Evangelicals read the Fathers ’cause they’re awesome

When I posted ‘Why Should Evangelicals Read the Fathers?’, I got some feedback to the very question from friends on Facebook. Scott, a pastor with the Church of the Nazarene, gave two answers I quite liked: ’cause they’re awesome and because they say things that are relevant to people today. Frank, formerly a pastor and now a PhD student in the field of New Testament studies, gave the challenging response: So we can learn how not to do exegesis.

I thought it would be fun for me to give my musings off these three springboards. You, too, can join in on the comments!

The topic now is thus the awesomeness of the Church Fathers.

This is probably one of the best reasons to read the Fathers. I suppose there is a certain utility in the Fathers — drawing us nearer to God, exhorting us to holier living, clearer theological thinking, a more spiritual understanding of Scripture, an appreciation of the history of doctrine. But why do anything save the sheer … greatness of it?

I was once in a van with some IV people back in high school. One of the university students wanted to know why I wanted to study history. I gave all the pious, useful reasons. He said that the best reason to study history was because one liked it and found it interesting.

This is true of many fields.

Evangelicals should read the Fathers because the Fathers are awesome. And don’t just take my word for it. Take that of Prudentius:

Of the Father’s love begotten, ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the source, the ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see, evermore and evermore!

At His Word the worlds were framèd; He commanded; it was done:
Heaven and earth and depths of ocean in their threefold order one;
All that grows beneath the shining
Of the moon and burning sun, evermore and evermore!

There we have one of the most theological, poetical Christmas carols. Written by M. Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, a Latin poet who lived from 348-413. Ancient Christian poetry is among the wonders of the ancient world, writing down the wisps of knowledge grasped by human minds in the meters and images of their cultures (Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic), the honey of poetry as the honey on the cup of theology. Read Prudentius or Ephraim the Syrian or Gregory of Nazianzus.

Awesome.

If theology stirs you, I refer you to my translation of bits of Leo’s christology for Christmas yesterday, or to Clement of Alexandria from December 4. Amongst the Fathers we find the keen minds of Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, of Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil of Caesarea, of Origen and Evagrius — men who had both the keen philosophical parsing of words, phrases and syllogisms as well as the mystical insight of hours spent at prayer before the Triune God.

Awesome.

Then we come to the prayers of the Fathers, such as the following by St. Clement of Rome:

Almighty God, Father of our lord Jesus Christ, establish and confirm us in your truth by your Holy Spirit. Reveal to us what we do not know, perfect in us what is lacking; strengthen us in what we know; and keep us faultless in your service; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

St. Paul exhorts us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Is not this plea of St. Clement’s in keeping with the apostolic exhortation? The Fathers call us to deep lives of prayer through their liturgies, found in Hippolytus, or their practices of prayer as found in the Desert Fathers and the ascetic works of Basil of Caesarea. The classic Evangelical call has been to lives soaked in prayer, as we see in John Wesley rising at four o’clock in the morning to prayer for two hours before breakfast. It is a practice heartily recommended by the ancient Christian witness.

Awesome.

The Fathers inhabited a different thought-world than ours. These men and women were to sort of people who have visions, to dream dreams. Their philosophy was more than the keen exercise of the logical aspect of the mind, but a force of will, of prayer, of contemplation, of imagination, of ethical behaviour. The mystical call of Evagrius, Cassian, Origen, the Cappadocians — this is awesome, if foreign to far too many Evangelicals.

The Fathers are awesome. They are not perfect in ethics or in morals or in theology or in prayer or in mysticism or in asceticism. But they are awesome, even if more than a little odd upon first acquaintance. I hope you will make your acquaintance with them a long one and deep.

Fighting the Demons 2: Saint Savvas

Our first examination of the fight with demons was that of St. Antony, the locus classicus of the monastic fight with the Devil in the ancient world (here with an older post here), followed by an unplanned post on Shenoute’s violent treatment of “the Devil”. Our second look at fighting the demons is from another Greek biography of a desert saint, the Life of Savvas by Cyril of Scythopolis.

