Christian Suffering & the Church

Christ suffers in His members or Body in virtue of their union with Him. We can see this in the ministry of St. Paul, in the so-called Prison Epistles. in Col. 1:24 St. Paul talks about this “mystery”…truth that is not discovered by man’s unaided power, and therefore known only thru divine revelation.

“I rejoice in the sufferings I endure for your sake, and fill up the measure of afflictions Christ has still to endure in my flesh on behalf of His body, the Church, which I serve in my office of stewardship entrusted to me By God, to set forth the gospel in its universal scope, that secret hidden from eternity but now revealed to His saints.” (Col. 1:24-26, paraphrase)

The wealth of our full understanding consists in knowledge of the mystery of God, and this mystery of God is no other than Christ Himself, since in Him God’s eternal purpose is realised and revealed.

The Doctrine of God, the Trinity of God.

“It is not impossible that the reduction of the role of Christ to moral teacher in the last (19th) century happened because of the eclipse of the doctrine of the Trinity.” (Alar Laats, Doctrines of the Trinity in Eastern and Western Theologies: A Study with Special Reference to K. Barth and V. Lossky -1999.)

We can see the doctrine of the Trinity of God is little studied in the postmodern Church today. And if it is done, it is done so to simply enable this time of postmodernity to gear down this profound reality and mystery. Schleiermacher relegated the Trinity to an appendix. Thinking the doctrine as something for advanced thinkers, and even mystic types. But thankfully we have the work of men like Barth and Lossky. Both of which sought to renew the Church in its best and most proper position, both the doctrine of God in Incarnation (Christ), and in the depth of God’s own place of triad or triune. From which Christ is center, but always in and from the Father, the Father’s object of love!  And of course this “love” is Himself, the Subsistent Love of God – the Holy Spirit. (Col. 1:8 / Rom. 15: 30)

I only touch on these things lightly on a blog, hoping to awaken this great study and reality. And as Barth can say and challenge, it is the head of dogmatics, for “the doctrine of the Trinity is what basically distinguishes the Christian doctrine of God as Christian.” (CD, 1/1:301)  And Von Balthasar states that Barth’s placing of the Trinity in the prolegomena of dogmatics provides God’s full sovereignty and removes Schleiermacher’s theology of so-called consciousness. God is not accountable to man but, since he reveals Himself as triune, He is free. And it is here that Barth with Calvin stand apart from the Western tradition after Aquinas.

Pseudonymity in the NT?

The idea that many of the NT Letters were really Pseudonymous, is the place that many NT scholars have gone. As with J.D.G. Dunn, etc. But the whole idea and reality of such is hardly proven at all. In fact looking at the NT Letters themselves, as 2 Thess. 2: 2, with chapter 3: 17, we see this is a real problem. But in fact, as with many 2 Thessalonians, St. Paul’s authorship is called into question. In spite of these verses.  It is problematic to say the least.  And even in the 1890’s F.J.A. Hort (certainly no conservative) could write in strong favor for St. Paul’s authorship of Ephesians and Colossians. Also one of his pupils, Armitage Robinson, wrote an outstanding commentary on Ephesians. So in general the reluctance of English scholars, even down to the recent times, to see Ephesians as non-Pauline or not really Paul himself, may well owe something to Hort. It certainly has to my mind.

He saw the so-called discrepancies in outlook between Ephesians and the other Pauline letters can be explained in terms of the natural development of St. Paul’s thought, language, and style.  Also in Hort’s personal sermons, show how Ephesians deeply affected Hort’s understanding of the church, which tended to the rather High Church position. In his time he saw the malaise in the contemporary church was due in part to the long neglect of the teaching of St. Paul on the church as the Body of Christ, and the importance of the corporate life of Christians. Indeed renewal of the church depended on a rediscovery of this dimension, which was so clearly seen and was evident in this the greatest of all St. Paul’s Letters!

This just a very short look, again. But later Hort was to write a very fine commentary on 1 Peter, which supported the Apostle Peter’s authorship.

