Empty Ecclesiastical Bathtubs - Sacraments

Part the third...

Sacraments:  Obviously we evangelicals have sacraments.  What I want to talk about here is a high view of the sacraments.  Most folks in my tradition speak of the sacraments in terms of what they symbolize and commemorate but there is little talk of them as actions with actual unique outcomes.

We talk a lot about what baptism says but not much about what it does.  We say it's "an outward symbol of an inward experience" and we say it's a testimony and a step of obedience but we seem to think it has very little immediate effect on us.  When asked how being baptized changed us most evangelicals would be somewhat stumped.  I went from not being baptized to being baptized?  I became eligible for membership?

We talk a lot about what communion remembers but precious little about what impact our partaking in it has on us beyond being reminded of the work of Christ on the cross.  Not that remembering the crucifixion isn't of great importance but in evangelical circles it seems that our understanding of "remembrance" through communion has little to set it apart from our remembrance though looking at a crucifix, or reading the crucifixion and resurrection accounts in the gospels... or watching The Passion of the Christ.  I think sometimes The Lord's Table has become for us little more than a ritual mnemonic device.

So what do I really believe about the sacraments? To be honest I'm not 100% sure these days but I have a growing, nagging suspicion or maybe more accurately a desire to believe that there is more to them then just symbolism and obedience.

I have long been a proponent of counting conversions by Baptism as opposed to hands, stands, cards, and alter calls.  I believe that Baptism is the true moment of "public declaration."  I like the idea that Baptism is the moment when we truly become part of the church, our "grafting in" so to speak.  Not just that it symbolizes that this has already happened but that it actually takes place at that moment.  I love the idea that baptism cleanses us form original sin and it's associated guilt although I can't see it clearly enough in scripture to embrace it. (Turns out I'm protestant after all.)

I have long been a proponent of the idea that we should celebrate the Lord's Supper with a greater regularity than is common in most evangelical churches.  I like weekly but I'm pretty sure four times a year misses the mark. I love the idea that in the communion elements He is present in an even greater way then He is in His omnipresence and even then He is "where two or three are gathered."  I love the idea that through communion we, somehow, feed on Christ and become more one with Him in a way that goes beyond simple remembrance.  What if our Rome-a-phobia has robbed us of something beautiful and powerful and meaningful and transformative?

I crave an understanding of the sacraments that sees them as more than just our oldest rituals and more even than Jesus-ordained rituals.  I struggle to believe that the same Jesus who used so many different word pictures came up with what boils down to a couple of simple object lessons and then asked us to repeat them.

I long to to see the sacraments as spiritual, mystical, uniquely beneficial, and effective not just affective. At the very least I want to fully explore the idea that the sacraments are - as Wesley himself taught - a means of grace.

Empty Ecclesiastical Bathtubs - Liturgy

This is part 2 in my ongoing series about areas where I think evangelical protestants, in the interest of correcting what we saw as errors in traditions like Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism, may have thrown out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.

Liturgy:  I have an Anglican friend who is always quick to point out that every church and late night talk show host has a liturgy.  The question is not 'do you have a liturgy' but 'what is it?' I come out of a revivalist tradition and so much of our traditional Sunday morning liturgy, we would say "order of service," is patterned after revival meetings - song service, preaching service, altar service.  Over the years that has been slightly tweaked to include the offering and announcements and, in certain dark corners where the devil holds sway, a ritualistic form of congregational abuse dubiously described as "special music."

So what I'm really talking about here is rich liturgy.  Liturgy that is beautiful and narrative and symbolic.  Liturgy that gives rhythm to a life of faith.  The kind of liturgy that allows us to lean hard on 2000 years of expressions of worship crafted by the church as led by the Spirit.  Liturgy that reminds us that the truth we live is ancient, timeless, and unchanging.  Not that we want to lose sight of its relevance today, but we also want to anchor it in the reality that what will get us through Monday has been getting Christians all over the world through their Mondays for millennia.

