Why I Became Anglican pt. 2

A brief theological overview

Part 1 of this series has by far been my most popular post. I am left surprised by how many people have reached out and expressed how much that article resonated with them and their own journey. I am thankful for all the kind words that have been shared as well. Thank you for taking the time and interest in what I have to say. I would like to take this article to offer brief explanations for why we became Anglican, and more specifically within the APA. 

Apostolic Succession and Conciliar Authority

There are various views by which one can understand Apostolic Succession. The traditional view is that the Apostolic ministry is continued through the office of the Bishop. The idea is that Christ’s ministry did not end with the Apostles, but continues on after their deaths. In order to continue this ministry, and to pass on the authority given by Christ, the Apostles ordained and appointed Bishops as their successors. As such, only those who can trace their ordination back to the Apostles can be said to possess this succession. Other views argue that this succession is found in Presbyters (Priests/elders), while others argue that it is not a succession of an office, but rather a succession in apostolic doctrine. This latter view is the one I used to believe. 

One reason I no longer take this view is that the succession of doctrine is the very thing that Apostolic Succession seeks to secure. It is part of the ministry of the Apostles and their successors to guard and defend the faith once delivered. To this end, Christ has promised a special gift of his Spirit to these ministers in order to aid the Church in this preservation. For a fuller explanation and argument drawn from various passages in Scripture, you can read my defense of conciliar authority here, which is undergirded by a strong view of Apostolic Succession. 

Religious Ceremonies and Holidays

One of the former beliefs I mentioned in the previous article was my adherence to the regulative principle of worship. In brief, if you’re not familiar with this term, this means that we are only able to do in worship that which can be found in Scripture by either explicit command or that which can be deduced through good and necessary consequence. To do anything else would be to commit idolatry, and engage in will worship, rather than an act of true worship. This leads to a very stripped-down style of worship. You won’t find incense, vestments, or anything of the like in churches that adhere to the regulative principle. This also leads one, in the most consistent form of the view, to not sing any man-made hymns but only the inspired Psalter; it also leads to the rejection of any ecclesiastical holidays. 

What led to me rejecting this view is not so much the idea that God alone dictates how He is to be worshiped—everyone grants this. It was the recognition that human law has validity within the Church. As I alluded to in the previous article, it was reading John Calvin and Richard Hooker that led to this. The foundation was laid by Calvin when he stated that in every human society, there must exist a form of government, and therefore certain laws, that serve to maintain peace and concord. In this, we have a mixture of divine law and human law. Divine law serves to instruct us primarily in the way, or mode, by which we worship God; and human laws are those which consist of government and ceremonies. Here, it would appear, that Calvin is on the side of the Presbyterians. However, there is a subtle distinction being made here that, in my opinion, gets flattened by the regulative principle as expounded by the Reformed. What Calvin is designating here are the specific acts and modes by which we attribute the worship of God to consist. It will be helpful to look at an example that Calvin provides to make this point clearer. Calvin considers the bending of the knee in prayer to be an apt example to show the distinction between the two. We would attribute the act of prayer itself to be worship, and therefore part of divine law. However, the bending of the knee Calvin would place under human law, as a ceremony that accompanies and adorns the act of worship, but nevertheless is not the worship itself. 

In this particular section of Calvin’s Institutes (4.10, particularly 4.10.27 onward) Calvin spends a lot of time deriding and attacking the perceived superstitions that Rome had attached to these ceremonies and how they were elevated to the status of divine law by the imposition of necessity. One can be forgiven if, after reading this section, one believes Calvin to have a firm stance against the place of ceremonies in the life of the Church. However, the careful reader will recognize that Calvin maintains these ceremonies are, inherently, indifferent. As such, they can either be used for evil, when abused and removed from their place as human law; or for good, whenever used rightly. It is here that Calvin’s most shocking statement occurred to me. Calvin argued that ceremonies, when used rightly, can be considered genuine acts of piety. This was in stark contrast to Presbyterians George Gillespie and Samuel Rutherford who explicitly state that these human ceremonies have no place in the worship of God. After Calvin laid the groundwork, Richard Hooker began to build upon it in his work Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, wherein he expounds at great length the distinction between divine law and human law, especially as it pertains to the worship the Church offers. Hooker’s argument, against those seeking further liturgical reform, was that with these distinctions in place, the current worship enjoyed by the Church of England was perfectly fine and, dare we say, properly reformed.

Sacramental Efficacy

This one may seem more obvious for those of you who have followed me for some time. This was the driving force, next to Apostolic Succession, that forced me to leave my former Presbyterian views. My view of the sacraments became very closely tied to how I viewed the nature of the Church. As I indicated in part 1, I began to reject the Reformed distinction between the visible and invisible church. This was, primarily, because I felt it almost always tended to create two separate churches and spoke of the one body of Christ in a way that could not be spoken of consistently under this dichotomous view. I began to view Baptism no longer as just a sign and a seal of the covenant of grace; but truly as an efficacious instrument that actually effects what it signifies. I began to believe, as Saint Paul teaches us, that to be baptized is to be united to Christ in such a way that we die to sin and are made alive to righteousness. Likewise, with the Eucharist, I began to develop a stronger view of its efficacy in how it strengthens our union with Christ, conveys grace, and joins us together with the whole Church as one body. In short, I went from viewing the sacraments as moral instruments that tended towards occasionalism to viewing the sacraments as physical instruments that contained in the elements themselves the vivifying presence of grace. Such that, the waters of baptism no longer are an occasion for regeneration or justifying grace, but that the very waters become the instrument by which the Spirit of God regenerates and bestows grace. I detail this topic in further detail here.

