AskThePriest.org

Tolkien and Lewis - Myth vs. Lies

A reader wrote in with a question about the ubiquity of stories similar to the Christian one in other myths.  For instance, the dying and reborn god Balder, or the miraculous birth of Horus.  This is a fairly common strain of questioning.  My response is to usually talk about the conversations between CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien and Hugo Dyson that dealt with this very subject.  Here are a couple of YouTube videos that deal with those conversations.

The first is a really good portrayal of Lewis' vantage point:

 

This one illustrates Tolkien's view.  This particular conversation never happened, but all of the words portrayed as delivered by Tolkien are drawn from his writings.  Lewis is portrayed a little simplistically as the young man being lectured by the professorial Tolkien, but that's not suprising considering this is an EWTN production about Tolkien's Roman Catholicism.

 

Other posts related to this conversation:

The Feast of CS Lewis

How to read a story

Yes, Virginia...

A reader writes in:

I have always loved the Christmas story, it holds a kind of magic as good and better than anything J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis could create, because it could be true!  I have recently read that it is unlikely Jesus was born in Bethlehem there wasn't a census around that time and if there was, there would be no reason for Mary and Joseph to travel anywhere.  Does this mean that Christmas is just a story?  The nativity has always been central to my Christmas celebrations.

I hope you can help me feel less like something precious has been taken from me.

Dear Reader,

It can be daunting as people trained in rationalism for us to see truth in non-historical forms.  The solution to your dilemma is through the authors you mention in your question.  Here I will re-post an article from 2005, The Feast of CS Lewis.

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Today is the feast day of CS Lewis.  It was added at the last General Convention (one of the many things that no one seemed to notice.)  After preaching the mid-day service, my December newsletter article seemed to write itself....

I’m looking forward to the release of the movie of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe early next month.  The first time I read the Narnia series, I was around 12 or 13.  I had finished The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was a bit daunting for a new reader of Fantasy.  At the time, I believed that God existed, but I was doubtful that he had any role in the universe beyond creation.  I was technically a Deist in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, although I didn’t know it at the time.  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Last Battle had a great effect on me.  I understood the allegory, but I didn’t recognize it as Christian.  I remember thinking to myself, “I love how Lewis portrays God – I only wish Christianity believed that.”  My experience with the Christianity of Fundamentalism had led me to believe that the God Christians worshipped was a God primarily of judgment and anger.  In Aslan, I met a figure of God that while great and terrible, was primarily tender and loving.  Lewis’ writings planted a seed in me – a seed that began to be tended and watered by liturgy, word and sacrament when my family moved to the Episcopal Church. The Stories of Narnia, while not scripture, contained the Gospel message in such a way that I could hear them.  When I finally came into contact with scripture on my own terms, I saw that all the Narnia stories (and the Middle-Earth stories as well) pointed towards this ultimate story.  Fantasy literature had been my entry into the Christian life.

In our culture, we are bereft of story.  The enlightenment, while providing us with many benefits that I would never speak ill of, has left us with a lesser view of the power of fiction.  We now say that something is “Only a story,” inferring that since it does not bear up a strict factual truthfulness, that it must have less value.  Some have even applied this to scripture, asserting that if the Bible is not historically or factually true on all counts, that it cannot be the Word of God.  I find this hard to understand, since the first place I heard the Word spoken was in the pages of a fantasy novel by an Anglican author.  If you had placed a Bible in my hands at that time, all I would have been able to hear would be the echoes of the “fire and brimstone” sermons I had heard and rejected. CS Lewis held my hand with the image of Aslan until I was able to look at the Bible in the light of the Gospel message as he re-told it. In my experience, story is much more powerful than fact and quite often bears more truth. 

We are heading towards the Christmas season – the ultimate “Fairy Tale” in terms of our Christian year.  We know that the date of December 25th was set arbitrarily by a Pope in the 300s to coincide with the Roman pagan feast of Sol Invictus.  Biblical Scholars believe that the birth was probably in the spring, not the winter, and the Early Church Fathers back that up.  But think of what we would lose if we would change the date:  Visions of a pregnant Mary and her husband walking through the cold snow to get to Bethlehem, of shepherds huddling together with their flocks against the bitter wind, of magi plodding their camels through the wintry roads of Judea following a star in the clear night sky.  We would lose “Silent Night” and “In the Bleak Midwinter.”    We’d even have to get rid of “The Christmas Song” whether you prefer Sinatra, Crosby or Cole.

