A glass of port?

Banner ad on website I am reading right now:

Go check out Stuff Christian’s Like’s post on raising hands in worship.  I giggled.

Please keep in prayer all of the representatives attending the Lambeth Conference this week in England.  This is the major, once every 10 years, meeting of the Anglican Communion.  Two major “issues” have raised the ire of the majority of the Communion - the acceptance of homosexual practice for the Christian and to a lesser degree, the decision to allow the ordination of Women Bishops in the major Western Provinces.  Although it is these two hot-button politicized issues that will be the headlines, let us remember that the greater portion of the Communion is not arguing for some kind of “American Neo-Conservatism” or a march back to modernity.  The real issue here is Biblical fidelity.

For your reading: A Timeline of the Descent of the Episcopal Church in the United States

Picture included in post is of the host of the Lambeth Conference, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Cantebury.

Keep up with Lambeth news, read commentary, find links at Kendall Harmon’s blog.

“Both parts of the Great Commission, evangelism and making disciples, require theology. Theology is a form of the ministry of the Word; specifically, theology is a the ministry of Christian understanding. We need theology in our evangelism because theology is about preserving the integrity of the word, the message of the gospel an evangelist proclaims. We need theology in our disciple making because theology is about reminding us who we are and what we are to say and do as followers of Jesus Christ in this or that situation.

The world is filled with therapists and managers. What the church needs now is people who can (1) articulate from the Bible the truth about God, the world, and ourselves in terms that are faithful to the Bible and intelligible in the contemporary context (2) exhort their congregations to say and do things that corresponds to the truth of Jesus Christ as attested in the Bible.”

Can I recommend the following CD for your aural enjoyment?

The Psalms of David from Kings Choir

This recording was made in 1968, but even though it is 40 years old it is a gorgeous listen.  Certainly, one can discern the age of the recording in the quality of recording in say Psalm 104 - but quite honestly, I have no complaints!   I have a great love for the Anglican choral tradition, particularly Anglican chant - and these recordings highlight fantastic settings for the finest of words, the Psalms.  Listen to the diction of these words - this choir wants you to hear them.  How sad that Anglican chant has faded out of almost every Episcopal church in the USA, and certainly many Anglican churches in the UK.  With the dying away of the prayer-book tradition and the continual innovation of the 60s and 70s, those churches which will have sung services (usually anglo-catholic or “moderate catholic”) are using arrangements that I believe are far less existentially satisfying.

For those of us who don’t particularly care about physical media can download it right now from Amazon.com for $6.97 (if you want the media, it’s the same price).  Download link here.

If you have not heard Anglican Chant, here are some Youtube clips for your enjoyment:

St Paul’s Cathedral Choir - Psalm 121

King’s College Choir - Psalm 50

Do young urban reformed evangelicals suffer from too much legalism or too much license?  There is a whole post coming on this - but if anyone is reading, what are your thoughts?

An open stream of thought to ministers and men under care of the PCA.

Remember when this dude was last running for President?  Many of us were completely unimpressed by the way his campaign manipulated the “religious vote”, especially the “Evangelical” vote.  I had several friends who were not only wholly unimpressed with his ability to preside over the country, but also very unhappy with the fact that Evangelical and PCA folk were slapping stickers on their cars and putting signs in their yards.

Was this simply because we are just Democrats?  The conversations I seem to remember seeing had more to do with the mixing of political and religious power than anything else.

Now I see a few facebook profiles and blog links to Obama-this, Obama-that cropping up.  Be careful, my friends.  You can’t have it both ways.

The Vicar loves the Book of Common Prayer…the vicar loves Martin Bucer.  So the Vicar really loves discussions of Martin Bucer’s theological input to the aforementioned book.  One of the places Bucer’s fingerprints show up is in the baptismal liturgy…

Upon his exile in 1548 from Strasbourg, Bucer was called to serve at Cambridge.  In his few short years there, he became a key figure in the reformation of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer under Edward VI.  Bucer was one of a group of those Continental Reformed who came to England and joined the society of Hooper’s party which also included Peter Martyr Vermigli at Oxford .  His fingerprints can be seen all over the language and theology of the 1552 edition of the Prayer Book which came out shortly following his death.

The baptismal liturgy was reformed and simplified throughout, according to Bucer’s Censures on the 1549 liturgy.  This included the removal of exorcisms, the setting apart of chasubles, water, and so forth.  One of the most significant changes in the Baptismal Rite as taken in 1552 was the post-Baptismal prayer.  Consider the post-Baptismal prayers from the 1549 and 1552 liturgies below:

1549 Baptismal Rite    
Then the priest shall anoint the infant upon the head, saying.
ALMIGHTY God the father of our lord Jesus Christ, who hath regenerate thee by water and the holy ghost, and hath given unto thee remission of all thy sins: he vouchsafe to anoint thee with the unction of his holy spirit, and bring thee to the inheritance of everlasting life. Amen.

1552 Baptismal Rite
Then shall the Priest say.
SEEING now, dearly beloved brethren, that these children be regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ’s congregation: let us give thanks unto God for these benefits, and with one accord make our prayers unto almighty god, that they may lead the rest of their life according to this beginning.

The change in tone, possibly owing to Bucer’s input is three-fold here.  First, the efficacious power of the water is removed for it did not itself convey the grace to regenerate, it merely signified and sealed it.  Second, the thanks for regeneration was given after the baptism, not during it.  And thirdly, Bucer makes the rite ‘horizontal’, in that he brings the congregation into it.  The sign is mostly for the congregation’s sake, so that they might see this child as one of the flock and help them grow in a manner that ‘they may lead the rest of their life according to this beginning.’  The earlier service had the Priest’s words directed directly at the child, which served little purpose in Bucer’s mind.

The wording, however, is not completely Bucer’s own.  He was interested, in his Censures, to change what was repugnant to Evangelical theology, not to set the exact wording of the Book of Common Prayer.  There is no evidence, however, that Bucer objected to the language of regeneration being used in the English liturgy.  Indeed, the Strassbourg liturgy’s post-baptism prayer states “…we give thee everlasting praise and thanks for that thou hast given this child to thy church and hast granted him a new birth through thy holy baptism, and hast incorporated him in the body of thy dear Son, our eternal Saviour, and hast now made him thy child and heir.”  Following on the pre-baptismal prayer’s plea that “as we baptise him in thy name…thou wilt entirely forgive him his inborn sin through our Lord Jesus…”.

Bucer’s baptismal views certainly didn’t seem to put him at any odds with Calvin (with whom he had regular, if sometimes spotty, theological discussion) or with any of the other “classically Reformed” Reformers.  Would his words raise eyebrows in your “Reformed” church?  A final word from the Rev. Bucer: “…as far as [a minister] is concerned, in baptising he is always washing away sin and imparting the new birth, even though by their own fault some persist in their sins and the old life of the flesh. Yet as soon as they begin to trust in the graciousness of God and in Christ’s redemption which are both presented by baptism, they receive the fruit of baptism…”

The past week has been insanity.  This next one promises to be as well.  The Vicar is braindead.