Melvin Tinker, the vicar of St John Newland in the city of Hull, and the chairman of the steering committee of the Yorkshire Gospel Partnership, was kind enough to send me an article a few weeks ago that he wrote with Peter Sanlon on ecclesiology (later: I found out that this article was originally published in the Church Society's journal, Churchman 123:4 [Winter, 2009]). Coming from an evangelical Anglican perspective, the article addresses a number of concerns that those within that context of Anglicanism have to deal with, such as the accusations of having a weak or entirely lacking ecclesiology that might come from those within Anglo-Catholic churches or the disaffection of those who have left evangelical churches pursuing riches elsewhere.

With some biblical exegesis and a very helpful section on the posture we need to maintain when discussing ecclesiology, the article is both challenging and encouraging. In the coming week or so I will post some of the other pieces of the article I found interesting.

To begin with, I want to highlight Melvin and Peter's discussion of family heritage. All church traditions have a heritage, be it one that spans centuries, or one that spans a few decades, and we all owe something to that heritage. I cannot speak for the UK, but I have noticed two dominant trajectories with respect to the way North American churches deal with their heritage: to varying degrees, they either entirely ignore it, or they idolise it. Melvin and Peter's insights on this point provide a very balanced perspective. They write,

Our family heritage, like any family, is far from perfect. If the reformers' teaching can be shown to be inadequate at points; not being entirely consistent with Scripture, then we are being most true to the reformers when we depart from them and draw closer to the teaching of the Bible. This is because the reformers were animated by the same heartbeat as modern evangelicals are—Scripture.

In the final analysis, our family heritage is to form us but not control us. Nobody appreciates an overbearing parent determined to mechanistically dictate every detail of their child's life. The reformers themselves never would have wanted their latter-day descendents to look to them for that sort of instruction. Rather they would have desired us to accept them as flawed, frail and imperfect family, who lived with the same passion that ought to enliven us. They are most respected when the heritage of active reformation and revival is pursued in ways that respectfully grow and develop from their firm foundation.

...the heritage of our earlier reformation family, by their divergences and growth, should stimulate us to further reflection and self-critique. If we only listen to the teachers who are alive today, with whom we agree, then we are consigning ourselves to only learn from leaders alive at a stage of church history when Western Christianity can hardly be argued to be in anything other than a weak, sorry state. Our family heritage in the reformers is rich and varied. Their acumen, scriptural insight and desire to spread the Gospel...should act as a real stimulus to our own growth and maturity. [But] we ought not to freeze any leader or period of history and simply try to repeat that. Engaging with the reformation writings earnestly would prevent us from doing so, for...the reformers were animated by the same heartbeat of scripture, but displayed considerable growth and difference.

A perspective like this avoids the extremes on either end of the spectrum. One side holds to the idea that there must be continual innovation and change in order to maintain relevance, and in this way, declares everything old to be obsolete and no longer useful. This can involve rather creative uses of scripture which downplay its authority. The other side pays too strict of an allegiance to heritage and tradition and can neglect to continually evaluate its scriptural validity which, in a different way, also downplays the authority of Scripture. Often, this is symptomatic of the sort of 'golden age' view of history that the article speaks of. This is not to vilify either side; indeed, the perspective Melvin and Peter put forth acknowledges there is much good in both, and that together they give us a balanced middle ground.

Heritage is important, and we ought not to neglect it. But likewise must we not elevate it to a level in which it begins to encroach on the authority if Scripture. The reformers recognised this; they did not intend for us to make carbon copies of themselves, but instead set an example for us to follow. Indeed, they confessed Ecclesia semper reformanda. May their spirit continue to inspire us.

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In my spare time—well, actually when I should doing schoolwork—I have been reading some on the history of Anglicanism. Having known very little about the tradition, I wanted to get a better picture of its roots. It was only recently that I learned of the great influence some of the continental Reformers had on Anglicanism during its most formative time, like Peter Martyr Vermigli and Martin Bucer, who both spent many years there, and John Calvin, whose influence spread through his writings.

