Why Anglican? By J I Packer

J.I. Packer:

I identify myself as a heritage Anglican, or a main stream Anglican, on the basis of that view of things. I adapt to state my Anglican identity, words from the great Pastor Duncan of the Free Church of Scotland, who something like 150 years ago, said in answer to a question about his identity as a minister of the church, “I’m first a Christian, second a Protestant, third a Calvinist, fourth a Paedo-baptist, and fifth a Presbyterian”. Well, I go with the first four; and then “fifth I’m an Anglican”. And if I’m asked to explain further what is the Anglicanism that I stand for, I reel off eight defining characteristics of my Anglicanism like this.

Anglicanism is first biblical and protestant in its stance, and second, evangelical and reformed in its doctrine. That’s a particular nuance within the Protestant constituency to which the Anglican church is committed – the 39 Articles show that. Ten, thirdly, Anglicanism is liturgical and traditional in its worship.

I go on to say, fourthly, Anglicanism is a form of Christianity that is pastoral and evangelistic in its style. I quote the ordinal for that and I point out that ever since the ordinal and the prayer book required the clergy to catechize the children, Anglicanism has been evangelistic, though the form of the evangelism has not been that of the travelling big tent – the form of the evangelism has been rather institutional and settled; the evangelism was part of the regular work of the parish clergyman and the community around him. But let nobody say that institutional parochial Anglicanism is not evangelistic and, today, I know the wisest folk here in England are recovering parochial evangelism in a significant way. Thank God they are.

And then I say, fifthly, that Anglicanism is a form of Christianity that is episcopal and parochial in its organization and, sixthly, it is rational and reflective in its temper. I make a point of that. I say that, in Anglican circles, any question can be asked and the Anglican ethic is to take the question seriously and discuss it responsibly. There are, of course, Protestant churches which, I think you have to say, are always running scared and as soon as a question of this kind – a real puzzle of our Christian truth, of the ways of God – is raised in their circles, they bring out the big stick. “Now you mustn’t talk like that, you shouldn’t be concerning yourself about that. Just stay with the ABC of the Gospel and Bible truth”. Theological reflection is discouraged rather than helped on its way. That makes, I believe, for real immaturity. So I celebrate the fact that Anglicanism, characteristically is rational and reflective and believes in the discipline of debate and sustained discussion, believing, you see, that like panning for gold, the gold of truth will be distilled out through the discussion and the dross of error will be panned away.

Seventhly, I tell people that Anglicanism as a form of Christianity is ecumenical and humble in spirit. Unlike some denominations, we do not claim that Anglicanism is self-sufficient. What we say, rather, is that the Anglican way is the way of a person with an unlimited charge card going through a large department store and being free to say of every valuable thing you see and would like to make your own: “That’s for me. Put it on charge”. Anglicans have always rejoiced to receive wisdom from outside their own circles. They have a vision of Christendom as a fragmented reality with flashes of truth and wisdom scattered all across the board. Our business as Anglicans, seeking the glory of God, is to pick up as much truth and wisdom (get as much help, I mean, from these scattered shards of truth and wisdom) as we possibly can. I am comfortable with that. I would be uncomfortable with anything else.

Then, eighthly, I tell people that Anglicanism characteristically is national and transformist in its outlook. By `national’ I mean that the Anglican way is to accept concern for the spiritual condition of the national group within which the gospel is being preached. By `transformist’ I mean that Anglicans seek, under Christ, to see the culture changed into a Christian mould as far as maybe. So Anglicans have always been concerned about education and educational institutions, and about a Christian voice being raised in Government and things of that kind. Please God, it will always be that way wherever Anglicans go.

All this sounds, I suppose, very triumphalist; but I do believe that Anglicanism embodies the richest, truest, wisest heritage in all Christendom. When people say “Those are fine words but everywhere in the west Anglicanism is sinking”, I have to admit – in Canada, yes, and in Britain, yes, and in the States, yes, and in Australasia, sure. It is true; but still, I think, we may stay our hearts by reminding ourselves what is going on under Anglican auspices in black Africa. There the church grows and the gospel advances by leaps and bounds.

Remembering Bp. Grafton

Bp. Charles G. Grafton was a lion of the faith, an ecumenist, and a mission-building bishop. He was a notable figure in early American Anglo-Catholicism (a turn toward the pre-Reformation faith that lived in England from 600-1400), leaving a serious body of works in letters and addresses.

He was the second Bishop of the Diocese of Fond du Lac. Prior to his election as bishop, Grafton was Rector of Church of the Advent in Boston.

Grafton was consecrated on December 15, 1875 at St. Paul's Cathedral, Fond du Lac by William E. McLaren of Chicago, Alexander Burgess of Quincy, and George F. Seymour of Springfield. Grafton founded the Anglican religious order Sisterhood of the Holy Nativity and was a founding member of the Society of St. John the Evangelist.

He is forever memorialized in a tune bearing his name which has been set to numerous hymns. However, I believe the most poignant is to "Sing my ton" the words of which are reproduced alone. Use this as your office hymn, or as thanksgiving for receiving the precious gift of the Lord's most precious body and blood in the Holy Communion.

	Clyde McLennan - Now my tongue the mystery telling .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Readings:

Psalm 134 Sirach 50:16-21 Revelation 5:7-10 John 10:11-16

Preface of a Saint (1)

PRAYER

Loving God, who didst call Charles Chapman Grafton to be a bishop in thy Church, endowing him with a burning zeal for souls: Grant that, following his example, we may ever live for the extension of thy kingdom, that thy glory may be the chief end of our lives, thy will the law of our conduct, thy love the motive of our actions, and Christ’s life the model and mold of our own; through the same Jesus Christ, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, throughout all ages. Amen.

