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Wrestling with the ecclesiology of Ignatius of Antioch (or, do I need a Bishop?!)

ignace

Bishop Ignatius of Antioch

I’ve been a low church evangelical for many years now. I entered Christianity through a sectarian Pentecostal group (some doubted we should celebrate Christmas because it was of “pagan origin”, so you imagine the type of ecumenism I was taught). I have thought about the teachings of Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism/Episcopalianism and there are times when I find these groups quite attractive and other times when I find these groups to be concerning. Currently, I worship with a (modern, not Amish-like) Mennonite church, which I like because of their commitment to serious discipleship, and their emphasis on the Kingdom of God and the reconciling hope of their eschatology. Yet I worry at times that Mennonites are similar in some ways to my Pentecostal friends in that there is a lack of catholicity with little emphasis on the Lord’s Supper/Communion/Eucharist tradition that has enriched the church for hundreds of years.

As I have mentioned (see here) I have decided to participate in a group called “Read the Fathers”. One figure whose writings are listed early is Ignatius of Antioch (CE 35/50-98/117), a Bishop in the early church who is said to have been one of the more immediate successors of the Apostle Peter and a student of the Apostle John. I haven’t studied this figure enough to have an opinion on such claims, but that he was writing not too long after documents like the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation were composed demands attention.

Is this gathering of U.S. Catholic Bishops the assembling of "the church"?

Is this gathering of U.S. Catholic Bishops the assembling of “the church”?

There have been several statements made in his epistle that seem to foreshadow the teachings of the more developed church, the ecclesiology to which aforementioned groups like Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglicans appeal. As someone who is worshipping with Mennonites, who has been educated by Baptists and Reformed thinkers, who has taught in churches with roots in Lutheranism and Pentecostalism, and who (admittedly) prefers “low church” Christianity (though I have grown fond of some form of liturgy and practices such as following a form of the liturgical calendar), I thought I’d post some excerpts here for conversation.

The first to grab my attention is from Ignatius’ Epistle to the Ephesians (V) where he writes:

“Let no man deceive himself: if any one be not within the altar, he is deprived of the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two possesses such power, how much more that of the bishop and the whole Church! He, therefore, that does not assemble with the Church, has even by this manifested his pride, and condemned himself. For it is written, “God resists the proud.” Let us be careful, then, not to set ourselves in opposition to the bishop, in order that we may be subject to God.”

This seems Eucharistic (though I am trying to avoid anachronism). The Bishop performs the rite at the alter providing the bread to the people, and to deny the assembly is of grave concern. He writes later (XIII):

“For when ye assemble frequently in the same place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith. Nothing is more precious than peace, by which all war, both in heaven and earth, is brought to an end.”

And then (XX):

“…breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, but [which causes] that we should live for ever in Jesus Christ.”

What we have in this epistle is the need to gather with the church, the importance of the Bishop, and the centrality of the Eucharist in worship. I struggled even more with a statement he made in his Epistle to the Magnesians (II):

“Since therefore I have been permitted to see you in the person of Damas, your godly bishop, and the worthy presbyters, Bassus and Apollonius, and my fellow-servant, the deacon Zotion, of whom may I have joy, because he is subject unto the bishop as unto the grace of God, and to the presbytery as unto the law of Jesus Christ.”

The Bishop of one church represents the whole local church to the other church through that local church’s Bishop. Later in the epistle he writes (XII):

“…that in everything which you do, you may be prospered in flesh and spirit, by faith and love, in the Son and Father and in the Spirit, in the beginning and in the end, along with your bishop who is worthy of all honor, and the fitly-woven spiritual coronal of your presbytery, and the deacons who are according to the mind of God.  Submit yourselves to the bishop and to one another, as Jesus Christ [was subject] to the Father [after the flesh], and the Apostles to Christ and the Father, that there may be union both of flesh and spirit.”