So what would this look like in the Wesleyan context?  I don't know.  If my training was painfully-weak on catechism it was downright non-existent on liturgy.  I learned the word.  That's about it. I do know that in my own ministry the weekly celebration of communion (more on that in a future post) and the consistent dismissal by pronouncement of a scriptural benediction have been helpful and meaningful.

But I suppose practically speaking if I as a Wesleyan were going to delve into implementing more of a liturgical dimension to the worship of a local church I would start with the liturgy that Wesley himself was shaped by and seemed to love - the liturgy of the Anglican Church as found in the Book of Common Prayer.  (There is a good introduction to Wesley and liturgy by John Drury HERE.)

Then I would work my way out from there creatively. I think sometimes we evangelicals think that liturgy is the opposite of creativity, but I have a growing suspicion that it is just the opposite, that liturgy is actually the pinnacle of creativity in worship.  Maybe good liturgy takes the meticulously creative care that is given to a great song lyric and extends it to every prayer, and reading, and celebration of sacrament?

Of course the common objection to liturgy is that it's dry and I have seen that be true many times.  I love hamburgers but when not cooked properly they are dry.  One way to keep hamburger from becoming dry is to use Hamburger Helper.  Another way is to learn how to actually cook.  Maybe it's time for evangelicals to lean less on the Hamburger Helper of shallow but passionate worship forms and instead learn how to cook up services with depth and passion, spirit and truth.

Misplaced Theological Babies and Empty Ecclesiastical Bath Tubs.

For several years now I have had a hard time describing myself as a protestant.  Not because my theology doesn't ultimately fit that classification but because I don't hold the beliefs that label me protestant as any sort of protest against the Roman Catholic Church.  It's probably also because protestant so often means Reformed and I'm probably closer to Catholic in many places than I am to Reformed.

I love my Catholic brothers and sisters and have benefited greatly form their influence.  I have had a similar but more limited experience with my orthodox Anglican brothers and sisters. 

I understand, and to a meaningful extent agree with, most of the stances the tradition I am a part of (evangelicalism generally, The Wesleyan Church specifically) has taken that are different from Catholicism (and to a lesser extent Anglicanism) but there are a few proverbial babies I fear we have thrown out with the metaphorical bathwater. I'd like to take a few moments to point those out in hopes that we might sometime reclaim them from... wherever you dump theological bathwater.  This metaphor has its limitations.  This will be a brief but multi-part series covering one topic per post.  Let's get it started. 

Catechesis: I think there is a huge place for intentional, systematic, theological instruction in the church.  I was taught a ton as a kid growing up in church but I was pretty much only taught the dots. It wasn't until bible college that anyone ever really started to hint that those dots could be connected, and frankly I'm not sure the school I went to did a particularly good job of actually helping me make those connections. 

The idea that as we raise our children together to know, love, serve, and follow Jesus we would take them through the core truths of the faith in some logical sequence and show them how all those truths interrelate and enrich each other seems so obvious as to almost sound silly when argued for.  In the parts of evangelicalism that I have lived in, the closest we get to this is an intentional set of principals or virtues taught with enough repetition to make them memorable, but that's a far cry from actual theology and instead has a tendency to create moralists rather than Christians.

The very same could be said of how we handle adults who are recent or prospective converts to the way of Jesus.  Here is a Bible.  Come to church.  Join a small group,  best of luck...  I hate how many times I have been guilty of this approach to theological foundation laying in people's lives.  I hate that I likely will be again because I lack the resources, internal or external, to do otherwise.  

I think a significant part of the effectiveness of Alpha is that there is some sort of intentional, sequential organizing principle to the material.  That said its time frame alone means it has significant limitations in terms of how comprehensive it can be.  Call it an effective evangelization tool and proof of concept for catechesis but not a replacement for it.

I think the soil in which the evangelical movement grew was one in which the converts came pre-catechized by their catholic or mainline church upbringings, and we just needed to energize that with some zeal and a sense of actual relationship with God and mission from God.  Those days are long gone.  If we are to truly make disciples of people who are biblically illiterate and theologically uninitiated then some form of the age old practice of catechesis will be essential.

I would love to see a great, clear, useful Catechism from a Wesleyan/Arminian perspective.  If you know of one please direct me too it.