Magnificat Hymnic setting

One of the greatest canticles of the Church is the Magnificat, or the Canticle of Mary. It is traditionally sung every evening at Vespers or Evening Prayer. The settings of it are plethora, as is fitting for a song sung every night throughout the year. However, I've recently come upon one I wanted to share. It's set to the familiar tune UFFINGHAM (LM) by Brian Penney. You can listen to it in parts or in full choir here.

And of course if you're going to do this in a Solemn Evensong setting, don't forget the incense!

Rogationtide

The minor Rogation Days are the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before we commemorate our Lord’s Ascension to the Father in Heaven on Ascension Day. “Rogation” comes from the Latin “rogare”, meaning “to beseech.” Although the term “beseech” could be taken as a call for penitence, this is not the intention of the Easter season. Rather it is one of asking for God’s blessing on the works of our hands—industry and agriculture—the means of our livelihoods. A singularly Anglican holiday, it’s no longer observed in the Church of Rome, but, since the reign of Elizabeth I, it has been a decided observance of the English church.

While we no longer “beat the bounds of the parish,” there are ways to adapt this tradition to meet today's need for thankfulness. Rogation Days are an ideal time to remember—and rededicate our jobs, investments, and other economic activities to our Lord, in Whom we live and move and have our being, while invoking His Presence in all we do, committing our ways to Him, so that He, as promised in Scripture, guides our paths.

Good Friday

This evening, at 7PM, we will have a Good Friday liturgy: solemn collects, a sermon on the Passion of Christ, veneration of the holy cross, and communion.

We hope you'll join us for this somber evening liturgy and enter into the mystery of Christ's death so that you can know the power of His resurrection.

Historical Anglicanism

“The English Church happens to base herself in a special manner upon history–she appeals to the Scriptures and primitive antiquity for her theology, [* Articles VI., VIII., etc.] to the ancient Fathers for her ritual, [* The Preface Concerning the Service of the Church, Article XXIV., etc.] to Catholic tradition for her ceremonial; [* The Preface Of Ceremonies, Canon 30 (1603), Canon & (1640), etc.] she refers us to the second year of Edward VI for her ornaments, [* The Ornaments Rubric] and to the later middle ages for the arrangement of her chancels. [* "And the chancels shall remain as they have done in times past." (First inserted in 1552.)] [24/25] Her formularies, therefore, cannot be understood without a good deal of historical knowledge. Some people may object to this, and may ask–Why should they be bound by documents that are two or three hundred years old? But the fact remains that they are so bound, whether they like it or not; and that the whole intention of the Reformers, as shown from end to end of the Prayer Book, Articles, and Canons, was to bind them to principles that are nearer two thousand than two hundred years of age. Nor will they be released from this bondage to historic continuity till the same authority that imposed it shall have removed it,–which will not be for a long time to come. The attempts that have been hitherto made at throwing off this light yoke have not been so conspicuously successful in their results as to encourage us to proceed. Therefore I ask Churchmen to renounce those futile experiments of private judgment, and to throw themselves into the task of realising in its entirety that sound Catholic ideal which the defenders of the English Church preserved for us through the most troublous period of her history."

– The Rev'd Dr. Percy Dearmer

Loyalty to the Prayer Book

Conversion of St. Paul

Lately, I've been dealing with some folks on another blog that, by their defense of a heresiarch and their own indifference to doctrine while holding office in a church, have become enemies of Christ and His gospel. My first, human reaction was to get angry. But God has been dealing with me - breaking my heart for those who find themselves breaking upon the Law of God.

And today, in my Daily Office recitation, I come upon the story of Paul's conversion on this its feast. And in singing the office hymn, God reminded me that I should never give up hope for those who are now enemies of the Gospel. God may yet make them His greatest messengers. That's hope and change you can believe in!

Lord God of our fathers, who in reconciling the world to yourself have made friends of your enemies, forgive me when I forget how I was your avowed enemy before you won my heart. Use me to reach those who are set against you, through the love and grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit in everlasting unity. Amen.

	Clyde McLennan - We sing the glorious conquest .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

We sing the glorious conquest,
Before Damascus’ gate,
When Saul, the Church’s spoiler,
Came breathing threats and hate;
The rav’ning wolf rushed forward
Full early to the prey;
But lo! the Shepherd met him,
And bound him fast today.

O glory most excelling
That smote across his path!
O light that pierced and blinded
The zealot in his wrath!
O voice that spake within him
The calm, reproving word!
O love that sought and held him
The bondman of his Lord!

O Wisdom ord’ring all things
In order strong and sweet,
What nobler spoil was ever
Cast at the Victor’s feet?
What wiser master builder
E’er wrought at Thine employ
Than he, till now so furious
Thy building to destroy?

Lord, teach thy Church the lesson,
Still in her darkest hour
Of weakness and of danger,
To trust Thy hidden power;
Thy grace by ways mysterious
The wrath of man can bind,
And in Thy boldest foeman
Thy chosen saint can find.

461 Years of Biblical Beautiful Worship

What Began in 1549 with an Act Of Parliament Endures Today!

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s words of worship (and Merbecke’s chant settings of those words) will resonate Sunday in Anglican churches that value scripture and tradition — and are reasonable enough to practice “inclusion” regarding conservative Anglicans. “Conservative” in this sense means “conserving and practicing that which is good.”

Cranmer’s Prayer Book was proclaimed the official liturgy of England by Parliament on January 21, 1549. The Act of Uniformity (text here), as the measure was called, addressed “The Book of the Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church after the use of the Church of England.”

Several minor changes have been made over the centuries, but the towering language — great language for great things — and, more important, the core faith expressed by that language, remain the same in the 1928 BCP. This magnificent book is the keystone of our faith today in the Anglican Church as well as other churches that have adopted it or portions of it (normally through the 1662 version in legal at the time of the great missionary movement during the 18 & 19th centuries). Moreover, the classic Prayer Book is treasured as a jewel in the crown of the entire Western Canon by readers and scholars who appreciate the English language.