St. Savvas (we met him here before) was a Palestinian monk who founded several monasteries including the Great Laura which is still operational today. Savvas had as his custom to spend Lent away from the lauras and coenobia he had founded and live a life of austerity and prayer in the Judean Desert. One Lent, Savvas went to Castellion, the site of an abandoned Roman fort:

He underwent on this hill many trials inflicted by the demons. Doubtless he himself, as a man subject to fear, would have wished to withdraw, but He who had formerly appeared to the great Abba Antony appeared also to him, bidding him have confidence in the power of the Cross; so, taking courage, he overcame by faith and endurance the insolence of the demons.

While he was persevering in uninterrupted prayer and fasting, towards the end of Lent, when he was keeping vigil one night and begging God to cleanse the place from the impure spirits that lurked there, suddenly the demons began to make a beating sound and to display apparitions in the likeness sometimes of snakes and wild animals and sometimes of crows, wishing through such apparitions to terrify him. Since they were thwarted by his perseverant prayer, they departed from the place, shouting in human speech the words, ‘What violence from you, Sabas! The gorge you colonized does not satisfy you, but you force your way into our place as well. See, we withdraw from our own territory. We cannot resist you, since you have God as your defender.’ With these and similar words, they withdrew from this mountain with one accord at the very hour of midnight, with a certain beating sound and confused tumult, like a flock of crows. (Ch. 27, pp. 119-120 in English, trans. R. M. Price)

Following Savvas’ ordeal at Castellion, the old remains of the fort were converted into a coenobium, a monastery where the monks share together a communal life.

Our first point is to see that Christ again, as with St. Antony (but not Shenoute), plays a role. He appears to Savvas and gives him courage, calling him to “have confidence in the power of the Cross.” Christ is the true champion defender of the Christian. He fights alongside us and gives us the strength we need, whether our battle be with demons on a hilltop or the darkness of sin in our own souls. Christ is there to give his followers the strength they need.

The power of Christ is given to us in the power of the Cross. As I mentioned in my post “From what are we saved?”, Pope Leo saw in the Cross, alongside the defeat of sin and death, the defeat of the Devil and his minions. When we put our trust in Christ, our trust in his sacrifice at Golgotha, he gives us the benefits of his most precious death and resurrection. This includes power not only over sin and death but over the Devil.

Thus, trusting the great power of Christ in His Cross, Savvas was able to withstand the forces of the demons.

And what is in the saint’s arsenal against the demons as he trusts in Christ’s Cross? Prayer, fasting, vigils. These are the standard weapons in the battle against the demons. As we trust in the power of the Cross, we pray, we fast, we stay up through the night. Through these actions, in the battle against evil, be it demons appearing as snakes or late-night porno on the internet, the Christian is able to overcome the evil of the world.

Prayer is a given. I think most Christians pray. My (Anglo-Catholic) uncle once said that if you don’t pray and read your Bible, what business do you have calling yourself a Christian?

Fasting is less popular today. It is one of the neglected disciplines, even though Christ seems to imply it is something that his followers will do after the Ascension (see Mt. 6:16-18). If you are interested in fasting, I recommend you read Wesley’s sermon on the subject.

Vigils are even less popular. Oddly, some of the monks of the Desert believed that sleep deprivation was a help in the fight against demons, even though I, personally, find myself stirred up to irascibility much more easily when I haven’t got enough sleep. Nonetheless, I think that sometimes maybe we should organise groups of people to spend the entire night praying. Or to ensure that the entire time a particular event is occurring that there is someone praying, night and day. This soaking of the world in prayer is, I believe, a way to keep us focussed on the spirit, a way to keep us alert against the demons and the evil within us and around us.

These, then, are the lessons we can gain from the example of St. Savvas and the demons.