The most notable Reformer in the English tradition is Thomas Cranmer. Church history classes I have taken in the past have touched on his life and work, but my knowledge of him was rather limited. One of the books I have been reading is Stephen Neill's 1958 study, simply called Anglicanism. Early on, discussing Cranmer's influence in the English Reformation, he writes the following:

It is to be noted that Cranmer, like the other Reformers, had fallen in love with the Bible. But his love took a particular form. He believed that the Bible was the living word of God to every man, and that it comes with the greatest power when unaccompanied by any human gloss, comment, or exposition. He was convinced that, if his fellow countrymen could be induced to read the word of God, or, if illiterate, to hear it read, it would in course of time make its way into their hearts and consciences.

Neill writes that the composition of the Book of Common Prayer was, without measure, the most significant contribution Cranmer made to the Church in the Reformation era. Whereas the genius of men like Calvin lay in their theological contributions, for Cranmer it was formulating a liturgy saturated with Scripture. Neill continues:

It was only in the next reign [of Edward VI] that Cranmer was able to provide his Church with a lectionary; when he was able to do so, he made the Church of England in a day the greatest Bible-reading Church in the world. In no other Church anywhere is the Bible read in public worship so regularly, with such order, and at such length, as in the Anglican fellowship of Churches. In making such provision, Cranmer was laying heavy demands on his Englishmen, and reposing great confidence in them. But in that too he was the typical Anglican—Anglicanism is a form of the Christian faith that demands and expects a great deal from ordinary people.

In those churches which still use the Book of Common Prayer, Cranmer's influence lives on. It is quite something to worship with an Anglican congregation and see how Scripture saturates the liturgy, and to know that this was the work of Cranmer himself. I find it quite significant that Neill sees the Anglican tradition defined by its worship, as opposed to a tradition like my own, which is characterized much more by its theology.

And so Neill writes, "We have no English Luther or Calvin...[instead] we have as our chief reformer the man who had a greater genius for liturgical worship than any other of whom we have record in the whole history of the Church."

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As many children innocently prepare their costumes and empty bags or pillowcases for an enjoyable evening of collecting candy, Protestants will be battling the forces of Satan on two fronts tonight: boycotting Halloween, and gathering together for a few rousing rounds of Rome-bashing.*

Now, I don't enjoy Halloween (specifically what American culture has made of it) and have no problem with those who wish to abstain from participating in it; there are many good reasons not to. However, I am sure there are many doing so tonight who have no idea what they are actually boycotting.

More importantly, I am very thankful the Reformation happened—I am glad that the doctrines of grace were recovered, I am glad that the abuse of power by Church leaders was curtailed, and I am glad that I did not have to pay for St. Peter’s to be built pay for my relatives to be sprung from purgatory. In the Reformation, there is indeed something to be thankful for. However, I think Rae Whitlock has it right—would we even celebrate Reformation Day if it didn't conveniently fall on the same night as Halloween?

For me, the question is why we need a special night to celebrate the Reformation. It seems to be the equivalent of using Valentine's Day to tell your wife that you love her. As your love for her should be manifest each day, shouldn't our rejoicing in God's grace be something we do each day? This grace should pour forth from the preaching of the Word and we should taste it in partaking of the Lord's Table each Sunday. Do we really need a specific day to commemorate this?

No. And that is why the celebration of Reformation Day is not a day to celebrate some theological truths. It is, in effect, a day to celebrate the disunity of the Church. That, to me, is certainly not worth celebrating.

For some reason, Protestants seem to forget that while Martin Luther ultimately made the move and broke from the Roman Catholic Church, he did not do so immediately. He spent years in agony deciding whether or not to leave the Church he knew as mother and to go against Christ's call for unity in the body of believers (John 17:20-26, 1 Corinthians 1:10). Some of the earlier Reformers who went before Luther also tried earnestly to reform the Church from within. Separating from the Church was never the intention of these men, yet their valiant efforts to remain united seem to go unheralded.

Am I advocating a return to Rome? No. Do I think the Church will ever be one this side of our Lord's return? Of course not. But when you have to start constructing graphs that look like this (and this is just the American Presbyterians!) something is terribly wrong. And it is nothing to celebrate.

* I would be remiss not to mention the few gathering together to burn non-KJV Bibles tonight.