It wasn’t until 1979 that the first major revisions appeared in the language and, consequently, in the meaning of the religion itself, chiefly in the secular “Baptismal Covenant.” This sociopolitical phrase is regarded by many revisionists, according to their own words, as the most important declaration in the liturgy. Another revision is a slight manipulation of language in the Creeds that denies the divine nature of Christ. If you haven’t noticed this sly edit hidden in plain sight, read it carefully and you’ll see.

No small changes, these, and vexatious to the vast majority of Episcopalians, who will be happy to learn that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of the 1662 & 1928 BCP have been greatly exaggerated by liberal bishops and clergy. Although the 1979 book was adopted by General Convention as the official liturgy — and, as we learned at last summer’s General Convention, is now considered in revisionist circles terribly old-hat – the 1928 BCP is still in use throughout the Church wherever Episcopalians discern the difference. How quickly the 1979 went out of fashion! Yet the classic, scripture-based 1662 & 1928 BCP endures.

If you are clergy, consider observing this pivotal day in Church history by conducting services this Sunday and next from the 1662 or 1928 BCP. You’ll leave church refreshed, renewed, and ready to take on whatever the coming week has in store.

Cranmer Lives.

Canticles

Have you ever noticed that the Book of Common Prayer provides texts for a number of poems that don't look like hymns, and yet they also aren't psalms? These are called canticles. A canticle is a biblical song other than the psalms. The term also sometimes refers to a well known hymns of the early church. Here are the biblical references for the BCP canticles:

Canticles mandated for Daily Prayer
Canticle of Zechariah or Benedictus (Luke 1.68-79): Morning Prayer
Canticle of Mary or Magnificat (Luke 1.46-55): Evening Prayer
Canticle of Simeon or Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2.29-32): Close of Day

Other Canticles / Biblical Songs
Glory to God or Gloria in Excelsis (Luke 2.14, with additional material)
Canticle of Miriam and Moses (Exod. 15.1-2, 11, 13, 17-18)
God’s Chosen One (Isa. 1.1-4, 6, 9)
The Desert Shall Blossom (Isa. 35.1-2, 5-6, 10)
Canticle of Thanksgiving or First Song of Isaiah (Isa. 12.2-6)
Seek the Lord or Second Song of Isaiah (Isa. 55.6-11)
The New Jerusalem or Third Song of Isaiah (Isa. 60.1-3, 18-19)
The Spirit of the Lord (Isa. 61.1-3, 10-11)
Canticle of Hannah (1 Sam. 2.1-4, 7-8; cf. Magnificat)
Canticle of David (1 Chr. 29.10-13)
The Steadfast Love of the Lord (Lam. 3.22-26)
A Canticle to the Lamb (Rev. 4.11, 5.9-10, 12-13)
Canticle of the Redeemed (Rev. 15.3-4)
A Canticle for Pentecost (John 14.16, 16.13a, 14.26; Acts 2.2, 4a; Rom. 8.26; Joel 2.28)
A Canticle of Love (1 John 4.7, 8; 1 Cor. 13.4-10, 12-13)
Christ, the Head of Creation (Col. 1.15-20)
Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2.5c-11)

Deuterocanonical Songs from Scripture
Canticle of Judith (Judith 16.13-15)
A Canticle of Creation (Song of Three Young Men 35-65, 34)
A Canticle of Penitence (Manasseh 1-2, 4, 6-7a, 11, 13c-15)

Other Ancient Hymns, Not From Scripture
Hymn to Christ the Light or Phos Hilaron: Evening Prayer
We Praise You, O God or Te Deum Laudamus

What is the Core?

"You may take away from us, if you will, every external ceremony; you may take away altars, and super-altars, and lights, and incense, and vestments; you may take away, if you will, the eastward position; you may take away every possible ceremony; and you may command us to celebrate at the altar of God without any external symbolism whatsoever; you may give us the most barren of all observances, and we will submit to you. If this Church commands us to have no ceremonies, we will obey. But, gentlemen, the very moment any one says we shall not adore our Lord present in the Eucharist, then from a thousand hearts will come the answer, as of those bidden to go into exile, "Let me die in my own country and be buried by the grave of my father and my mother!" to adore Christ's person in His Sacrament, is the inalienable privilege of every Christian and Catholic heart. How we do it, the way we do it, the ceremonies which we do it, are utterly, utterly indifferent; the thing itself is what we plead for..."

James DeKoven, DD in a speech before General Convention, 1874

Indiana Ιωάννης

I'll bet nobody else knew that the Well of Souls was right there in the sanctuary of St. Bradaslov's, either.

Christian Burial

I present this excellent article by Dr. Long on what it means to have a good funeral. So much of what is done in funerals - as in marriage - represents more our modern twisting of life rather than a Christian expression of life lived before the face of God.

The Good Funeral: Recovering Christian practices, by Dr. Tom Long
(taken from the Christian Century)

When Elizabeth Janzen died in a Minneapolis nursing home, the staff immediately notified the closest relative, her daughter Sarah in St. Louis. Sarah, who had faithfully visited her mother once a month, arranged for Elizabeth to be cremated, for the ashes to be sent to St. Louis and for an obituary to be placed in the Minneapolis newspaper. A month later, Sarah took the ashes to a lake in rural Minnesota, where Elizabeth and her family had often vacationed, and scattered them on the water.

A week later, a memorial service was held in the chapel of the Minneapolis church where Elizabeth had kept her membership, though her health had prevented her from attending for a number of years. On a table at the entrance to the chapel were placed several photographs of Elizabeth at various stages in her life, her Bible, a ceramic vase she had made, and a few other personal mementos.