The setting of Christmas in midwinter, when we are so aware of how fragile life is, when cold kills and famine threatens, tells us something about the Incarnation.  It speaks of the frightening vulnerability of the Child Jesus and the wonder that God would love us so much to bring himself to a manger.  Even though it may be factually incorrect, the story is so much more powerful when set in the Winter that it is “truer” than one set in the Spring.  Yes, the wintry setting of the Birth of Jesus IS a “Fairy Tale.”  In fact, the Gospels can be seen as a whole to be a fairy tale or a tale that embraces the essence of fairy tales.  But, as Tolkien wrote, “This story has entered History … The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe (joyous unexpected event) of Man’s history. … There is no story ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. … This story is supreme; and it is true.  Art has been verified.  God is the Lord, of angels, and of men – and of elves.  Legend and History have been fused. “(Tree and Leaf, 1964) 

Christmas is not something to be picked apart and analyzed.  It is something to be experienced.  It is a story to be heard to and to be made a part of us.  Make time this Christmas to encounter the truth of story, and expect to be changed by it.

David+

See also:

How to Read a Story

What is Orthodoxy?

A reader writes in:

What is "Orthodoxy?"  I don't mean the Eastern version of Christianity - I know what that is. :) What I'm getting at is, what is considered the core, true Christian doctrine in the Episcopal Church?
You see, I am thinking of joining. I was brought up a Lutheran (LCMS), but ultimately found the faith too cold and distant for me. Then I got involved in the New Age movement, which I found didn't hold any water and also led to some disturbing experiences. After one particularly bad experience, I found I needed Jesus back, really bad, but not the Jesus I was raised with.

Now I am torn between ideas of what the Episcopal Church really teaches. From those who adhere to a more conservative Christianity, the church is infected with the same hippy-trippy, everybody's going to heaven, vague and noncommittal "faith" that can be found in, say, Unitarian churches - even that Jesus isn't really considered all that important, according to them. Others say it's just another traditional Protestant denomination.

Personally, I lean Anglo-Catholic, but I feel that a lot of the issues that are raised - homosexuality, female priests, even vestments - must be irrelevant in the light of actually accepting Christ as your savior. But does the church teach of this central role of Christ anymore? Is Jesus still the only way to the Father? Personally, I feel that not being God, I cannot with certainty state the eternal fate of others; yet, there is no denying the role of Christ as redeemer. I leave it up to God, and perhaps hope that there is grace for those who are good yet unbelieving. I am still compelled to live and share my faith, though. Of that I feel I can be certain.

So, are Episcopalians really Christians, or somewhat Jesus-leaning New Agers? My experience with my old ways taught me the real, awful outcome of believing oneself to be God, or all there really is. Who is Jesus, and God, in your Church? What is the Bible, and what is our purpose in life?

That’s a tall order, and I’ll link to some other articles on the role of the Bible in the Episcopal Church at the end of the post.  But the central question is one of “orthodoxy.” Are Episcopalians “orthodox” Christians or not?  It depends on your definition of “orthodoxy,” of which there are many.  For Eastern Orthodox Christians, it means a Christian who is part of the Orthodox Church.  For Roman Catholics, it means a Christian who accepts the all the Dogmas of that church.  For Fundamentalist Evangelicals, it means a Christian who accepts (among other things) the literal inerrancy of the Bible.  When the term is used in the Anglican tradition, it is often being used by conservative Anglo-Catholic or Evangelical separatists to define themselves over and against  the existing church.  That definition usually has to do with positions over human sexuality couched in scriptural language.

The word “orthodoxy” is made up of two greek roots, “ortho” meaning “right” and “doxos” meaning “Praise.”  Orthodoxy is literally using the right praise of God.  However, most people interpret it to mean something doctrinal.  Some start with the so-called “Vincentian Canon,” which was formulated by St. Vincent of Lerins in 434, “that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all.”  My experience is that those who quote it think that whatever they believe fits that category.  However, it is very hard to get down to something that basic.  The Trinity?  Not for many early Christians before the first church councils.  The two natures of Christ?  Not for the Oriental Orthodox Churches.  None of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity can be said to be held “everywhere, always and by all” except perhaps the Biblical exclamation, “Jesus is Lord!” and the reality of the Resurrection in some form.

Since “orthodoxy” is a hard target to hit, perhaps it would be better to ask “What do Episcopalians believe?” and then decide whether that accords with your understanding of the Christian faith.  The normative beliefs of Episcopalians are to be found in the Book of Common Prayer.  The Catechism on page 845 is a starting point.  One Anglican writer notes that the “Anglican Dogmas” are the Trinity and the two natures in one person of Christ.  Now, do ALL Episcopalians believe in the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, and the bodily Resurrection?  Nope.  But that’s no more an indication of the central teaching of the church than nuns fomenting for women’s ordination reflect the central teaching of the Papacy.  