For a scriptural case for this greater efficacy in the New Covenant, I would encourage one to look at these two passages and consider them in their context. The first is the oft-quoted passage in 1 Peter 3:21-22 about how baptism now saves us. The typical understanding amongst the Reformed is that Peter is speaking of a spiritual washing that is not tied to the external washing of water since Peter himself seems to speak against the external washing of the body. However, if we compare this with Hebrews 10:19-23 we can begin to see a different picture. Compare the similar language between the two as it pertains to washing, the conscience, and Christ’s resurrection and ascension. It is my argument that, given Hebrews’ context of the greater efficacy of the New Covenant sacraments, Peter is not speaking disparagingly about the external application of water in the sacrament, but, on the contrary, is connecting the vivifying force of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension to the sacrament itself in contrast to the old rites of the Old Covenant that could never touch the conscience.

 

Prayers To The Saints

Now this subject may be the most surprising for some of you reading this. It is quite obvious that the Reformed by and large rejected any notion of praying to the Saints in heaven. There’s also quite a bit of modern aversion to such a practice. I’d like to briefly address some of the concerns with this practice, and then offer a brief rationale for it. 

First, we should dispel any notion that praying is strictly an act between a believer and God. Just like the English word “worship” carries with it a variety of uses, so too does the word “pray.” In its most basic sense, to “pray” is to ask, or petition someone for something. So, while when we pray to God it is considered an act of worship, the same is not said for when one prays to a Saint. This is because when we seek something from God, we are seeking it from His power and goodness directly, whereas when we seek the aid of a Saint we’re asking them to pray with and for us. We’re not seeking anything at their hand, as if they have some power of their own by which they can bestow grace and good gifts. Rather, just like when we ask saints on the earth to pray for us, we’re seeking their aid to request help from God on our behalf. Some may feel concerned that one who seeks the intercession of the saints may be making a mediator out of a Saint as a “go-between” them and God. Yet, we don’t feel this way when asking a saint in our parish or a close friend to pray for us. So why do we think this of the Saints in heaven who are still very much part of the same body we are? The Saints in heaven are no less engaged in the command to “pray for one another” (James 5:16) than we are. Rather, we recognize that all Christians, here on earth and in heaven, are part of the body of Christ who engage in the redemptive work of Christ. We participate in His reconciling the world to God. So when we pray for our brothers and sisters, we are no more infringing upon the mediatory work of Christ than one who seeks such aid from the Saints in heaven. Christ is the principal cause, and the Saints are lesser, secondary causes. We need not pit the graced work of the Saints with the font of grace itself.

One final objection would be that these Saints can’t pray for us, because they’re disembodied souls awaiting the resurrection, and they can’t possibly possess the knowledge of our needs. However, we see the martyred Saints in Revelation 6 praying for God to avenge their deaths, as well as the Elders bringing before God bowls of incense “which are the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8, 6:9-10). So clearly we see these Saints engaged in intercession for those of us here on the earth. This is because prayer, while it can and does employ the use of the body, is principally an act of the intellect and will, which are powers of the soul. Much like Angels are said to be used as instruments whereby God oversees the affairs of men on the earth and brings prayers up to God (Zech. 1:11, Tobit 12:12), we see here redeemed saints doing this same function. To the last objection regarding the knowledge of the Saints, we confess this is indeed a mysterious matter. We know from revelation that these Saints are engaged in this manner, and from tradition, we know that to seek their aid is no different than seeking the aid of those on earth, yet we don’t know with absolute certainty how these things work themselves out. Saint Thomas Aquinas offers a helpful answer, however, to help us understand that such a thing is not unreasonable. Aquinas argues from the beatific vision that the Saints in heaven enjoy, stating that because they have some beatified sight of God, they have an intimate knowledge of seeing God as He is, and therefore they know not only God, but what the things he has done, does, and will do. Therefore, by God’s own grace, the Saints are given a knowledge of those who seek their intercession and are moved by the will of God to act on our behalf.

With all that said, I’ll conclude with a brief rationale for why we would seek the intercession of the Saints in heaven alongside those on earth. In brief, it is because we confess in the creeds the “communion of saints.” This communion is not merely a filial bond we have with those in our parish or diocese. It is the mystical and vital bond that all who are in Christ enjoy. We are all one body, and therefore are all engaged in praying for one another to some degree or another. We rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, having our hearts and souls knit together in such a fashion that truly constitutes the unity of Christ’s body. We know from Saint James’ epistle that the prayers of a righteous person have great power, and avails much good (James 5:16). We also know from Saint Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews that these beatified souls are the “spirits of righteous men made perfect” (Heb. 12:23). Therefore, with all the objections above cleared away, why would we not seek to foster and strengthen the bond of unity with the Saints in heaven by seeking their prayers in our time of need? 

Conclusion

I appreciate the time many of you have invested in reading these articles, and in the time spent reaching out to me to discuss these issues further. I do not pretend to have offered exhaustive or compelling arguments for the above views. I simply wished to offer a brief overview of the arguments that I found convincing that led my family and me to seek communion in the Anglican tradition, specifically within the Continuum. I hope this has been helpful, if at the very least in understanding where my family and I have come to land on these issues.