At the service, Sarah read one of her mother's favorite poems, Elizabeth's younger sister told an amusing story about their childhood, the chaplain from the nursing home read Psalm 23 and prayed a brief prayer giving thanks for Elizabeth's life, and two of Elizabeth's former students (she had taught high school for more than 30 years) read fond reminiscences of her as a teacher. After a time of quiet reflection, during which they listened to a recording of Judy Collins's rendition of "Amazing Grace" (one of Elizabeth's favorite hymns), the small group in the chapel silently dispersed.

Elizabeth Janzen is fictitious, but the rituals marking her death represent a rapidly emerging trend in Christian funeral practices. With surprising swiftness and dramatic results, a significant segment of American Christians has over the past 50 years abandoned previously established funeral customs in favor of an entirely new pattern of memorializing the dead. This new pattern is not firmly fixed (indeed, variations, improvisations and personal customizations are marks of the new rituals) but it generally includes the following characteristics:

• a memorial service instead of a funeral (i.e., a service focused on remembering the deceased, often held many days after the death, with the body or the cremated remains of the deceased not present)

• a brief, simple, highly personalized and customized service, often involving several speakers (as opposed to the standard church funeral liturgies presided over primarily by clergy)

• a focus on the life of the deceased (often aided by a physical display of photos and other mementos)

• an emphasis on joy rather than sadness, a celebration of life rather than an observance of the somber reality of death

• a private disposition of the body, often done before the memorial service, with an increasing preference for cremation

The shift toward this new pattern has not happened everywhere, of course. It is most pronounced among white, suburban Protestants, and the older customs often still prevail in rural areas, among nonwhites and in many Catholic parishes. But these differences seem more a matter of lag time than anything else. The trend lines are clear, and it is apparent that funeral practices for all Christians, as a part of the larger culture, are moving at various rates of speed toward this new pattern.

A significant number of Christian clergy, especially those who are more progressive and better educated, applaud many of these changes. While they may be troubled somewhat by the open-mike atmosphere of these new services or by the inevitable banalities of some of the poems, songs, readings and other elements imported into them, they nevertheless find them preferable to the older, often depersonalized and more somber rituals of the past—primarily for two reasons.

First, the preference for memorial services, the emphasis on joy or even on laughter, the de-emphasis on the body of the deceased, and the celebration of the personal aspects of the life of the one who has died all seem more commensurate with the Christian witness to the resurrection. Second, the valuing of simpler, less formal services provides leverage for people to break loose from the stranglehold of showy, expensive and burdensome funeral practices so prized by the funeral industry.

These clergy are unquestionably well intentioned, and they are right to find some encouraging signs here, but I want to raise some basic theological questions about this emerging pattern of death practices. I would like to suggest that these newer rituals, for all of their virtues of freedom, simplicity and seeming festivity, are finally expressions of a corrupted understanding of the Christian view of death. These newer practices are attractive mainly because they seem to offer relief from the cosmeticized, sentimental, impersonal and often costly funerals that developed in the 1950s, which were themselves parodies of authentic Christian rituals. Contemporary Christian funeral practices certainly need to be changed, but change should be more a matter of recovery and reformation than innovation and improvisation.

In the early years of the Christian movement, Christians developed distinct funeral practices that, while woven from local customs, still reflected Christian theology. At the beginning of the third century, Tertullian could already speak of an "appointed office" for Christian burial in North Africa, and certainly by the late fourth century the contours of a distinct Christian funeral rite began to appear. This rite was composed of three movements: preparation, processional and burial.

In the preparation movement, the body was washed, anointed and clothed in garments representing baptism. In the processional phase, the body was carried to the grave, and sometimes the procession entered the church on the way for prayer and the reading of scripture. The burial phase took place at graveside and included the commendation of the deceased to God and the actual burial of the body. During each movement, the church prayed, chanted psalms and sang hymns of joy. Often a Eucharist was held, either in the church or at the grave.

The theme of the service was the completion of baptism, and the church accompanied a brother or sister to the place of union with God through the resurrection of Christ. Taken as a whole, the early Christian funeral was based on the conviction that the deceased was a saint, a child of God and a sister or brother of Christ, worthy to be honored and embraced with tender affection. The funeral itself was deemed to be the last phase of a lifelong journey toward God, and the faithful carried the deceased along the way to the place of final departure with singing and a mixture of grief and joyful hope.

In subsequent centuries, this basic funeral pattern sometimes struggled for visibility against cultural and theological changes. For example, the joyful Easter motif of the early Christian funeral was nearly submerged by a gloomy "Day of Wrath" theology of the late Middle Ages, and the Puritans, offended by what they saw as excesses in Anglican funerals, tried, unsuccessfully as it turns out, to get rid of funeral ceremony altogether. Nevertheless, the basic pattern and practices of Christian burial managed to weather the storms and continued to exert a strong force on Christian funerals until the late 19th century.

This review of the development of classic Christian funeral practices should make it evident that the pattern for funerals now appearing is not simply a modernization and adaptation of traditional customs but a radical, and finally diminished, replacement of Christian ritual.

For example, the current shift to a memorial service with the body absent means that Christian death practices are no longer metaphorical expressions of the journey of a saint to be with God. The saint is not even present, except as a spiritualized memory, a backdrop for the real action, which happens in the psyches of the mourners. The mourners are the only actors left, and the ritual now is really about them. Funerals are "for the living," as we are prone to say. Instead of the grand cosmic drama of the church marching to the edge of eternity with a fellow saint, singing songs of resurrection victory and sneering in the face of the final enemy, we now have a much smaller, more privatized psychodrama, albeit often couched in Christian language. If we take the plot of the typical memorial service at face value, the dead are not migrating to God; the living are moving from sorrow to stability.

How did the church shift from the understanding of a funeral as the joyful accompanying of a saint on "the last mile of the way" to a reflective, disembodied, quasi-Gnostic cluster of customs and ceremonies? What happened in the latter part of the 19th century?