The Anglican tradition has been one of a “Middle Way” between Catholicism and Protestantism, where membership has to do with participation in worship rather than affirmation of any catechism or confession.  This goes all the way back to the Elizabethan Compromise.  As a result, our doctrine IS a little vague, and intentionally so.  We are more a family of churches than a singular incarnation of Christianity.  There is room in the Anglican tradition for manifestations of various flavors of Christianity.  We have extreme gin-and-lace Victorian Anglo-Catholics, Bible-thumping Evangelicals, Crypto-Unitarians, liturgical Pentecostals and more variations on those themes than you can imagine.  Yes, there is a “hippy-trippy” element to parts of the Episcopal Church, but that part has always been there.  The first Unitarians in America at the time of the Revolution were Anglicans who removed Trinitarian references from their BCPs and we have always retained that edge.

No matter what certain individual members may beleive, as a denomination we affirm Jesus as our Lord, even while engaging in interfaith dialogue.  I highly commend the Statement on Inter-religious Relations and Interfaith Dialogue which was passed at our 2008 General Convention for an excellent exploration of how we uphold our truth claims about Jesus while talking to others.

Whether the Episcopal Church is a good fit really has to do with HOW you view your Christian faith.  If you are the kind of person who wants a strict set of doctrines to believe, and to think that everyone else in the church has that same exact set, the Episcopal Church is not and has never been that place.  Much of the turmoil in the last few years has been due to people finally realizing that.  However, if you are “playful” with your faith, and think you might have something to learn from someone who believes differently, we might be the place for you.  Our rock is Jesus as the second person of the most Holy Trinity.  The rest, while sometimes important, is commentary.

David+

Further Reading on AskThePriest related to this post:

Anglican Dogma

Taking the Bible Seriously, Not Literally

Generous Orthodoxy

What do Episcopalians Believe?

And one from my personal blog:

Who are these Revisionists?

Abortion and Forgiveness

A reader writes in:

“Hi there. I’ve got something to ask that I think I already know the answer to, but it’s something I want to say anyway. about 10 years ago, I was in a relationship with a girl who fell pregnant. We hadn’t been together long, were both young, and totally unprepared financially or mentally, and so it came as a massive shock. She told me she didn’t want to keep it, and I said I’d support her decision, so she had an abortion, which I understand to be a major sin. At the time, I had no interest in religion, but over the years I’ve become more and more interested in Christianity, to a point I’ve started asking questions about life and wondering about our meaning. I consider myself a good person, who’s kind, caring and moral, and anyone who knows me would say the same, only I know deep inside that because I allowed this to happen, that my soul is likely to go to hell. Again, I never used to believe in hell, but I’m beginning to think it’s an apt place for me due to what I did. I know it wasn’t my own decision, but the fact I agreed to it makes me just as responsible as my ex. Our relationship fell apart weeks later, she got involved with another guy and I was dumped, and I convinced myself that if we’d had the child, it would either have had to be adopted, or I would have had to look after it on my own and maybe even resent it, which would have been again, terrible to even do to an innocent, but the fact remains that almost 10 years after this event, not even my family know of it, and it’s beginning to eat away at my insides because I’m not convinced no matter how ashamed I am, and no matter how deep I regret it, that I’m going to be punished for it. Is there anything I can do to try to earn God’s forgiveness in this matter, or should I just accept my fate, live a good life, and then take my punishment? It feels kinda good to be able to try to confess this to someone religious, and I can only hope you don’t judge me too harshly in your reply. If I am to suffer God’s wrath, believe me, I’ll accept it, but I really hope there’s something I can do to try to earn redemption.”

I’m going to divide this into two responses, the moral theology response and the pastoral response.  In the moral theology response, I will address the issue of Abortion and the Episcopal church’s stance.  In the pastoral response, I will discuss forgiveness.

Moral Theology

Abortion is a complex question morally, as it has two sets of  goods in conflict.  One set is the woman involved.  In some cases, her life and/or health may be threatened.  Beyond that, there is always the question of her right to self-determination.  The other set are the rights  of the fetus - obviously a question of life.  Many people with pro-life opinions consider this an easy dilemma, as a fetus is a human being with a soul from conception.  Pro-choice people also sometimes consider this decided, as the rights of a woman to self-determination is the core principle.

But neither of these positions are as obvious as some make them out to be.  Who determines that a fetus is a human being from conception, rather than at some other point of development?  Jewish tradition from early times seems to be that a fetus is not a human being from a legal standpoint and there are varying ideas as to when “ensoulment” happens.  Christians have had varying ideas about when a fetus changes from being a part of the mother to a distinct human being.  And even if the fetus IS a human being, in the case of risk to the mother, is it moral to endanger a viable human life (the mother) in order to preserve the possibility of new human life?  Likewise the principle of self-determination is not so obvious.  If the fetus IS a fully human life, does not the right to life trump self-determination, at least as a matter of reproductive choice?  