Ascending to Perfection (Wesley & Ancient Syriac Asceticism)

A lot of mystical literature, from the Neo-Platonists to today, includes imagery of ascent. The fourth-century Syriac Liber Graduum is no exception. In 19 we read:

1. Give me now your full attention, O one who wishes to become a solitary and is anxious to travel quickly to the city of our Lord Jesus. I will show you how you may go directly to the city of our King, if you have the strength to journey as I will show you. Because the steps are difficult to climb, I will guide you [how] to climb. Since, however, there are also numerous paths that deviate from the straight road — on which many mountains loom about you, and day after day you are blocked until the day of your death comes — it will find you on [one of] the paths that turn off from one side or the [other], seeing that you do not know how to go directly on the road to that city. If during your life you do not investigate about that road, traveling diligently in order to reach that city, you will not be able to go to it when you have departed from this world, for the end of your road is Perfect and its beginning is when you begin to uproot from yourself all faults. (Trans. Kitchen & Parmentier, pp. 183-184)

Memra 19 goes on to discuss the ascent to the city of Jesus, discussing various commandments that one must follow in order to make the climb. There are two paths — the path of the Perfect that takes you straight up, and that of those less-so, that will not get you there ultimately, but will perfect you and mature you and make you strong enough to climb the narrow, treacherous path of the Perfect.

Alongside the ascetic labours (Memra 20: … there is no other ascent to this step … except by this ascent … much watching and fasting, lowliness, and powerful crying out with many tears, much supplication and with the sweat of afflictions [p. 217]), there is always prayer. It is very useful in the ascent of the Perfect and the fight against sin.

Fourth-century Syriac authors were not the only Christians in history to believe in Perfection. While his conception differs on some key points — the Liber Graduum‘s Perfect are celibate ascetics who have renounced all attachment to the world — John Wesley is very famous for his teaching on Christian Perfection.

This Lent, in fact, I read Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection.

We may disagree with what Wesley calls “Perfection”, but I believe that by the grace of God (as Wesley says), it is attainable. Christian Perfection is having your heart filled with naught but love — love of God and love of neighbour. These are the two commandments on which hang all the Law and the Prophets, after all. The Perfect in Wesley’s view may still commit sin involuntarily or through ignorance, but will not willfully sin.

Now, the question of sinlessness aside, can we fault Wesley’s answer to how we are to wait for this change?

Not in careless indifference, or indolent inactivity; but in vigorous, universal obedience, in a zealous keeping of all the commandments, in watchfulness and painfulness, in denying ourselves, and taking up our cross daily; as well as in earnest prayer and fasting, and a close attendance on all the ordinances of God. (Ch. 19)

Like the Liber Graduum, Wesley also calls us to prayer:

All that a Christian does, even in eating and sleeping, is prayer, when it is done in simplicity, according to the order of God, without either adding to or diminishing from it by his own choice.

Prayer continues in the desire of the heart, though the understanding be employed in outward things.

In souls filled with love, the desire to please God is a continual prayer. (Ch. 25, Q. 38, §5)

Wesley was a reader of the Fathers, with a special love of Chrysostom’s homilies and Ephraim the Syrian’s poetry. It is clear to me from reading A Plain Account that the Greek Fathers have influenced Wesley’s thinking about humanity. He believes that God is actually powerful enough to take the peccator that I am and make me really and truly justus.

Indeed, Wesley’s call to piety, like that of the other famous Anglican Patrist of that age, William Law, is an application of the ascetic, mystical writings of the Fathers to a modern layperson’s situation. The wisdom of texts such as the Liber Graduum is adapted for a new audience — much like how Cassian adapted the wisdom of the Desert Fathers and Mothers for a Gallic audience.

Besides having a more optimistic anthropology than the Lutherans or the Reformed, Wesley and the ancient ascetics call us forth to a holiness that is beyond virtue. I know that sounds silly, but it is true. We tend to think that we are “good” by being nice to people, even rude people and jerks, and by giving to the poor. Maybe we are “good” because we evangelise. Maybe it’s because we go to protests and write letters to MP’s. Maybe it’s because we don’t look at porn.

Wesley and the Fathers would applaud these things. And then they would tell us to go further.

They would tell us to live lives saturated with prayer, to do everything out of love, to fast, to study the Scriptures assiduously, and to seek out opportunities to do good whenever we can. By doing so, we will put to death “the flesh” and rise nearer to the likeness of God, healing the wounded image within.

I think we can do it. And I think most of us western Christians don’t even try out of sheer laziness.

Shame on me for being lazy rather than righteous.

“Kill the flesh, in order to acquire a body.” -Sergei Bulgakov

Saint of the Week: Charles Wesley

This week’s saint is Charles Wesley (1707-1788), given that the day for his and John’s commemoration was two days ago (John Wesley was saint of the week here and here). Charles is the less famous of the two famous Wesley brothers, and I think this is a bit of a shame.