Because this is precisely the time that embalming became widespread and the modern funeral parlor developed, it is almost irresistible to blame the newly minted funeral professionals for all the mischief. As the argument goes, undertakers reinvented themselves as funeral directors and rode the technological advances in embalming all the way to the bank. They first took the dead away from us in order to embalm them, and then they took the funeral itself away and turned it from a worship service into a vulgar display of conspicuous consumption.

The truth, however, is that a guild of embalming technicians could never have become directors of any sacred Christian ritual, could never have taken the funeral away, had not church and culture been more than ready to hand it over. Almost every developed society, even ancient Rome, has had "undertakers" who assist with the preparation of the dead, but even if 19th-century undertakers had hatched a plot to hijack the Christian funeral, it would have failed if our death rituals had been healthy and full of meaning.

If Christian funerals today are impoverished, we must look primarily to the church's own history and not look with scorn at the funeral director. The fact is that many educated Christians in the late 19th century, the forebears of today's white suburban Protestants, lost their eschatological nerve and their vibrant faith in the afterlife, and we are their theological and liturgical heirs. It was not, of course, as if the whole of 19th-century Christian society woke up one morning and suddenly found that they no longer believed in eternal life. The loss of conviction about the otherworld came slowly and gradually.

In the decades after the Civil War, the quite literal views of many American Christians regarding heaven, hell, the end of the world, the resurrection of the body and the second coming of Jesus began to ebb away. A recent study by Drew Gilpin Faust points out that the sheer devastation of the Civil War itself, the staggering number of dead, the violence and loss of life out of all proportion to the ability of most people to make meaning from it, accelerated the 19th century's already growing crisis of faith. She writes:

Civil War carnage transformed the mid-nineteenth century's growing sense of religious doubt into a crisis of belief that propelled many Americans to redefine or even reject their faith in a benevolent and responsive deity. But Civil War death and devastation also planted seeds of a more profound doubt about human ability to know and understand. . . . The Civil War compelled Americans to ask with intensified urgency, "What is Death?" and in answering to find themselves wondering why is death, what is life, and can we ever hope to know? We have continued to wonder ever since.

Part of the crisis of faith was about eschatology. In the 1840s, some Christians confidently calculated the exact date of Jesus' return, only to have their hopes, and for many of them their naive faith, crushed when Jesus did not come—a time that came to be called the Great Disappointment. Even less advent-minded Christians of the time had to reckon with the impact of the rising sciences, of Darwinism, and of the new skeptical philosophies imported from Europe. Consequently, the literalisms of the past came under severe stress. Pictures of Jesus coming in the clouds, of the dead rising bodily from the graves, of the saints arrayed in glory, became less and less imaginable, less and less plausible.

The notion of heaven was not altogether abandoned. Instead, it was revised and domesticated. Heaven was reimagined as a place very much like the best of earth, sometimes not a place at all but simply an intensification of earthly delights, and the idea of the resurrection of the body yielded to the more gentle and continuous notion of the immortality of the soul. One late-19th-century member of the clergy characteristically said, "To me, heaven means only myself with larger opportunity. It means this earth-life grown into perfection." Lucy Larcom, in a devotional essay characteristic of the period, wrote:

Surprises doubtless await us all, across the boundaries of this earthly existence. But none, perhaps, will be more surprised than those humble, faithful, self-sacrificing souls who have often almost dreaded the strange splendors that might open upon them beyond the gates of pearl, when they find that it is the same familiar sunshine in which they have been walking all their days, only clearer and serener. They will wonder that they have no new language to learn, no new habits to form, almost no new acquaintances to make. They will at last discover what their humility hid from them here, that while on earth, without knowing it, they had already been living in heaven.

No wonder the metaphor of journeying to be with God began to break apart at the seams. If people had "already been living in heaven," then there was, after all, nowhere for the dead to travel, and without letting go of the vocabulary of the otherworld, mainline Protestants in the late 19th century, long before John Lennon, could well "imagine there's no heaven."

A second significant development was the creation of rural cemeteries located some distance away from towns and villages. At first, cemeteries were separated from the living because of the notion that putrefying bodies produced miasmas, noxious gases that caused disease, but by the end of the 19th century, rural cemeteries were less about avoiding pollution and more about aesthetics. They were landscaped, gardenlike environments designed to encourage quiet and restful contemplation of nature, immortality and the meaning of life.

The more practical effect of these remote cemeteries, as Susan J. White has pointed out, was the division of the previously unified funeral ritual into two discrete parts: the funeral in the church and the burial in the distant cemetery. It was not long before this separation in distance became a separation in liturgical fact and in theological symbolism. The funeral was no longer a journey to the place of burial; it became a stationary event completely contained within the church building. The graveside ritual became a mere optional afterword. As White observes, "The removal of the gravesite to a location far away from the precincts of the church depletes a fund of theological and communal images and severely reduces the sense . . . that the living and the dead are part of one 'holy communion.'" So, with heaven gone and with the cemetery miles away, neither the dead nor the living had anywhere to go, and the metaphor of the journey to God collapsed.

Surely the task before the church now is to retrace our steps and to recover the grand liturgical theater in which Christians embrace their dead with tender affection, lift up their voices in hymns of resurrection and accompany the saints to the edge of mystery. This will not involve a mere repristinating of funeral practices or a rejection of cremation, but a recovery in our time and in contemporary forms of the governing symbols of the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body, and the journey of Christian dead toward the life everlasting.

In the meantime, the seeds planted in the 19th century continue to bear weeds. Since literalistic views of heaven and the saintly journey are no longer plausible to us, and since we lack the theological imagination to grasp the poetic truth and power of these metaphors, dead Christians have nowhere to go but to evaporate into the spiritual ether and into our frail memory banks. With heaven domesticated, the soul morphed into an immortal gas, the corpse become a shell and the cemetery moved out of sight, it was almost inevitable that the dead with their embarrassing bodies would be banned from their own funerals and the living would be condemned to sit motionless, contemplating the meaning of it all and pretending to celebrate life as the nephew of the deceased sings "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling."