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Filed under  //   Church   ecumenism   Martin Luther   Protestantism   Reformation   Roman Catholic Church  

From the second volume of Richard Muller's quadrilogy, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics:

The strongly worded arguments of Protestant theologians of both the Reformation and orthodox eras against the idea of a coequal authority of Scripture, tradition, and church, typically summarized by the phrase sola Scriptura, must never be taken as a condemnation of tradition or a denigration of the authority of the church as a confessing community of believers. The Reformation took as its point of departure the late medieval debate over the relation of Scripture to tradition and assumed that tradition stood as a subordinate norm under the authority of Scripture and deriving its authority from Scripture. This assumption of the fundamental value and rectitude of the church's faith insofar as it was genuinely grounded on the biblical Word allowed place in the Protestant mind both for a use of tradition and for a churchly use of confessions and catechisms as standards of belief.

This is really nothing new, but it's good. And it is especially pertinent (for me, anyway) in light of what I taught on for this past Sunday's adult Sunday School. More on that forthcoming.

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We here at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando were privileged to have Dr. Herman Selderhuis, professor of church history at the Theologische Universiteit Apeldoorn, deliver the Kistemaker Lectures about a month ago on the topic of John Calvin. This year, 2009, marks the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth and there are a large number of events and conferences going on to celebrate that. Dr. Selderhuis gave four lectures under the heading, "The Discovery of John Calvin." The lectures are available for download here (note: you'll need to have iTunes installed), and I encourage you to listen to them. There is a lot of valuable and interesting material there.

As I listened to them, I noted some of the more interesting things I heard, which I reproduce here (along with the approximate location where you can find it in the lecture).

1. Calvin did not want his theology to be known as Calvinism. As time went on, Calvin was aware of his increasing influence in the world of the Reformation, and was worried that people would begin to idolize him or his theology. As it were, Calvinism was actually a term given to Calvin's theology by Reformation-era Lutherans, and it was applied in a derogatory manner. So, Selderhuis suggests, call yourself Reformed instead.
   (Lecture 1, ±27:00-28:00)
2. It is often the case that people just equate Calvin with the Institutes. But in order to get an accurate portrayal of his whole system of thought and theology, we need to read all of his works together.
   (Lecture 2, ±3:00-4:00)
3. Calvin believed that the preaching of the Word should be accompanied by the showing and signing of the Word in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper each week. When you think you are being very Calvinistic by celebrating the Lord's Supper four or five times a year, you are actually being very loyal to the anti-Calvin leaders of the time in Geneva who opposed Calvin's desire to partake of the Supper each week.
   (Lecture 2, ±19:00-20:00)
4. We primarily use the Institutes as a theological work, but Calvin did not write it as a theological treatise, per se. It was meant, first and foremost, as a pastoral work that would lead people to a deeper understanding of the Christian life. For Calvin, doctrine and piety went hand in hand.
   (Lecture 2, ±46:00-47:00)
5. The Institutes, both originally and as we have them today, are published in large volumes, which one would likely not read in its entirety. In the mid-1500s, a Frenchman published a summary of the Institutes, a summary which gave heavy attention to the issues of the day, such as predestination. That is why Calvinism today has this caricature of being fatalistic or deterministic. If you read the Institutes in their entirety, however, you notice that the largest section of the whole work is devoted to prayer. The Frenchman who published the summary, however, thought that was not an issue. The point is, then, don't read just the summaries, but go ad fontes—back to the sources.
   (Lecture 2, ±50:00-52:00)
6. Martin Luther thought Calvin's short treatise on the Lord's Supper to be very helpful. This should not be all that surprising to us, because the understanding of the Lord's Supper in many Reformed churches actually tends toward a Zwinglian understanding instead of a Calvinistic one. Calvin combined the strengths of both Zwingli's and Luther's understanding of the Supper, and saw his view as quite in agreement with Luther.
   (Lecture 3, ±11:00, 17:00-18:00)
7. Finally, Calvin was convinced that if Luther had lived longer, he would not have sided with the Lutherans. The followers of Luther became quite militant after his death, and deviated considerably from Luther's theology.
   (Lecture 3, ±32:00-33:00)

I did not mention anything from the fourth lecture, but if you are of Dutch ancestry, you will find that one particularly humorous, as Selderhuis pokes a bit of fun at some of the perspectives of Dutch Reformed folk, especially on their understanding of the Sabbath.

All in all, it was a great blessing to have Selderhuis here. His perspectives on Calvin were enlightening and refreshing. Download the lectures, and enjoy what he has to say. He also has a new biography of Calvin that has just been released, which you can purchase here.

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