Submitting to the Bishop brings unity, and it models Jesus’ submission to the Father, and the Apostles to Christ and the Father. He writes in his Epistle to the Trallians (II), “For, since you are subject to the bishop as to Jesus Christ, you appear to me to live not after the manner of men, but according to Jesus Christ, who died for us, in order, by believing in His death, you may escape from death.”

Subject to the Bishop as to Jesus Christ? 

Submit to the Bishop as to Christ? Always?

Submit to the Bishop as to Christ? Always? What if my Bishop was John Shelby Spong?

Now, as I said, I want to avoid anachronism. I realize that a “Bishop” doesn’t seem to be as authoritative as it might come to be later. There doesn’t seem to be Archbishops. It could be argued that at this stage in the history of the church a Bishop was like the “Sr. Pastor” over the church in a city. There was no acknowledgement of anything like denominations, so you wouldn’t have a Lutheran pastor, a Presbyterian pastor, and so forth and so on. You’d have one, single pastor (Bishop) who oversees other leaders (Presbyters and Deacons). We know from the emergence of groups like the various gnostic sects that this idea is challenged, and that catholicity is “in flux” for the perspective of historicism, but for those of us who affirm that Spirit’s guidance in developing the church to become what most of us would consider “orthodox” (e.g., Trinity, deity of Christ, nature of Christology, function of canonical books) what do we say to this (and other statements by Ignatius in other epistles)?

Also, for pragmatic purposes, in light of Ignatius’ words, what do you think he would have said if someone said, “My ‘Bishop’ is John Shelby Spong! Should I remain under his authority?” How would Ignatius have advised people under the episcopal rule of Spong? or Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori? or an Arian Bishop or a gnostic Bishop?

Your thoughts on this subject are welcome, whether you be of a tradition with Bishops or without Bishops. What do you think of the need for Bishops today? What do we do if we think Bishop lead churches have strayed from the Gospel? 

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Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and the future of global Christianity.

Roman Catholic Pope Benedict XVI and the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

The other day Daniel Thompson wrote a short blog post titled “The Changing Face of Christianity” in response to the announcement that Rowan Williams is resigning as the Archbishop of Canterbury. In it he made the suggestion that it may be time for Anglicanism to recognize that it has shifted its center. While it may have a geopolitical home in the United Kingdom the quickest growing part of the communion is Africa.  Wouldn’t it make sense for Anglicanism to be lead by someone who represents this reality?

John Sentamu is the Archbishop of York and the front runner to do just that according to some. Sentamu was born in Uganda. So it could be that the Archbishop will be from a part of the world where Anglicanism is thriving.

Thompson received his idea from a New York Times article by Ross Douthat. In “Agonies of an Archbishop” he writes that Anglicanism isn’t the only communion that needs to consider choosing someone to represent the global movement that reflects the changes we see. Roman Catholicism needs to do the same. Douthat thinks that when Pope Benedict XVI dies the church must strongly consider a Latin American or African to replace him. He writes,

“….Roman Catholicism’s decline in the West has likewise been accompanied by striking growth in the developing world. (As the number of Catholic seminarians has dropped in the United States and Europe, for instance, it has risen by 86 percent globally since 1978.) In both churches, this geographic and demographic shift is putting a strain on institutional structures that evolved in a more Eurocentric age.”

And he said the following about Williams and Pope Benedict XVI:

“To be an Anglican bishop in Britain today, for instance, means shepherding a shrinking native-born flock alongside growing immigrant churches, trying to make religion relevant in a cosmopolitan and often anti-Christian culture, and figuring out whether the continent’s growing Muslim communities contain potential allies, potential rivals, or both. But to be a bishop in, say, Nigeria — where Christianity is expanding rapidly, secularism is almost nonexistent, and Islam looks like a mortal foe — means something very different. And asking a Welsh-born theologian to steward a Communion that probably holds more churchgoers in Lagos than Liverpool is a recipe for constant agony.