Surely our culture will eventually weary of such liturgical and spiritual thinness and be ready for more depth, for more truth—for our sake and for the sake of those we love. When we are, the great drama of the journey to God will be there, beckoning us to join the procession of the saints. We will travel toward eternity with those we have loved, singing as we go and calling out to the distant shore in words of confident hope, like these from an ancient Coptic funeral prayer:

Let the shadows of darkness be full of light. Let the angels of light walk before him.
Let the gate of righteousness be opened to him. Let him join the heavenly choir.
Bring him into the paradise of delight. Feed him from the tree of life.
Let him rest in the bosom of our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in your kingdom.

This article is excerpted from Thomas G. Long's book Accompany Them with Singing: The Christian Funeral, just published by Westminster John Knox.

Thomas G. Long is professor of preaching at Emory University's Candler School of Theology in Atlanta and the author of Preaching from Memory to Hope (Westminster John Knox).

This is the Feast

New setting for "This is the Feast" from Alleluia! -- a brand new setting for the communion mass, performed by The Braeded Chord.

Alleluia! is filled with memorable melodies and beautiful instrumentation set to upbeat rhythms. While it is fully scored for acoustic instruments-- piano, guitar, flute, and violin, it easily translates to contemporary instruments like drum, bass, and electric guitar (lead sheets available), as this recording demonstrates. Alleluia! bridges the gap between ancient tradition and modern worship.

While I appreciate its upbeat tempo, I'd like to hear the whole service. Also, it strikes me that with the writing duo's natural harmonies, something might be lost in trying to sing this in unison. Since I haven't seen the lead, I don't know how well this is compensated for, but I try to eschew service music that can only be performed by skilled singers / harmonists.

(Nothing wrong with uber-complicated introits, sequences, offertories, etc., but I think the modern church music trend runs the danger of the Medieval & baroque choral tradition of taking singing away from the people through needless complexity.)

(I'm also unrepentantly satisfied with the two - count'em, TWO - settings of this hymn already in the 1982 Hymnal /1979 LBW.)

Libera sings the Sanctus to Pachelbel

Here's what they're singing:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus

Dominus Deus Sabaoth.

Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua.

Hosanna in excelsis.

Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.

Hosanna in excelsis.

Why can't these boys show up and assist at the liturgy every Sunday?

Litany in Honor of the Holy Cross

There's no better way to start off this day than with the greatest processional / recessional of all time, Lift High the Cross!

	Lift High the Cross
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Readings for the Feast of the Holy Cross are found here.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.

God, the Father of Heaven,
have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Spirit,
have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God,
have mercy on us.

The word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Reflection: Jesus has many who love His Kingdom in Heaven, but few who bear His Cross. He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering. He finds many to share His feast, but few His fasting. All desire to rejoice with Him, but few are willing to suffer for His sake.

God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Reflection: Why do you fear to take up the Cross, which is the road to the Kingdom? In the Cross is salvation and life, protection against our enemies, infusion of Heavenly sweetness; in the Cross is strength of mind,joy of spirit, excellence of virtue, perfection of holiness. There is no salvation of soul, nor hope of eternal life, save in the Cross.

God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Reflection: Take up the Cross, therefore, and follow Jesus, and go forward into eternal life. Christ has gone before you, bearing His Cross;He died for you on the Cross, that you also may bear your cross,and desire to die on the Cross with Him. For if you die with Him,you will also live with Him. And if you share His sufferings, you will also share His glory.

God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Reflection: See how in the Cross all things consist, and in dying on it all things depend. There is no other way to life and to true inner peace, than the way of the Cross.Go where you will, seek what you will; you will find no higher way above nor safer way below than the road of the Holy Cross.

God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Reflection: The Cross always stands ready, and everywhere awaits you. You cannot escape it, wherever you flee; for wherever you go,you bear yourself, and always find yourself. Look up or down, without you or within, and everywhere you will find the Cross. And everywhere you must have patience, if you wish to attain inner peace, and win an eternal crown.

God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world,
spare us, O Lord!.
Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world,
graciously hear us, O Lord!
Lamb of God, Who take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us to follow Thee not only to the Breaking of Bread but also to the drinking of the Cup of Thy Passion. Help us to love Thee for Thine own sake and not for the sake of comfort for ourselves. Make us worthy to suffer for Thy name, Jesus, our Crucified and Risen Lord and Savior, now and forever. Amen.

If you haven't taught your children to remember their salvation using the sign of the cross (a duty Martin Luther put especially on fathers), why not today? For further reflection, I recommend ECatBedside's reflection piece.

Another Setting of the Kenotic Hymn

Caroline Noel sang the Kenotic Hymn from St Paul's Letter to the Philippians in a famous setting (King's Weston) --and singing this version of the hymn is an experience of being caught up into the joy, the suffering, and the glory of Jesus Christ:

	Clyde McLennan - At the Name of Jesus
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

At the Name of Jesus
every knee shall bow,
every tongue confess him
King of glory now;
'tis the Father's pleasure
we should call him Lord,
who from the beginning
was the mighty Word.

At his voice creation
sprang at once to sight,
all the angel faces,
all the hosts of light,
Thrones and Dominations,
stars upon their way,
all the heavenly orders,
in their great array.

Humbled for a season,
to receive a Name
from the lips of sinners,
unto whom he came,
faithfully he bore it
spotless to the last,
brought it back victorious,
when from death he passed;

Bore it up triumphant,
with its human light,
through all ranks of creatures,
to the central height,
to the throne of Godhead,
to the Father's breast;
filled it with the glory
of that perfect rest.

Name him, brothers, name him,
with love as strong as death,
but with awe and wonder
and with bated breath;
he is God the Savior,
he is Christ the Lord,
ever to be worshiped,
trusted, and adored.