Charles Wesley was as much a man of action as his elder brother. He, too, was a founding member of the “Holy Club” at Oxford, meeting with friends to read the Greek New Testament and to transform their lives. He, too, lived a disciplined life — a discipline with method, thus Methodist and Methodism.* He, too, was an ordained priest of the Church of England. He, too, was involved in the evangelical revival and preaching the Gospel amongst the poor of England. He, too, went to preach the Gospel in Georgia. He, too, sought Christian Perfection.

Charles, however, was not merely a man of action like unto his brother. He was also a man of action in opposition to his brother. An example of such opposition was when he burst in on John’s first wedding and dragged his brother out, explaining to the elder Wesley that he wasn’t exactly suited to marriage. My understanding is that John’s second attempt at getting married succeeded but without happy product — proving Charles right.

Unlike John, Charles was happily married, to Sarah Gwynne. Sarah Gwynne, like their mother Susannah Wesley, probably counts as one of the many intrepid women of the Faith, for she accompanied her husband on his evangelistic journeys.

Charles eventually ended his itinerant lifestyle, which probably helped keep his marriage a happy one. He looked after the Methodists of Bristol from 1756-1771, then relocated to London, where his ministry included Newgate prison.

Charles also differs from John in virulent opposition to any schismatic activity on the part of the Methodists. He wished to keep Methodism a movement within the Church of England, and thus he wrote a hymn against the event of John ordaining Coke rather than celebrating it.

Hymn-writing, of course, is what we best remember Charles Wesley for. He wrote over 5500 hymns in his lifetime, so, although his prose works are few (are there any?) compared to John’s, his own literary output is not inconsiderable. Amongst this enormous corpus are such favourites as “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” “And Can It Be?” and “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.”

Despite confusing moments such as when he writes in “And Can It Be?” that Christ “emptied Himself of all but love,” these hymns demonstrate Wesley as one of the great devotional minds of the English language. Indeed, the nearness of the Divine in these hymns their clarity of the Gospel and its impact on the Christian life make them among the works of wondrous, clear theology. They are praise of God worth singing, the sort we encounter far less often in the newer songs of today.

Charles Wesley was also a clever man in his hymnography, for his words could be set to the tunes of drinking songs. This made them very memorable for the poor, drunken souls for whom the hearts of the Wesleys burned. And so Gospel truths could be sung and remembered as cast in the simple poetry of Charles Wesley. This is a very great gift to the English people, and one not to be underestimated.

So, to close, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” by Charles Wesley:

Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down;
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;
All thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus, Thou art all compassion,
Pure unbounded love Thou art;
Visit us with Thy salvation;
Enter every trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit,
Into every troubled breast!
Let us all in Thee inherit;
Let us find that second rest.
Take away our bent to sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its Beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty to deliver,
Let us all Thy life receive;
Suddenly return and never,
Never more Thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
Serve Thee as Thy hosts above,
Pray and praise Thee without ceasing,
Glory in Thy perfect love.

Finish, then, Thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see Thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in Thee;
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before Thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

*I’ve heard it said that the terms actually come from how John organised the movement; yet I have also heard that it was a nickname applied to the Holy Club back in their Oxford days, so I think that it’s probably both — certainly the latter is more likely to be what people think when they hear, “Methodist.”

Collect of the Day: John and Charles Wesley, Priests, 1791, 1788

From the Daily Office blog.

Lord God, you inspired your servants John and Charles Wesley with burning zeal for the sanctification of souls, and endowed them with eloquence in speech and song: Kindle in your Church, we entreat you, such fervor, that those whose faith has cooled may be warmed, and those who have not known Christ may turn to him and be saved; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

An Alternative “Toast tae the Lassies”

My more traditional option here.

Robert Burns, the Scots Bard, is well-known for his love of women, a love that got him into trouble at Ayr’s local kirk and produced at least one bastard child.  As a result, it is a tradition common to the dinners held in his honour at the commemoration of his birthday across the world to provide a toast to the “fairer” sex.