“Here Rowan Williams has borne some of the same burdens as Pope Benedict XVI. The outgoing archbishop of Canterbury and the former Joseph Ratzinger differ theologically and in the scope of their ecclesiastical authority. But both men are European academics trying to speak to Western audiences while leading an increasingly global and post-European church. Both have confronted the same issues (Islam, secularism, sexuality) and both have stumbled into public controversies when their soft-spoken styles collided with intractable challenges.”

Is this what we see? Is Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism being led by “European academics” even as the church moves away from such a leadership paradigm? Is the church too Eurocentric in hierarchy to accurately represent the global church?

What do you think? Should Anglicanism be lead by someone like John Sentamu? Should the next Pope be from Africa or Latin America?


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Walk On: A Guide to Exiting from Oneness Pentecostalism (Pt. 5)

[If you haven’t read the previous posts in this series you can find them here: Pt. 1 here; Pt. 2 here; Pt. 3 here; Pt. 4 here.]

The other day someone commented on one of the posts in this series saying that my arguments against Oneness Pentecostalism were not very good. He said that I was creating a “straw man” while negatively painting the movement with a “broad brush”. He has misunderstood what I am trying to do.

I said this in the introductory post:

Let me provide a disclaimer from the very beginning. I am not writing this post and the next few in order to try to apologetically disprove Oneness Pentecostal dogma. In fact, I will be ignoring comments that try to bait me into such debates. I have written plenty elsewhere saying openly why I disagree with their teachings.

Likewise, I have no illusions that these posts will “convert” anyone. I have met some people who have told me that my story gave them the strength to leave, but I know that there are many others whom I have failed to convince, including some family. If you are happy where you are as a Oneness Pentecostal, or if you are needing to be “convinced”, then this is a dead end.

So if you are an apologist for Oneness Pentecostalism you will find these writings frustrating because I am not trying to show that Oneness Pentecostalism is misguided. I’ve written elsewhere in an attempt to do that very thing. What I am writing here presupposes a level of agreement between me and my readers. No, you don’t have to be fully convinced that it is time for you to exit Oneness Pentecostalism, but I assume that you, the reader, already have thought about it for a while and that you are seriously weighing your options. Whether or not you leave is between you and God. I am writing for those who either have made the choice to reintegrate into the broader Christian family or who will in the near future.

That being said, let me get to the main subject of this post. One thing that Oneness Pentecostalism does share with most every other “type” of Christianity is a underlying tribalism. We all want to be “in” and not “out”. We want to belong. Sadly, this means that we are often forced to choose another group so that we do not have to feel like Lone Rangers.

There is nothing wrong with finding a place to belong. There is nothing wrong with affirming a creed or confession. Two bloggers that write here have recently aligned themselves with large groups holding very historic confessions. JohnDave Medina has returned to Roman Catholicism and Josh Smith has entered into the Anglican fellowship. They are both former Oneness Pentecostals.

I have remained unaffiliated though I have had times where I was drawn to Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, and I even thought ever so briefly about the Reformed. I once considered becoming part of the Assemblies of God so I could retain a Pentecostal identity. I have been going to a seminary that has Baptist roots, so I thought I may become a Baptist (probably wouldn’t be too hard to make this transition now). I discovered that for the time being I was happy committing as deep as a local independent church would ask of me. Unlike my fellow bloggers I am not part of a larger group.

What I do fear is that while some people can be removed from the sectarianism of Oneness Pentecostalism, some cannot have the sectarianism removed from within them. So they are suddenly as militantly for this group or that group as they were for Oneness Pentecostals a few months earlier. While this may be my committed ecumenism speaking, I ask you to be careful not to chose a group merely to belong.

I say this because your identity must be grounded in Christ. You must see yourself first and foremost as a Christian before you say you are a Roman Catholic, a Presbyterian, or a Methodist. You need to learn to love the people of God broadly before aligning with a group for pragmatic or polemical reasons.