In your hearts enthrone him;
there let him subdue
all that is not holy,
all that is not true;
crown him as your Captain
in temptation's hour;
let his will enfold you
in its light and power.

Brothers, this Lord Jesus
shall return again,
with his Father's glory
with his angel train;
for all wreaths of empire
meet upon his brow,
and our hearts confess him
King of Glory now.

Londonderry Air Hymns

Some time ago, I blogged a musical setting of Philippians 2:6-11, the Kenotic Hymn. It's been popular, so I've been looking at other songs to that tune - Londonderry Air (meter 11.10.11.10D). Here's the tune so you can sing along.

	Clyde McLennan - I cannot tell why He
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Here are some of the treasures, just for your Worship Wednesday:

Lord of the Church, We Pray for our Renewing

1 Lord of the church, we pray for our renewing:
Christ over all, our undivided aim.
Fire of the Spirit, burn for our enduing,
wind of the Spirit, fan the living flame!
We turn to Christ amid our fear and failing,
the will that lacks the courage to be free,
the weary labours, all but unavailing,
to bring us nearer what a church should be.

2 Lord of the church, we seek a Father's blessing,
a true repentance and a faith restored,
a swift obedience and a new possessing,
filled with the Holy Spirit of the Lord!
We turn to Christ from all our restless striving,
unnumbered voices with a single prayer:
the living water for our souls' reviving,
in Christ to live, and love and serve and care.

3 Lord of the church, we long for our uniting,
true to one calling, by one vision stirred;
one cross proclaiming and one creed reciting,
one in the truth of Jesus and his word!
So lead us on; till toil and trouble ended,
one church triumphant one new song shall sing,
to praise his glory, risen and ascended,
Christ over all, the everlasting King!

Timothy Dudley-Smith (b.1926)
Text © Timothy Dudley-Smith in Europe (including UK and Ireland) and in all territories not controlled by Hope Publishing Company.

O CHRIST THE SAME, THROUGH ALL OUR STORY'S PAGES

O Christ the same through all our story's pages,
our loves and hopes, our failures and our fears;
eternal Lord, the King of all the ages,
unchanging still, amid the passing years:
O living Word, the source of all creation,
who spread the skies, and set the stars ablaze,
O Christ the same, who wrought our whole salvation,
we bring our thanks for all our yesterdays.

O Christ the same, the friend of sinners, sharing
our inmost thoughts, the secrets none can hide,
still as of old upon your body bearing
the marks of love, in triumph glorified:
O Son of Man, who stooped for us from heaven,
O Prince of life, in all your saving power,
O Christ the same, to whom our hearts are given,
we bring our thanks for this the present hour.

O Christ the same, secure within whose keeping
our lives and loves, our days and years remain,
Our work and rest, our waking and our sleeping,
our calm and storm, our pleasure and our pain:
O Lord of love, for all our joys and sorrows,
for all our hopes, when earth shall fade and flee,
O Christ the same, beyond our brief tomorrows,
we bring our thanks for all that is to be.

—Timothy Dudley-Smith, from A HOUSE OF PRAISE: COLLECTED HYMNS, 1961-2001, © 2003 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188, ISBN 0-916642-74-7. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

A solid antecommunion from Susan Peterson:

“I am the Vine; My Father is the Gardener.
Each branch that bears no fruit, He cuts away;
While every branch that yields good fruit, He trims and cleans,
So that it will still more produce each day.
Now you are clean because of My Word’s work in you.
Remain in Me, and I’ll remain in you.
Just as a branch without the vine can bear no fruit,
So you must stay in Me if you would bear fruit too.

“I am the Vine; if you, like branches, stay in Me
And I in you, you’ll bear much fruit in turn.
Apart from Me, you can accomplish naught for God;
You’re like a branch that withers and is burned.
But if you stay in Me and I in you each day,
Ask what you wish; it will be given you.
God will be glorified because you bear much fruit,
For thus you show yourselves to be disciples true.

“Just as the Father loves Me, so I love you too.
Obey My Word, and you’ll stay in My care,
Just as I too obey My Father God above,
And in His love remain fore’er and e’er.
I’ve told you this so that My joy may be in you,
And that your own joy may now overflow.
Here’s My command: Love others just as I’ve loved you;
To die for friends—this is the greatest love you’ll know.

“You are My friends if you do what I now command;
You’re not mere servants, knowing not My will.
I’ve called you friends, for everything I’ve learned from God,
I have made known, and now I tell you still.
You chose Me not, but I have chosen each of you,
To go and bear much fruit that will remain.
Then God will give you all you ask in My own Name.
Love one another; hear now My command again.”

Here's one to sing whenever you remember Constantine:

Above the hills of time the cross is gleaming,
Fair as the sun when night has turned to day;
And from it love’s pure light is richly streaming,
To cleanse the heart and banish sin away.
To this dear cross the eyes of men are turning,
Today as in the ages lost to sight;
And for Thee, O Christ, men’s hearts are yearning,
As shipwrecked seamen yearn for morning light.

The cross, O Christ, Thy wondrous love revealing,
Awakes our hearts as with the light of morn,
And pardon o’er our sinful spirits stealing,
Tells us that we, in Thee, have been reborn.
Like echoes to sweet temple bells replying
Our hearts, O Lord, make answer to Thy love;
And we will love Thee with a love undying,
Till we are gathered to Thy home above.

Finally, this tune - London Derry Air - can appropriately be sung at funerals! Here are two offerings:

(Tune: Londonderry / Boyce-Tilman)

We shall go out with hope of resurrection,
We shall go out, from strength to strength go on,
We shall go out and tell our stories boldly,
Tales of a love that will not let us go.
We'll sing our songs of wrongs that can be righted,
We'll dream our dream of hurts that can be healed,
We'll weave a cloth of all the world united
Within the vision of a Christ who sets us free.