Beyond the issues of individual morality, there are issues of how to deal with this as a society.   If we do wish to prohibit abortion, are there exceptions?  Does the answer change the further along a pregnancy gets?  Can we really force a woman, against her will, to carry a child to term?  Will legal prohibition actually stop abortion, or will it simply mean that the rich will have access by going to where they can get them while the poor return to the dangerous providers they had before Roe vs. Wade?

None of these are easy questions to answer.  And despite some opinions, there is no unified consensus as to how to answer these questions in either Judaism or Christianity.  Therefore, the Episcopal Church has a nuanced opinion, as reflected in the resolutions of our General Convention.  A good summation of them can be found in an article at Pew:

While the Episcopal Church recognizes a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy, the church condones abortion only in cases of rape or incest, cases in which a mother's physical or mental health is at risk or cases involving fetal abnormalities. The church forbids "abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection or any reason of mere convenience."

We tend to be pretty down to earth with moral issues.  While we recognize the moral problems with purely elective abortion, we also recognize that a woman’s body is her own and that legal prohibition is unlikely to resolve the underlying issues.  While legislating against abortion might make us feel better, there are good questions as to whether it would actually stop abortion, or simply make it more risky for the poor.  Decisions such as these are ones that should be made in consultation with a local pastor, who understands the people involved and the specifics of the case.

Pastoral Response

I’m not going to get into whether what you did was a sin, because it does not matter, you experience it as sin, that is, something that separates you from God.  Blame is not the point, the question is, is this keeping you from a full relationship with God?  The answer from you seems to be, “Yes.”

There is nothing you can do to earn redemption, because redemption is not earned, it is a gift freely given from God.  It was given to you before you were born through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.  There is no sin that cannot be forgiven (Except perhaps “Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.”  See Blasphemy Challenge.)  If you confess your sin, you are forgiven.  Most of the time, WE are the barrier to forgiveness, being convinced we are too unworthy to be forgiven.  But God is quick to forgive.  If your shame and guilt has become a stumbling block to your restoration to relationship with God, I would suggest finding a minister and making a confession to him or her.  Sometimes, another person is able to convince us better than we can ourselves. (See To Confess or Not To Confess)

Confess your sin, your shame, your guilt, and lay it at the foot of the cross.  God loves you, and God forgives you.

David+

For further reading see: Acts of General Convention regarding Abortion

The Church Militant, Expectant and Triumphant

A reader writes in asking questions about what is often referred to the divisions of the church into the "Church Militant, Church Expectant, and Church Triumphant."

First, I should point out that these defintions are from medieval Roman Catholic theology, so while they might work for Anglicans in some ways, they don't fit us exactly. In this scheme, those in the church on earth are referred to as the "Church Militant." (Although since the idea of holy war has fallen out of disfavor in Christianity, we might want to rethink whether that is an appropriate term.) Those who have died but are in an intermediate state, which Roman Catholics term Purgatory, are the "Church Expectant." Those who are in paradise wtih God already (which would be the saints in Roman Catholic terms) are the "Church Triumphant." This division of the church is usually used in teaching to point out that our community as Christians is larger than just those of us on earth today.

Of course, as Anglicans we run into problems immediately with this division because we don't traditionally hold to the doctrine of purgatory. (For a longer discussion of this, see "To Purge or not to Purge") In addition, Anglicans are not unified in their ideas about what happens to the soul after death or even if such a thing as an independent, eternal soul exists. One of the best explorations of this subject is the book For all the saints? by N.T. Wright, the Bishop of Durham. After examining the tradition and the Bilblical witness, he concludes:

"I have tried to articulate what I take to be the solid, substantial and central New Testament hope, based on the death and resurrection of Jesus and the gift of his Spirit: that all God's people in Christ are assured of being with Christ himself, in a glorious restful existence, until the day when everything is renewed, when heaven and earth at last become one, and we are given new bodies to live and love and celebrate and rule in God's new creation." - For all the Saints? p. 71

In the end, that is probably all we can say with surety from scripture, although we are always free to conjecture.

David+

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For all theSaints

It is also available as a Google eBook here.

There's Something About Mary

A reader asks a question about what the role of the Virgin Mary is in Anglican theology.  The answer, of course, is "Yes."  Anglicans take a wide variety of opinions on the role of Mary.  Some largely ignore her, while others have devotion that rivals Medieval catholicism.  Let's look at the closest thing we have to an official document on the matter, "Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ," which is an agreed statement issued in 2005 by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission.  