Yet might I take a moment to toast not just lassies in general, who are certainly a species of creature worth toasting, but to those lassies most worthy of a toast?  Might I turn our attention from the more carnal taste of Burns to the more spiritual taste of the saints?

Indeed, throughout the history of Christianity, strong women have been a force to be reckoned with.  They have been on the front lines of evangelisation, of work amongst the poor, of medicine and hospitals, of hospitality, of generosity, of pilgrimage, of mysticism.  Yet too often they are forgotten — indeed, even I have failed in over a year of “Weekly Saints” to make a female saint the topic for the week.  Nevertheless, the power of women in Christianity is something not to be forgotten, from the Blessed Virgin our “Champion Leader” to Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Let us toast first, then, the Mother of Our Lord, St. Mary of Nazareth.  She stands out not only as the only person to carry God in her womb, but also as the first person in a series of biblical calls to avoid making excuses and say in response to God’s call, “Let it be unto me according to your will.”  Faith and obedience to God’s call are our lessons from the Supersaint Godbearer.  To Mary!

A toast is also in order to Perpetua, the second-century martyress who stood firm in her faith and faced execution at the hands of Rome boldly, even wrestling with demons while she awaited her death.  Endurance and fortitude in the face of extreme unpleasantness are our lessons from St. Perpetua.  To Perpetua!

Third, I propose a toast to Amma Syncletica the fourth-century Desert Mother of Egypt, if for no other reason than this quotation: “Just as the most bitter medicine drives out poisonous creatures so prayer joined to fasting drives evil thoughts away.”  For encouraging us to pray and to fast in the bitter struggle against our own evil desires, a toast to Syncletica!

Slàinte mhath to St. Hilda of Whitby (my post here), who founded an abbey and used discernment to seek out the talents the Lord hid away in people like Caedmon.  May we all have true insight into the world around us.  To Hilda!

A toast to St. Clare of Assisi (my post here).  This intrepid mystic followed the call of God against the pressures of family and hearth — a difficult task for anyone whose family is Christian (to reject pagans is one thing, but to turn your back on your Christian parents another).  Would that more Christians had the boldness to follow the call of God to difficult places and a life of prayer regardless of what others think of them.  To Clare!

I propose a toast to Lady Julian of Norwich (my page here), the mystic anchorite who has shown so many of us something of the depths of the riches of the love of God Almighty for us.  May we, too, seek God’s face in prayer and spread his message of love to the world around us.  To Julian!

A toast is definitely in order to Susannah Wesley, mother of John and Charles, who, in a household full of loud children, sought the Lord at all times — even if it was just under the kitchen table.  She also has the distinction of having raised two of the eighteenth centuries great men of faith.  To Susannah!

Given the limits of time, let us remember Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who demonstrated heroic virtue in seeking Christ in the lowest of the low and the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, who moved beyond the confines of her nunnery to bring Christ where he was needed.  May we all be willing to go out of our comfort zones as we live for Christ.  To Teresa!

These few women and the many more who have populated Christianity from its earliest days as (allegedly) a faith of women and slaves are worthy of a toast.  May we live up to their examples of obedience to God, of faithfulness, of perseverance in prayer, of discernment, of willingness to go beyond the usual, of visions of God’s love, of the pursuit of God in everyday life, of heroic virtue seeking Christ in all places!

To the lassies of Christ!  Lang may their lum reek!

A Great Cloud of Witnesses

On June 10, 2009, I published a post about our first weekly saint, St. Columba.  Since then, the list has grown considerably.  Most of them get the big ST, but not all.  The principle has been the examination of the lives and teachings of those who have gone before us.  Not all Christians of interest get the big ST.

We have looked at ancient, mediaeval, and post-mediaeval (‘modern’) Christians.  We have looked at Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestants, and one Ethiopian Orthodox.  Apostolic men stand alongside poets who shake hands with mystics and martyrs.  All of these people have lived lives for Christ, and I hope that all of them can help bring us nearer to Christ by their example and teaching.

My selection has sometimes been from the Church Calendar.  Sometimes it has started there, as with Edmund James Peck (see in the list) and then extended by association; following Peck I wrote about other missionaries to the Arctic.  Sometimes they are chosen because I am reading about them or studying their work.