We'll give a voice to those who have not spoken,
We'll find the words for those whose lips are sealed,
We'll make the tunes for those who sing no longer,
Vibrating love alive in every heart.
We'll share our joy with those who are still weeping,
Chant hymns of strength for hearts that break in grief,
We'll leap and dance the resurrection story
Including all within the circles of our love.


Go Silent Friend

Go, silent friend,
your life has found its ending:
To dust returns your weary mortal frame.
God, who before birth called you into being,
Now calls you hence, his ascent still the same.

Go, silent friend,
your life in Christ is buried;
For you He lived and died and rose again.
Close by His side your promised place is waiting
Where, fully known, you shall with God remain.

Go, silent friend,
forgive us if we grieved you;
Safe now in heaven, kindly say our name.
Your life has touched us, that is why we mourn you;
Our lives without you cannot be the same.

Go, silent friend,
we do not grudge your glory;
Sing, sing with joy deep praises to your Lord.
You, who believed that Christ would come back for you,
Now celebrate that Jesus keeps his word.

© 1996 WGRG, Iona Community

On the new ACNA's Party Divisions

CS Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters features a senior devil called Screwtape writing to his nephew, a junior devil named Wormwood, giving him advice on how to entrap a human called “the Patient.” In my reading I noticed again this passage (from letter XVI) as relevant today as 67 years ago when first published:

I warned you before that if your patient can’t be kept out of the Church, he ought at least to be violently attached to some party within it. I don’t mean on really doctrinal issues; about those, the more lukewarm he is the better. And it isn’t the doctrines on which we chiefly depend for producing malice. The real fun is working up hatred between those who say “mass” and those who say “holy communion” when neither party could possibly state the difference between, say, Hooker’s doctrine and Thomas Aquinas’, in any form which would hold water for five minutes.

And all the purely indifferent things-candles and clothes and what not-are an admirable ground for our activities. We have quite removed from men’s minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials-namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples.

You would think they could not fail to see the application. You would expect to find the “low” churchman genuflecting and crossing himself lest the weak conscience of his “high” brother should be moved to irreverence, and the “high” one refraining from these exercises lest he should betray his “low” brother into idolatry. And so it would have been but for our ceaseless labour. Without that the variety of usage within the Church of England might have become a positive hotbed of charity and humility,

Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE

If you've never read The Screwtape Letters, I highly advise it. There are reading guides aplenty, and a Sunday School discussion group would be excellent. This book will give you excellent insight into the ways the EVIL ONE uses our religious impulses against us, even in the true religion of Christianity.

The mainline denominations flagged and failed under the weight of making party distinctions the sine qua non of ordination - while ignoring whether the candidate for ordination was actually a Christian. Dogmas like the physical resurrection of the Christ, the Triune Godhead, and original sin could be thrown under the bus so long as you held to something sounding like a distinctive of your denomination.

So the Anglicans let in all sorts of poppycock in the name of the Oxford Movement (which also re-introduced plenty of fine practices). Just harp on the tactile succession of bishops and the place of the church as steering society, and you're in! You don't have to actually believe the faith of the apostles...just get in line and touch somebody who touched somebody who touched somebody that might have believed the witness of the Apostles and carried on that deposit. You'll be qualified to teach with apostolic authority (even if you teach contrary to their doctrine) and you may get to touch some special people yourself (when you aren't lapsing into alcohol abuse). Do enough of this, and you get to be the presiding bishop-ess and teach people about a new divinity known as mother jesus!

The Reformed allowed universalism to creep into their midst through an appropriation of God's sovereignty in the salvation of humanity. As long as you held that it was God who made the decision, you could attribute to him whatever decision you wished - ignoring Jesus' warning that not many will enter into eternal felicity or trod that narrow road. And of course the desire for a highly-educated clergy meant that often times the pastor could outwit the congregation into thinking that Church has been wrong about all sorts of things...as long as s/he footnoted enough and threw enough jargon at them. You may even get to start changing language about God, once you've skewed the whole concept of language in your favor.

Lutherans turned their confessionally robust Christ into a zeitgeist infused prophet by virtue of the kenotic theory. Once Christ is no longer Lord, you needn't reverence or obey him...that's "law" and not grace. And so you end up knowing God through a defanged Jesus, and suddenly God is no longer the Most Holy, Undivided, and Consubstantial Trinity, but a being of your own making...maybe even a Goddess! The resultant antinomianism speaks for itself.

Are we noticing a pattern that all of these wrong turns, mis-steps (which is another translation of the Greek word the New Testament uses for TRESPASSES and TRANSGRESSIONS) lead to the same place? Abandoning God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ for some strange goddess! Has the church - the new Israel - still not learned the lessons about dancing around the asherah (Ashtaroth / Astarte) poles?

All this is to say that if we are to serve Christ faithfully, and not simply seek to be bound to a party-line, then we must recover the fullness of the Catholic Orthodox Faith that has been shared by all Christians - especially as seen in the Apostles, Niceno-Constanipolitan, and Athanasian Creeds.

Psalm 2 for the Christians of Iraq

For the persecuted Christians of Iraq, who have had seven churches bombed in the last three days. Christians...they don't hate you; they hate Christ.

From Archbishop Parker's Psalter, set to music by Thomas Tallis.

	Thomas Tallis - Third Mode Melody
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Calvin on Confession

Now let us cast ourselves down before the majesty of our good God, conscious of our faults, praying that he may not only forgive us but may daily cleanse us of them. May he remove them far from us. so that we are no longer captive and imprisoned by them. Rather, led and controlled by his Holy Spirit, may we walk in such holiness of life that we may seek above all to yield to his will. And since we know ourselves to be such weak and feeble creatures, may he support us in all our imperfections, until he has rid us of them and fully clothes us with his righteousness.