2 Tim. 2:15 (The Text)

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a workman unashamed, keeping on a straight course (to) the message of truth.” (Lit.)

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workmen who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” (NAS, Update)

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, [That is, one approved after being tested] a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handing the word of truth.” (ESV)

The “workman” - worker, is a labourer to God, who has been and continues to be approved to God, by his right and correct handing or straight line (furrow…a plowed field, but often to a narrow channel) in the message and word of God’s truth. By his good effort and work, he is never brought to any shame, before God or to himself. He is “the Lord’s servant” (Verse 24) and becomes here ”an apt teacher”. 

The “pastor-teacher” !  St. Paul, (Eph. 4:11)

Biblical and Doctrinal Spirituality

There needs to be a Biblical and Doctrinal spirituality, if the Christian Church in both East and West is going to affect this world and effect the different peoples and culture. Sadly the spirituality of the Western Church is perhaps inches deep, to use a metaphor. And before the Church can effect the culture, it must affect itself. And this comes down to each member of that body, and the real life of each member in the Church of that Body.  The Church lives in a time really of an information glut!  So just information, DVD’s, UTube…etc., etc. Though helpful is not the answer. But just what is the answer for this time of the postmodern, postchristian era?  Again, and always Christ!  But Christ known and lived, within, without, and the living challenge to a fallen and lost world. We must remember that Christianity…the Crucified, Risen and Ascended Christ make claims that no other spiritual or religious group can make!  We can simply see this in the Biblical Revelation itself (John 14: 6 / Acts 4:12).

The Church of Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory & the people of that glory is always a mystical reality. And in the words of Pope John Paul the II: “The mystery of the Church”, its “invisible dimension”, is “larger than the structure and organization of the Church”, which are “at the service of the mystery.”  We can see this as the Church lives within this fallen world. But the Church is also the People of God, so the Church is only as strong and healthy as are the “people” and that Body-Catholic.

Finally to use a spiritual and mystical witness, a person of the Churches history, I will turn to Julian of Norwich, a women and soul.. an anchoress in postmodernity. She who from the 14th century, can capture our imagination, as both a Mystic and Theologian as she can tell us again about the Trinity of God, and therein the attributes of Love!  But she also always stands in the framework of the teachings of Holy Church, and squarely in the Augustinian tradition of the Catholic Church.  “And our substance is in our Father, God almighty, and our substance is in our Mother, God all wisdom, and our substance is in our Lord God, the Holy Spirit, all goodness, for our substance is the whole in each person of the Trinity, who is one God.” (LT. Long Text)  And for Julian, she loves to call ‘Jesus our Mother’.  As she sees St. Paul with Gal. 4: 26, 31.  So Julian brings together both the doctrine of God (biblical & trinitarian) unto this place of doctrinal but certain spirituality. And she challenges us to a Christian witness that can always be contemporary, relevant but always biblical and theological in the Church Catholic, and the Church Body alive in our God Triune – who is Himself the life of every human person (John 1:4 ; 9), but redeems those alone who will “come within”, and love and follow HIM!

Ethics and Service

“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.”

“A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

           — Albert Schweitzer

“All virtue is but a mask, an outside appearance, mutable as our garments, if it does not spring from this divine source; and then, indeed, it is genuine, essential, and permanent.”  “The King’s daughter,” saith David, “is all glorious within.” (Ps. 45)

Grace must always work from inside to out. There simply must be obedience in every Christian life!

Fr. R.

Christian Hope; eschatological

We live in a time when hope seems to be the last element on the Christian agenda. It seems we Christians are preoccupied with the past at times. While our belief is historic and biblical, we also live in an eschatological faith. We must be looking forward also.  I am not saying we don’t have a rich history, we do, but we also need to be living in both the present and future.  Hope is a central reality also of Christianity, which is so closely seen in the Resurrection itself.  As we see this in the 1st Letter of St. Peter, as he describes our life as “born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1:3) and also describes the faith as “making a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you.” (1 Pet. 3:15).  And then we can also turn to St. Paul and his Romans Letter, chapter 8: 24-25, and Rom. 15: 13.