"Among all the saints, Mary takes her place as Theotókos (God Bearer - this goes back to the First Council of Ephesus in 431) - ed.): alive in Christ, she abides with the one she bore, still ‘highly favoured’ in the communion of grace and hope, the exemplar of redeemed humanity,an icon of the Church. Consequently she is believed to exercise a distinctive ministry of assisting others through her active prayer. Many Christians reading the Cana account continue to hear Mary instruct them, “Do whatever he tells you”, and are confident that she draws the attention of her son to their needs: “they have no wine”(John 2:1-12). Many experience a sense of empathy and solidarity with Mary, especially at key points when the account of her life echoes theirs, for example the acceptance of vocation, the scandal of her pregnancy, the improvised surroundings of her labour, giving birth, and fleeing as a refugee. Portrayals of Mary standing at the foot of the cross, and the traditional portrayal of her receiving the crucified body of Jesus (the Pietà), evoke the particular suffering ofa mother at the death of her child. Anglicans and Roman Catholics alike are drawn to the mother of Christ, as a figure of tenderness and compassion." (p. 71)

There are many Anglican Evangelicals that would take issue with the statement that she "exercises a distinctive ministry of assisting others through her active prayer."  They would most likely insist that she, as well as all of the other faithful departed, rests in peace until the second coming.

On the other hand, there are many Anglican Anglo-Catholics who would be happy to affirm the two Marian dogmas promulgated by the Roman Catholic church.  The first is the Assumption, being that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven (see Mary, Mary!).  The second is the Immaculate Conception, which has nothing to do with the virgin birth of Jesus, but has to do with the idea that Mary herself was born without original sin (See Humility, Shame and Guilt).  

Historic Anglicanism generally claims that all things that are not explicitly contained in Scripture are up for debate and careful decision in the councils of the church.  To quote Article VI of the Articles of Religion:

"Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby,is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation."

Therefore, since the role of Mary is not explicitly spelled out in scripture, no position either pro or con on the Marian doctrines should be made "Dogmatic" (required belief.)  Neither should Marian prayer be required or prohibited, although we certainly believe that we have direct access to Christ.

Therefore, in most Anglican worship, devotion to Mary tends to be private instead of public.  Generally, the various Books of Common Prayer do not have Marian devotions in them, although variant versions such as the Manual of Anglo-Catholic Devotion do.  In a few parishes and in many of our monasteries Marian prayers and musical settings of the Angelus, Regina Coeli, and Salve Regina are a regular part of worship.

So the answer really is "Yes."  When talking about devotion to Mary in Anglicanism, one must use the classic dictum, "All may, none must, some should."

FrDavid+

Taking the Bible Seriously, not Literally

A reader writes in with another Biblical Question:

"When Episcopalians say that the bible is largely allegorical as opposed to historical do they mean everything including the story of resurrection is allegorical or do they just limit the belief that the bible is allegorical to the old testament?" and follows up with "The expression I commonly see on church websites is 'we take the Bible seriously, but not literally'." So what does that mean?

Part of the problem is what we mean when we talk about reading the Bible "Literally." Due to the rise of Fundamentalism in the Twentieth century, a "Literal reading" is often a code word for the belief in the inerrancy of the text itself in every aspect. This way of treating the Bible is a recently-developed one that is owed to the dominance of the Scientific Method as an underlying assumption of all of reality. People who treat the Bible as inerrant in all areas including history and science are projecting Enlightenment principles on a pre-Enlightenment text, something that is disrespectful to the text. Theologian Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse has remarked that literalism is to be regarded as "the bastard child of science and religion." It does both a disservice. When someone says they "Don't take the Bible literally," they are usually referring to this kind of belief that the Bible is inerrant in all aspects, that it has a plain meaning that transcends the culture and language the text was written in, and that we can interpret it (usually in English translation) without struggling with original setting or culture.

In pre-Enlightenment Biblical interpretation, a "Literal meaning" was considered to be the "plain reading" or original meaning. But that was considered to be only the most basic level of interpretation of the text. Following the idea of the rabbis of Jesus' time that scripture was a gem that could be turned to bring out different refractions of the true light, they worked in not only the literal level, but the Allegorical, Tropological and Anagogical senses. Sometimes the plain interpretation was considered to be the inferior interpretation. How did this work? pre-Enlightenment interpreters believed that the Holy Spirit worked within the community of the church to bring out the deepest, richest meanings of scripture.

One problem with "Biblical Literalism" as we know it today is that it takes the text and pretends as if it were a moral or theological text written by a modern person grounded in empirical methods of knowledge. The authors of the Biblical texts lived under completely different assumptions about the nature of reality and the purpose of literature. The other problem with "Biblical Literalism" is that it leaves no room for the role of the Holy Spirit in the church. In order to interpret the Bible properly, we have to try to put ourselves into their world and understand the plain meaning for them. Then, through the community working with the Holy Spirit, we need to discuss how such scripture applies to us today. This, in my opinion, is what taking the Bible seriously requires.