Often, if you have been following these weekly saints, you will have noticed that I give a brief biography of the saint, but not always.  Sometimes I offer a meditation on some aspect of the saint’s life and teaching.  Sometimes I ponder how best we might be able to honour or learn from a particular saint.  I hope these have been a blessing and will continue to bless!  Enjoy!

There are no women.  This is too bad.  I should fix this.  I meant to St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, when her feast rolled on by, but posted about no saint that week.  She and others shall make their way into the saints for 2011.  Here are the Weekly Saints thus far:

St. Joseph the Carpenter

Pope St. Leo the Great (here & here)

St. John of the Cross

St. Ambrose of Milan

St. Andrew the Apostle

St. Albert Lacombe

St. John the Baptist

St. Thomas the Apostle

St. Matthias the Apostle

St. Boniface

St. Augustine of Canterbury

St. Anthony of Padua

Emperor Constantine the Great

St. Athanasius

Dante Alighieri

St. George the Dragonslayer

George MacDonald

Thomas Cranmer

St. Cuthbert

St. Gregory of Nyssa

John Wesley (here & here)

St. Polycarp of Smyrna

St. Valentine

St. Antony the Great

St. Jean de Brebeuf

St. Francis of Assisi

Hans Egede

St. Juvenaly of Alaska

Edmund James Peck

St. John of Damascus

Abba Giyorgis Saglawi

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

St. Maximilian Kolbe

CS Lewis

St. Alban the Martyr

Sts. Peter and Paul

St. Basil the Great

St. Columba

Tap into the Tradition: The Remedy for “Matthewism”

As may be known, I have a habit of listening to Ancient Faith Radio and reading Eastern Orthodox books (the most recent being Being As Communion).  The Eastern Orthodox are a voice worth listening to, and one of the main reasons they are worth listening to is because they, in turn, listen to the Fathers.  They are, thus, deeply traditional, preserving that which has been handed down to them.

Frederica Mathewes-Green, one of the many Orthodox converts on Ancient Faith Radio, says:

I realized that my selections [in my spiritual life] were inevitably conditioned by my own tastes, prejudices, and blind spots. I was patching together a Frankenstein God in my own image, and it would never be taller than five foot one. (Quoted here.)

This is the Christianised version of the religion cited by Miroslav Volf in Exclusion and Embrace of “Sheilaism” — whatever you feel like believing, however you feel like worshipping, however you feel like living is what comprises your worldview, religion, and lifestyle.

What Mathewes-Green discovered in Orthodoxy was the corrective of tradition.  We all have our idiosyncrasies that we bring to how we think and live, and as Christians we have them when we approach Scripture and worship.  Tradition is the accumulation of what has been handed down from the Apostles and generally approved of in each generation.  It challenges our presuppositions and idiosyncrasies, sometimes very uncomfortably, but when entered into prayerfully, the Spirit will use it to conform us more and more into the image of Christ rather than the accumulation of stuff and culture and self that we bring with us to begin with.

I decided that, while Orthodoxy is interesting and all, I already have a tradition of my own, and it sprang up in England around 596 with the arrival of St. Augustine of Canterbury.  To ensure that I actually am part of this tradition, I recently re-read the 39 Articles of Religion, and I find myself in agreement with them.  So, besides reading the 39 Articles, what am I to do to engage with the Anglican tradition in all its richness?

1.  I have decided to plug into the Book of Common Prayer more frequently, using Morning & Evening Prayer and Compline, but also on occasion the Anglican Society of Saint Francis’ Celebrating Common Prayer for the divine office.  The daily office is an important part of traditional English spirituality.  It is a way to pray to and draw near to God while at the same time joining with believers within the tradition throughout the world and throughout time.

2.  I want to read the classics of the Anglican moral/ethical tradition.  This will first mean finishing off William Law’s Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, but moving on to Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and John Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection.  This aspect of the tradition includes both virtuous living and the call to social justice, both of which are part of the endless movement towards holiness and perfection (on this endless movement, see St. Gregory of Nyssa).

3.  The Anglican tradition also includes the English Reformers, so the Book of Homilies and Richard Hooker at large are to be part of my long-range plan, as is Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

4.  The Anglican tradition has a large component of hymnody worth exploring, and since I have 3 copies of Canada’s 1938 Hymn Book, I am well-prepared for this angle.  Alongside hymnody are the poets — Donne, Herbert, et al.

