speak against them.”

Finally, she quoted from GK Chesterton in The Ball and Chain:

Christianity is always out of fashion because it is always sane; and all fashions are mild insanities. … The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen its last summer. It keeps the key of a permanent virtue.

Making Ourselves Obsolete

Perhaps the most fundamental (and even unsettling) argument came when Nazir-Ali argued that Anglicanism is only a temporary religion awaiting the restoration of the undivided church: “Anglicanism stands ready to disappear for the sake of unity of Christ’s Church.”

This reminded me of the 1930s hymn by a devout member of the Church of Christ:

This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through
My treasures are layed up somewhere beyond the blue;
The angels beacon me through heavens open door,
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

— Albert E. Brumley (1905-1977) 

Alas, in reality I will probably pass through to the other side before reunification of the Christian churches wipes out denominationalism. Perhaps that means there will be continuing interest in a blog about Anglican liturgy.

Photos by J. West at the 2015 International Catholic Congress of Anglicans

The challenges and opportunities of post-Christian America

Despite the reputation of many Anglicans — especially Anglo-Catholics — of being inwardly focused (“sacristy rats”), the reality is that we need to be reaching out to reach new members, bring more people to (or back to) Christ, and fulfill the great commission of Matthew 28:18-20.

According to the headlines, the 2014 Pew “Religious Landscape Study” says Christianity is declining in America. But after listening to a May 13 interview with veteran religious journalist Terry Mattingly on Issues Etc. (especially the last half), I think the story is that the nominal Christians are no longer nominal and instead becoming vaguely spiritual or not religious at all. (Rod Dreher and Ed StetzerEd Stetzer have the same opinion).

On the one hand, this is a shame, because in my experience the raised-but-no-longer-Christian are the easiest to bring to church: they know of the faith, they often know it’s important, and they’ve just been (without knowing it) waiting for an point in their life when they realized that knowing and worshipping God is the most important thing we can do in this life. To some degree that’s my own journey. Still, Stetzer has advice on how to reach both audiences with the Christian message.

Mattingly's interview talks about his own (latest) denomination, the Eastern Orthodox, and how successful Orthodox parishes are those that can reach visitors who are “looking for a beautiful, stable, creedal version of the faith.” This seems like a goal ready-made for Anglo-Catholic Anglicans.

Finally, the headline version of survey results lists Episcopalian/Anglican as 1.2% of the country: 0.9% for TEC and 0.3% for the non-TEC Anglicans. By comparison, ELCA is 1.4%, and more evangelical Lutherans (such as LCMS and WELS) total 1.5%.

The age and education distribution seem similar (with TEC having more graduate degrees and the Anglicans having more college graduates overall). The one notable difference is that 5% of the TEC are shacking up (“living with a partner”) vs. 1% of the Anglicans. The proportion of never-married (unmarried + living together) is about the same — 20% for Anglicans and 21% for TEC — so our need to minister to those seeking to marry (and hopefully raise kids) in the church is more urgent than ever.