In my experience, the vast majority of Episcopalians, both clergy and lay, believe that the physical resurrection of Jesus really occurred. The texts about the Resurrection can be read on many different levels, so therefore, it is both literal and allegorical.

David+

Related articles on askthepriest.org:

The Heresy of Literalism

Literalism, the Heresy of the 20th Century

Father Matthew Presents: Biblical Inerrancy

The Bible and Chronological Accuracy

The Bible and Chronological Accuracy

A Reader writes in:

Many Christians have told me that the bible is without Error and this below statement from your website seems to imply that you would agree with this tradition of understanding. Especially since many Bible verses state that God's word is perfect.

"1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the revealed Word of God."

This statement would to me imply that no Error can be found in any translation of bibles if they are a perfect written reflection of god breathed words or any historical event that transpired.

He then provides a link to a site that shows a chronological error in Exodus and Numbers.

It all comes down to what is meant by "without error." The idea that the Scriptures are the revealed Word of God does not imply that everything in the Bible is scientifically or even historically true (in a modern sense). Most Episcopalians would say that the Word of God is "inspired" rather than "dictated." This means that the authors of the books of the Bible left the imprint of their worldview and value systems upon the writings. While the scriptures DO contain truth, it is not of the scientific or modern historical kind, of which the methods simply did not exist at the time the books were written. The version the American Episcopal church passed of the first part of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral is this: "The Holy Scriptures, as containing all things necessary to salvation." In other words, all things that are needed to be reconciled to God are to be found within the Bible. Not all things, not even all knowledge about God, but those necessary to salvation. To try to subject the scriptures to the criteria of scientific rationalism or modern historical method would be kind of like taking a poem about a tree and criticizing it for not using modern botanical taxonomy.

Yes, there are some Christians who believe that for the Bible to be inerrant it would have to not be contradicted in any aspect, but that only shows how compromised their understanding of the historic Christian faith is by rationalism. Theologian Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse has remarked that literalism is to be regarded as "the bastard child of science and religion."

Therefore, please excuse me if I don't spend time with the analysis between Exodus and Numbers. I'll gladly grant that point. Yes, there are places where there are scientific inaccuracies in the Bible. Yes, there are places where different chronologies don't match up. But that is not the truth that the Bible holds, and to hold it to modern ideas of historical accuracy is to misuse the text.

I've written on this at a couple of places:

The Heresy of Literalism

How to Read a Story

David+

What do Episcopalians Believe?

A reader writes in:

Over a number of years, through a number of Episcopalian friends, I've come to learn a fair amount about the Episcopal Church. The most important knowledge of all, however, however, has so far eluded me. I haven't been able to find out the core tenets of the Episcopal faith--those things, in other words, that must be believed by those who call themselves Episcopalians, and that distinguish the Episcopal faith from other faiths.

The answers I've received when I ask my Episcopalian friends about their faith are varied. One friend has told me "The three-legged stool"--which, I understand, is the basis for forming tenets of faith, but not the tenets themselves. Another has said "We aren't a doctrinal faith, since doctrine so often proves a stumbling block." (I don't know if I'm mistaken in receiving the impression that this is tantamount to saying "You can believe pretty much anything you want, so long as you enjoy going to church services together with us.") Still another asserts that "Most of us can recite the Nicene Creed without talking out of the side of our mouths...."

Responses like these have made the Episcopal faith sound like a moving target to me. I'd be glad to know what the faith tenets are that are both essential and unique to Episcopalianism.

It is indeed sometimes confusing for people outside the Episcopal Church to put their finger on who we are. The confusion comes from our self-definition, which is that we are a creedal, rather than a confessional church. What this means is that we do not have foundational doctrinal statements other than the Nicene and Apostles Creeds. Most other Christian denominations have some sort of confessional document, like the Ausburg confession for Lutherans or the Greater Catechism for Roman Catholics, that lays out exactly what the teaching of the church is on most matters. Instead, our central document is the Book of Common Prayer, which defines worship rather than doctrine as a unifying principle. The mark of an Episcopalian is that he or she attends Episcopal services, which includes recitation of the creeds. However, there are no requirements that a layperson believes particular doctrine in order to become an Episcopalian. This is why the friend who says, "You can believe pretty much anything you want, so long as you enjoy going to services together with us" is largely correct. My experience as a priest is that as people participate in the liturgy over the years, the doctrine included in our regular worship becomes part of them by an osmotic process.