5. The pre-Reformation English tradition, from St. Augustine of Canterbury to the Venerable Bede to St. Anselm to Lady Julian of Norwich and more is part of the tradition as well.  I think a study of the mediaeval roots of “Reformation” thought would be a worthy activity.  Despite the arguments over the date of Easter and monasticism, mediaeval English Christianity tried to adapt local Celtic customs as part of their own, thus making “Celtic” Christianity also fair game.

6.  Patristics is fair game, being the root of much mediaeval Christian thought as well as much Reformation thought.  The Fathers are the Fathers of all Christendom, not just the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox bits.

7.  The theologians other than the Reformers, up to the present day.  The emphasis on Tradition means that, while I should probably grapple with the likes of Spong, Ingham, and more, my emphasis should fall on the Wesleys, the Anglo-Catholics/Oxford Movement, C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright, J.I. Packer, John Stott, and their ilk.

The above should probably last me until I’m dead.  Re those within Anglicanism who are divergent voices of dissent who attack and judge the tradition, I believe that the way to approach them is to look at them through the lens of the tradition, taking those bits that fall beyond the bounds of Scripture, the Creeds, and the 39 Articles, and providing cogent, reasonable, biblical, and traditional critique.

What about your tradition?  What are the roots and classic writings of Baptists, Mennonites, the Christian Reformed Church, Roman Catholicism, Pentecostalism?  With these in one hand, the Bible in the other, large doses of prayer, and the enlivening of the Holy Spirit, we should be more clearly drawn towards the image of the likeness of Christ than when our own idiosyncrasies take control as we read our Bibles all alone in our rooms.  Oh, also, take along a worshipping ecclesial community for the journey.  God will use them to shape you mightily as well.

St. Gregory of Nyssa and Endless Perfection

This past Tuesday we looked at a selection from St. Gregory of Nyssa‘s Life Of Moses (that found in Devotional Classics, Richard Foster & James Bryan Smith, eds.).  The passage dealt with the pursuit of virtue, the entire theme of the Life of Moses.

Perfection in St. Gregory is endless.  Following in the Platonic tradition, Gregory argues that evil is essentially non-being.  Evil is a lack, the absence of the good.  The good, on the other hand, when there is no evil, is boundless.  Goodness is never-ending; so also must be the pursuit of it, and that pursuit is virtue.

This line of reasoning also takes Gregory to the doctrine of divine infinity during this passage.  God himself is the ultimate good, the highest good, the most perfect being there is.  Therefore, he must be infinite, boundless.  He has no boundaries upon himself, his being, his action.  According to Anthony Meredith in The Cappadocians, this doctrine of divine infinity is a new direction in theology and philosophy.  St. Gregory has innovated in both the Patristic Greek tradition as well as in his Origenist/Platonic context.  If so, like most of the innovations within Meredith’s book, this has a great impact upon the subsequent tradition as well as being dictated by Scripture and tradition.

Back to our own pursuit of perfection.  I agree with St. Gregory.  If God is perfect, and God is infinite, then the road to perfection must also be infinite.  Thus, St. Gregory says, “For the perfection of human nature consists perhaps in its very growth in goodness.”  I believe that this would accord with John Wesley’s idea of Christian Perfection as seen in his Plain Account thereof (for more on Wesley’s teachings on the topic, see the blog A Heart That Burns).

We are not to lose hope, however.  Gregory draws our attention to the heroes of the faith, to the people who populate the Bible, especially Abraham and Sarah.  Of course, the main thrust of his work is the life of Moses and how Moses’ life is a model for our faith, especially when seen “spiritually”, ie. allegorically.

In our discussion afterward, Liam suggested that perhaps the best thing to do in our journey towards perfection, towards “friendship” with God (St. Gregory of Nyssa’s word, not mine), is to start with regular prayer and Bible-reading.  I know, I know.  It’s grade three at Sunday School again.  It’s every Evangelical preacher you’ve ever met.  Well, guess what.

They’re right.