There is a purging that must occur. While not all Oneness Pentecostal congregations are suspicious of other Christians a great many are. There is a good chance that if you fellowshipped with the church down the street it was through minimal interaction. Whatever you do, don’t leave where you are only to go somewhere similar.

Also, there are many Oneness Pentecostals who had to accept what their pastor taught lest they be isolated. You had to affirm particular views on particular passages. You didn’t study these things to see if they were true because in part you feared your conclusions. If you did study it was only to learn how to “defend” yourself against Trinitarians.

If you pray and study and one day realize you belong amongst the Southern Baptist then so be it. But don’t choose to be Southern Baptist because you need a “team”. Don’t choose to be Southern Baptist because you need an “us” to oppose “them”. Do not choose to be Southern Baptist simply to belong. Why? Because one day you will wake up and realize you are in a place that is vaguely familiar. You have doubts, you need answers, and you aren’t sure what to do. Too much could be at stake to ask the questions floating through your mind, so you will shut up and live with the tension. Tension it will be.

This is all I have to say on this subject. In my next post I will address something a bit more concerning. I will be writing on the pendulum swing that I have experienced and seen experienced by other former Oneness Pentecostals in the area of morals and convictions.


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Good Friday From the Perspective of a Rookie Anglican

*This is a guest blog from my wife Morgan. She was kind enough to write about her Good Friday experience since I was unfortunately at work during the service*

I’m not a very serious person. As a matter of fact, I’m generally the kind of person you’ll find trying to make light of even the most serious and somber situation. I laugh at funerals. I think I picked up this trait from my mother. For a very non-serious person, Easter is the perfect holiday. Hallelujah! He is risen! I am ready to shout it from the rooftops – but Easter isn’t here yet. Today is Good Friday. It’s a very different sort of holiday.

As Josh has shared with you, we recently started attending an Anglican church so our focus on the Holy Week is a little different this year. I’m 32 years old and this is the first time I’ve really paid careful attention to Good Friday. Sure, I’ve talked about it. I’ve even explained it to people. However, I’ve never gone to a Good Friday service and focused on only the death of Christ, without finishing the story. I’m thankful to St. Matthew’s for keeping things at a pace that helps me contemplate, verse-by-verse and song-by-song what Christ has done for me. The visual of a cross, covered by a black fabric drape, drives the point home.

The Good Friday service this evening was focused on the scriptures where we read about Jesus’ final journey to the cross, his death and his burial. The songs followed in step and helped give a voice to my thoughts. It was a somber service. Not without hope, mind you, but very focused on the matter at hand.

A very dear (and very wise) friend told Josh today to be careful not to “rush” Easter. I think he’s right. Yes, Jesus has risen and I am thankful for that! However, we cannot forget that before he could rise, he had to die. He was beaten and bruised. He was crucified. He died a slow and painful death. His side was pierced and he was laid in a tomb. He was mourned by his friends and his disciples. His mother wept tears for her dead son.

I know it’s more comfortable (especially for us non-serious folk!) to brush lightly over the tough parts and focus on the happy parts. Don’t give in to that temptation. Crucifixion and death are not pleasant subjects, but I think we need to dwell here for a bit. We need to think about what Christ did for us that dark day.

Yes, Easter is coming – but don’t rush it.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, we pray you to set your passion, cross, and death between your judgment and our souls, now and in the hour of our death. Give mercy and grace to the living; pardon and rest to the dead; to your holy Church peace and concord; and to us sinners everlasting life and glory; for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”



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Holy (Maundy) Thursday from the Perspective of a Rookie Anglican

This Holy Week is the first that my wife and I have spent in an Anglican church. The experience of being apart of a liturgical church has been a great blessing so far. I thought that it would be interesting to take the next three days to describe the experiences of my first Easter Triduum in an Anglican church. Of course, my perspectives are certainly coming from someone who is experiencing it all for the first time. So keep in mind that I may not really know what I am talking about.