So what is it that sets us apart? In some ways, it's the fact that we insist that we are NOT set apart from or superior to other Christians. Episcopalians consider themselves one part of the universal catholic church, of which all baptized Christians are members. We like the way we do things, but do not insist that ours is the only or even the best way. This is why we have been leaders in the Ecumenical movement to reconcile the various denominations of Christianity. At one point in our history, we asked ourselves, "What is the minimum amount of agreement needed in order to re-unify the church?" William Reed Huntington articulated the answer in what we now refer to as the "Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral," which is a basis for ecumenical work:

1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the revealed Word of God.

2. The Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith.

3. The two Sacraments,--Baptism and the Supper of the Lord,--ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him.

4. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.

The Theologian Robert Hughes III has remarked that if we talk in terms of dogma (which are core beliefs that are non-negotiable) as opposed to doctrine (on which different positions may be held) there really are only two for Anglicans: the doctrines of the Trinity, and of the two natures in one person in Christ. All the rest, while important, are not core to Episcopal identity. (Note that other doctrines, such as the Resurrection, are implied by those two.)

Therefore, your observation that our doctrine is a "moving target" is pretty apt. I often say that looking at the Episcopal Church is like looking at the universal church in miniature. There are Episcopalians who believe in Transubstantiation in the eucharist and ones who are Calvinistic. Some of us are more like Eastern Orthodox in our piety and others are more like Presbyterians. We have Anglo-Catholics who sing Latin hymns in worship and charismatics who speak in tongues. We are unified not by doctrinal uniformity, but by the Book of Common Prayer, the creeds, and a common belief that there are many ways to Christ.

David+

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Related posts on AskThePriest:

Anglican Dogma?

William Reed Huntington - a man of our time?

Why am I an Episcopalian?

To Cross or not to Cross?

 A Reader has written in asking questions about the ceremonial in the Eucharist.  This is not an unusual type of question here at AskThePriest, so it's a good time to talk about the place of ceremonial in services conducted according to the Book of Common Prayer.  Ceremonial is all the "trappings" around services of the church that don't have to do with the words of the rite itself.  This includes vestments, objects, and the things that usually cause the most consternation, Manual actions of the celebrant during Eucharist and personal acts of piety (which are actually two separate things but I will refer to them together as "Manual Acts" for a couple of paragraphs.)

In discussion of manual acts, the first thing that needs to be noted is that in Anglican liturgical tradition, mandatory manual acts are sparse.  Let's compare how two similar liturgical texts are treated in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (BCP)  and in the Divine Book of Worship (DBW), which is a Vatican-approved modified BCP for use in Anglican-Rite congregations in the US.  These are from what we would call Rite II, Prayer D, the Eucharistic prayer based on the Liturgy of St. Basil.  We are at the section of the "Words of Institution," where Jesus' words at the last supper are recalled.  

Here's the BCP version:

 

Here's the DBW version:

 

Note the difference?  In the BCP, the celebrant is to hold or lay a hand upon the element being offered.  In the Roman version of the same prayer, the manual actions of bowing, genuflecting and elevating are all clearly laid out in the official text.  It does not follow that because the BCP does not require you to perform additional manual acts does not mean you cannot (it is prescriptive, not restrictive) but their lack does not make a eucharist's rite "improper."

The historical reason for this is that Anglicanism contains within it many different strands, often summed up as Anglo-Catholic, Broad, Evangelical and Pentecostal, and all have had to use the same BCP.  This makes brevity in required ceremonial a real virtue.  Today, you can visit an Episcopal Church where the service is reminiscent of a Pre-Vatican II Roman high mass or one that uses praise music and speaking in tongues, and they might both use the same eucharistic prayer.  The minimalism inherent in the BCP makes that possible.  Note that this agreement about the secondary nature of ceremonial is a modern achievement.  For a post about when this was NOT true, see here.

So how do we make choices about which manual acts we perform and which we do not since there is no "Authorized" set of these actions?  This is largely a function of the tradition of the parish and of the celebrant.  While you can find manuals that detail the "correct" way to perform manual acts, such as Lamburn's (Victorian) Ritual Notes or (to a lesser degree) Michno's A Priest's Handbook, most modern liturgical books talk about principles that a celebrant and congregation should take into account in making decisions about eucharistic celebration.

One I have read lately and am impressed with is Patrick Malloy's Celebrating The Eucharist.  Malloy seems to be moving in a different direction from some of the overly-functionalist manuals of the past few years.  He lays out ten principles:

1. The entire assembly celebrates the liturgy.
2. Liturgical acts are not things to be done during prayer, but are themselves prayer.
3. The church at prayer is Christ in his Body at prayer.
4. Christianity and Christian worship is earthy, not esoteric.
5. The essential elements should always be highlighted, not hidden or dwarfed.
6. When neither the rubrics not the canons dictate what to do and reason does not provide a solution, the Roman Rite is a good place to start.
7. Less is generally more.
8. It is far more fruitful to ask what the liturgy and its components do than to ask what they mean.
9. The liturgy must be scaled to the assembly celebrating it and congruent with their character.
10. Musical elements integral to the liturgy take precedence over music inserted into it, and all the music in the liturgy should be coherent with it.