And St. Gregory would recommend it, too.  The Bible is where we find the lives of the Old and New Testament saints, where we find the teachings of who God is.  And prayer is where we approach the Uncreated Light and enter into the darkness that surrounds His radiance.  Would that we all prayed and read our Bibles!

Where do you think we should go from there as we seek perfection and cultivate friendship with God?

Saint of the Week: John Wesley (Pt 2)

Yesterday, we left off with John Wesley’s true and powerful conversion of his entire self to Christ and the cause of Christ in 1738.  This led to his evangelistic mission that lasted from 1739 until his death in 1791.

This was the year that Wesley the student became Wesley the teacher — although he would never cease to learn as his life continued.*  He became a preacher.  As I recall, one of his first (if not the first) major evangelistic events was outdoor-air preaching in Bristol.  In that city were many people of the working-class who had not heard the Gospel in plain language, people whose lives were lived out in abject poverty both of body and of spirit, alcoholics, wife-beaters, people who, if they did darken the door of the local parish church, had learned to tune out the parish priest.

So Wesley did something different.  He brought the Gospel to them.  He stood out of doors in their midst and preached to them Christ crucified.**  He called them to live lives of holiness, infused by the grace of Almighty God.  And John Wesley, the failed missionary of Georgia, aflame with the limitless power of the Holy Ghost, became John Wesley the evangelist of England.  He travelled on horseback almost ceaselessly, preaching 15 times a week, bringing the light of Jesus into the darkness of Britain.

And the Holy Spirit did His work in these people.  People came to hear Wesley, and they were convicted by his words.  These new converts were organised into a system that would enable them to be catechised in what the faith taught and instructed in how to live, being held accountable one to another.  On one occasion, when Wesley visited one of the smaller gatherings, a former alcoholic appeared drunk at this believers-only gathering.  Wesley expelled him for drunkenness.  The Spirit worked on this man’s soul, and by Wesley’s next visit he was living sober, counted among the faithful.

Wesley had a high standard of holiness; yet we see in his sermon “On Working Out Our Own Salvation” that he was aware that we are not saved by holy living, only by Christ.  Yet in that sermon he exhorts his listeners to holy living, for Christ who calls us to work out our own salvation also “worketh in us” to bring it about.  By grace we are called to obedience; by grace we are enabled to live the obedient life.  By faith we respond.  This call to holy living was one of the central points of Wesley’s theology, as seen in his Plain Account of Christian Perfection.

More important for Wesley’s theology than Arminius was Perfection.  Indeed, whether we are predestined to salvation or can choose it freely, we are called by Christ to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.  God is love — He loves you, ungrateful, decadent you.  Respond in faith.  Live by faith.  Thus, live faithfully.  Live out holiness.  This is, of course, nothing new.  Wesley is not out to start something new, though!  He is calling the Church, in the 18th century, in the 21st, back to her origins, to her one true Love, the Father Almighty; his is the faith of the Primitive Church, of the Fathers, from the Didache to the Cappadocians to Ephraim the Syrian.  His faith is one informed by the Prayer Book and William Law, by the mystics Pascal, Brother Lawrence, Fenelon, Mme. Guyon, Mme. Bourignon, John of Avila, Lopez, Molinos.***

And the faith of this Great Tradition inevitably leads us to live our theology and to proclaim our theology.  The Virgin Birth matters, the Ascension is real.  These miracles are events of history, and their impact permeates us now, contrary to certain Anglican bishops then (and now) who denied these doctrines.  Christ is God; God is Christ.  He is ascended on high and He lives in us and through us.  By His power, we live holy lives.  Thus, Wesley’s theology always grappled with the practical realities around him, including faithless bishops and faithless flocks.  These were called back to Jesus, back to the Gospel, back to lives of holiness.

Ah, that we could live holy lives ourselves!  The path of holiness is calling us to seek it.  Our Guide is reliable.  And the End of the path is the most worthy End of all — for He welcomes us with open us, us squandering, prodigal, wastrel children of His.

*See John and Charles Wesley: Selected Prayers, Hymns and Sermons, “Introduction,” by Frank Whaling.  HarperCollins, 2004, p. xxiv.

**This technique had been seen in England before, as with George Fox the founding Quaker.

***See Whaling’s “Introduction”, p. xxi.