Today is Maundy Thursday which is the day that the church commemorates the Last Supper of Christ as described in the Gospels. Maundy Thursday is the start of the Easter Triduum, and is naturally a service where the Holy Eucharist is celebrated. I am going to take the rest of this post to describe the actual Maundy Thursday service that I attended at my church, St Matthew’s in Portland, Oregon.

The entire service is geared towards commemorating the Last Supper and that really comes through in both the musical choices and the scripture lessons. Our processional hymn was “Now, my tongue, the mystery telling” which is commonly attributed to Thomas Aquinas and sings of Christ keeping the passover and what we received from that last passover.

Our scripture lessons were Exodus 12:1-14, Psalms 116; 1-2, 12-19 (this was chanted), 1 Corinthains 11:23-26, and Matthew 26:17-30. All of these scripture passages helped to move us toward the celebration of the Eucharist.

I really enjoyed the sermon, which was taken from 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. Our priest, David Humphrey spoke about the situation at the church in Corinth. Corinth was a church where people were using the Lords Supper to highlight the differences between themselves. This runs counter to the ultimate unity that the Eucharist is supposed to confirm. He described the Eucharist as the ultimate leveling field in that we all come together and share what we have in common, and that commonality is our need for Christ. Our use of a common cup is to portray this unity better. Another interesting point in this sermon was that Christ shared the passover supper while his betrayal was underway. Through this he showed his ultimate love and forgiveness. The idea of sharing a sacred meal with someone who is planning your death is hard to imagine. We really have such a gracious savior!

Later the alter was prepared for the administration of the Communion sacrament. After we all had received we said this prayer:

“Heavenly Father, we thank you that in this sacrament we have been given the memorial of the passion of your Son Jesus Christ: Grant us so to reverence the sacred mysteries of his body and blood, that we may know within ourselves and show forth in our lives the fruits of his redemption, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen”

We then sang the Hymn: “Go to Dark Gethsemane” as preparation was being made for the stripping of the altar. It was sobering to watch the pure white Alter cloth and other liturgical vestments being stripped away. After all of the cloth was removed from the alter and the cross, both were covered over with a deep black cloth. This is to signify the dark and terrible time that is to come for our Lord.

While the congregation silently left the building I could not help but think about the sorrow and pain our Lord must have been going through on that night long ago. We certainly do not deserve the gift that he gave us through his suffering.

Our Maundy Thursday service has left me hanging. The story is not yet over and it is stopped at a very intense part. I know what is coming next but I still cannot help but be somber about it. At least I know that it ends well.


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Wednesdays with Wright: Ordaining Women in the Church of England

N.T. Wright is egalitarian as long as ordaining women doesn’t result in schism. In a recent interview with The Church of Ireland Gazette he says:

…my own position is quite clear on this, that I have supported women Bishops in print and in person. I’ve spoken in Synod in favour of going that route, but I don’t think it’s something that ought to be done at the cost of a major division in the Church.

What do you think? Is the egalitarian position worth defending even if it results in division? Should egalitarians back down if complementarians threaten to split?

Read the rest of the article here.

Listen to the interview here.


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Rome, Geneva, and Everywhere Inbetween!

A lot has been said regarding the Vatican’s attempt to welcome disgruntled Anglicans back into communion (see here). But I thought that I’d toss out a few links for those who are not yet bored with this subject.

First, N.T. Wright, via Trevin Wax’s blog, has responded to those who see the “New Perspective on Paul” as being a step back toward Roman Catholic theology here.

Second, Michael Bird defends N.T. Wright’s place within Protestantism, along with some other comments about Catholic-Protestant relations, here.

Third, Jim West ponders why Rome will welcome Anglicans back but will not allow their own priest to get married here.

Finally, Halden has some final comments on Anglo-Catholicism here.