There is also a separation between the general actions of the liturgy, the private acts of the celebrant, and acts of personal piety that individual members of the congregation may perform.

In the Episcopal Church, different celebrants have very different celebratory styles.  Priests develop celebratory styles based on their seminary experience, their reading, their experience in the parish, and their preferences.  When it comes to my own celebration, I follow a usage close to what the Order of Julian of Norwich uses in their chapel, but that is a choice, and in no way passes judgement upon those who choose otherwise. (For resources on the liturgical uses of OJN, which is a simplified Anglo-Catholic style, see here.) 

In addition, parishioners may perform acts of personal piety (AOPP), which include the choice of standing or kneeling at certain times, crossing themselves, bowing, genuflecting, raising hands, etc.  These all come out of tradition and not the Prayer Book.  The general Anglican dictum usually covers this, "All may, none must, some should."  My general principle is that when people are serving in that altar party, their personal pieties need to be precluded so as not to distract from the major action, which is on the table in front of the Celebrant.  The altar party should move as one.

So there is no "Correct" way to do things as long as the basic rubrics of the BCP are observed.  There are "Traditional" ways of doing things, but these vary widely across and inside liturgical traditions.  It can also be argued that some ways are better than others, but that is a decision that has to be made within a specific congregation.  The best way to go about this is to develop a liturgical "customary" that notes the actions that the celebrant and ministers are to perform, so that expectations are clear.

Keeping this in mind, let's look at the specific questions of the reader.  My response is the response of one priest outside the reader's community, so it is only an opinion.  It is certainly not authoritative.

"First, It is my understanding that it is customary for the celebrant and assisting ministers to make a solemn bow during the Sanctus, standing upright again at the word "heaven."  In this context, does the term assisting ministers refer to only those who are ordained, or doe it refer to all ministers of the altar? If it refers to all ministers of the altar, would it be appropriate as a member of the congregation to make the same solemn bow during the Sanctus?"

In some places, it is the custom for the celebrant to bow at the words "Holy, Holy Holy" and to straighten before the Benedictus ("Blessed is he.")  In general, "Assisting ministers" means all those who assist, lay or ordained.  I think it makes sense for the entire altar party to do as the Celebrant does at this point, bow or no bow.  Whether a person in the congregation bows or not is an AOPP, and therefore up to that person.

"Second, it is also my understanding that the celebrant and assisting ministers may make the sign of the cross at the words, "Blessed is he..."  Again, is it appropriate for laity to do the same?  I have been doing this for a number of years, simply following our former rector.  In this context, what is the purpose if not all ordained clergy  make the sign of the cross at this time? "

The cross at the Benedictus is another optional thing.  Some question its use, as is could be misconstrued as us saying that we are the "He who comes in the name of the Lord" as opposed to Jesus.  I don't buy that - I think it's a reminder that Jesus is the one (You know - Neo).  But in any case, my general thought is that if the celebrant does it, the entire altar party should as well.  If the celebrant does not, the altar party should refrain. The matter of members of the congregation making the sign is once again an AOPP.

"Third,  During the consecration, the celebrant and other clergy members make the sign of the cross at the words "Sanctify us also that we may faithfully...."  Again, is it appropriate for laity and members of the congregation to do the same, and if so what is the significance?"

The significance is that these words are the "Epiclesis," or invocation of the Holy Spirit, over the people. (Another one is made over the gifts.)  The celebrant is asking for the same gift of the Holy Spirit as received by the Apostles, so a crossing is very appropriate.  Again, I suggest unity within the altar party and congregational use is a AOPP.

"Finally, I have noticed the Book of Common Prayer has "Amen" in brackets after the prayer that clergy and Eucharistic ministers say when giving Holy Communion (i.e., " The Body of Christ, The Bread of Heaven. [Amen.]").  I am a life long Episcopalian, and have never said Amen after receiving the bread or the wine.  However, now serving as a Eucharistic minster,  I have noticed that some say Amen after receiving the bread and the wine, most of which are all former Roman Catholics and have continued this practice of saying amen.  Is it correct to say "Amen" after receiving the sacrament? "

It is neither correct nor incorrect because it is optional, but according to Malloy, this custom is very ancient. "Augustine attests to it in the fourth century.  By responding 'Amen,' the communicant assents to what the minister has said, and takes a more active role in the sacramental exchange.  The communicant receives the sacrament, including under the form of wine, only after the 'Amen.'" (p. 187)

David+