Category Archives: Church History

Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail

Posted on December 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals Are Attracted to the Liturgical Church

By: Robert E. Webber

Article written by: rm Kocak

“Why would I, the son of a Baptist minister, become an Episcopalian? Why would I , a graduate of Bob Jones University, walk the Canterbury Trail? Why would I, an ordained minister of the Reformed Presbyterian denomination, forsake my orders? Why would I, a professor at a main-line evangelical college, risk misunderstanding and put my career in a possible jeopardy to follow my heart?”

- Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail - page 11.

In Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, Robert Webber (and friends) seek to answer the question of “Why.” He tells his personal testimony of the journey into liturgical worship in a way that doesn’t suggest a superiority of the Anglican tradition over any others. The entire book is highly personal in its tone and invites the reader to join with the author on his liturgical journey.

The Book is broken up into three distinct parts:

  1. Why the Anglican Tradition?
  2. Six Pilgrims Share Their Stories
  3. The Church of the Future.

During the first part of the book, Webber takes you on his own sacramental journey and what attracted him to liturgical worship. To that end Webber gives six themes or motifs in his journey: a return to mystery, a longing for the experience of Worship, a desire of sacramental reality, the search for spiritual identity, embracing the whole church, and growing into a holistic spirituality. In the second portion Webber invites six other evangelicals who have made similar pilgrimages to share their story. Finally, Webber concludes in a brief chapter in Part 3 with the renewal movement within liturgical worship. Webber stresses that evangelicals can bring a lot of beneficial elements into the liturgical tradition and not forsake an “evangelical identity” for a “liturgical identity.”

The BIG Idea

Experiencing Worship

“It amazes me that I went through seminary without a course in worship, without any professor asking me to address the question: What is worship all about … My longing for more satisfying worship grew as each route I took in worship led me to a dead-end street.”
- pg. 36.

The desire for an experiential, mysterious, and sacramental reality in worship drips from the beginning chapters, as Webber reflects on mystery, experience, and sacramental reality in liturgical worship. This journey is rooted for Weber in a visit to a Roman Catholic worship service before Easter, the worship of the early church fathers, and hosting “Agape meals” with students and friends.

Idea #1

Discovering A Spiritual Identity

“I was introduced to the “Trail of Blood” theory. True Christians, it was argued, always stood outside the established church.”
-pg 59

Webber comments on how he felt divorced from the greater Christian body of believers. Webber was indoctrinated to believe that a true Christian was to stand outside the organized religions of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, and mainline Protestant denominations. Webber boldly discusses how he was rooted in the pride of the Puritans against Anglicans and Lutherans for what they perceive to be “rags of popery” and against Anabaptists for their pacifism. He said all these biases were good and fine until he would actually meet an Arminian, Lutheran, Anabaptist, or Roman Catholic who was devout in the Christian faith.

Idea #2

Eucharistic Spirituality

“Eucharistic Spirituality is the experience of being spiritually nourished and strengthened by eating the bread and drinking the wine… The mystery of what Christ did for me on the  cross reaches into my inner person in a way that I cannot describe.”
- Pg. 83.

Webber has a chapter on “Growing into a Holistic Spirituality” that really captures the essence of having a spirituality of experience; namely, to be in Christ. Both justification and sanctification are communicated at the Lord’s Supper in a tangible, physical way. Webber also shows the spirituality of experience in following the church year as a personal devotion.

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Posted in Anglicanism, Christianity, Church History, Sacramental Theology, The Big Idea Book Preview, Worship

The Trimesters of Church History

Posted on September 21, 2010 | 1 Comment

Yesterday’s post, Pregnancy and Eschatology, attempted to introduce us to the state of expectancy and anticipation that comes at the end of pregnancy and at the end of this age. As I thought more about pregnancy and the different seasons, rhythms, trimesters within, I also began to see similar patterns within the life of the church.

The early christians ordered their lives around the reality that Jesus’ return could be today. There were heresies and the establishment of early orthodoxy, primitive liturgies and creeds, persecutions and apostasy. It was a pretty rough time to be a Christian. There were years of relative peace only to be abruptly disrupted by persecutions akin to the Diocletian persecution in the early 4th century. This is also a time when the church first germinated with the blood of the martyrs and spread across the Roman Empire. This is how it was during the first trimester of my wife’s pregnancy. She never knew when morning sickness would strike, how long it would last, or where she would be. There was no equilibrium established with the quickly developing baby. In the first trimester more than any other, the child is most susceptible  to birth defects, but also grows from something that resembles a human cell into something that resembles a human person.

Then for some women, the persecution of the morning sickness and exhaustion cease as they begin the second trimester of pregnancy. All of a sudden, life starts to stabilize and the pregnant woman is able to be social, active, and filled with energy again. The second trimester is a time of feasting and slowly growing the child. My wife tells me, out of all the trimesters, the second is the most comfortable and enjoyable. This trimester marks the rise of Christendom with the issuing of the Edict of Milan which gave Christians the freedom to worship in the Roman Empire. The worship of the church after three centuries of it being persecuted, private, and primitive, now is adapted into a public service with elaborate liturgies,  public basilicas and places of worship, and sophisticated creeds. Eventually over the course of 1,200 years, the church grew bigger and more powerful. Soon, like the baby in the third trimester, the church became a megalith of power and luxury in a feudal middle age. A sight that everyone’s eyes are immediately drawn to.

The church grew so large and wielded such  temporal power in the nations, that there were cries for reformation. All of a sudden the persecution of morning sickness and exhaustion from the first trimester return. The church grows and becomes distinct in its parts as it spreads out like a baby in the third trimester pushing her distinct body parts against the abdominal wall of her mother. Christendom has grown into this new age of the church,  one of even further expansion, growth,  and development into the ends of the earth. Like a baby in the third trimester, new happenings are occurring in unforeseen places, while other parts of the world remain much the same.

Then like a thief in the night, like a fire alarm in a midday staff meeting, like a cell phone call  waking you up early in the morning … the labor pains begin. And the baby and the church are born into the life they were intended to live all along. Life in the light of a new world, with open eyes, and deep breaths. Life in the arms of parents who love you and in the embrace of a triune God who calls you his bride.

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Posted in Church History, Pregnancy