So yes, we Christians are a people of hope, as St. Paul says in his triad: So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest is love.” (1 Cor. 13:13)  But hope must be central!  Let us hope again: “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (Rom. 8:25) And this is our eschatological hope and faith!

Christian Baptism, and Unity

At the beginning of the Christian life stands baptism, it is the consecration of the individual to God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is here also that Christians are marked in the unity of deep bonds of spiritual fellowship and together members of the One Mystical Body of Christ. Every Christian is thus marked by special relationships of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That One God who is a divine unity and also a tri-unity – the Trinity of God, and together with and in the Christian.  When Christians call upon God as their Father..Abba, they manifest a family bond that transcends all ecclesiastical divisions. This is what we might call that ecumenical spirit, which is the reality of Christian unity itself. (See, Rom. 8: 15-16 / Gal. 4: 6)

It would be a great ecumenical advance if we who are here and are baptised, could agree that as long as we look to God as our Father in Christ, the Son, we remain brothers and sisters. It is here that the Spirit draws witness!  (St. John 16: 13-15)

Iustitia Dei, or Justification and the New Man

If we look at Augustine’s idea of Justification, we will find that he believed “iniustitia” to be the right ordering of man with his own created order. And thus “Justification is therefore essentially a ‘making right’, a restoration of every facet of the relationship between God and man, the rectitude of which constitutes iustitia.” (Alister McGrath) And thus it is not really in legal or forensic terms, but transcends them to that place of God and man, in union together. Of course it does have moral and legal aspects, but this is not the primary concept. But the New Man In Christ!

“Augustine’s understanding of iustitia is so broad that this could be defined as ‘being made to live as God intends man to live, in every aspect of his existence’, including his relationship with God, with his fellow men, and the relationship of his higher and lower self (on the neo-Platonic anthroplogical model favoured by Augustine) . . . By justification, Augustine comes very close to understanding the restoration of the entire universe to its original order, established at creation.. The ultimate object of man’s justification is his ‘cleaving to God’, a ‘cleaving’ which awaits its consummation and perfection in the new Jerusalem, which is even now being established..” (Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei, a History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification).

So again for Augustine Justification, is as St. Paul, the New Man In Christ – “put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of the creator.” (Col. 3: 10)  And with this, justification and sanctification are so closely intertwined, as we see in St. Paul, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (2 Cor. 6:11)

Fr. R.

Anglo-Catholic…Charles Gore

“The Church of England (Anglican) truly adopts a “via media” in that she will side neither with those who, in confidence of the powers of the unaided reason, would have each man his own pope; nor with those who, in despair of their own capacity to find out the truth at all for themselves, would submit their reason once for all, by a single act, to the external, infallible voice. She will not acquiesce in this Manichean severance of reason and authority.”  – Charles Gore, The Nature of Faith

Charles Gore was what we would call an open type minded Victorian Anglo-Catholic, but always still somewhat conservative on the nature of scripture, yet he developed a radical, immanentist Christology that stressed the real humanity (but not at the expense of the full divinity)  of Jesus Christ. And in reality Gore came from an aristocratic Irish family, though he lived all his life in England. In his time he was the successor of the Tractarians. As he was bishop of several sees in succession (the last at Oxford), he was the acknowledged leader of the then growing Anglo-Catholic party in the Church of England. He was the editor of the great Lux Mundi (1889). A great move and desire to establish a creative relationship between creedal orthodoxy – Trinitarian, incarnational, sacramental, biblical and patristic in its theology. It was simply a grand and new effort at Catholicity. However, the great drawback now, is seen in its embraced Darwinian, and natural order ideas. And historically of course we have our real effort at a kenotic Christology. As later in Gore’s own Bampton Lectures: The Incarnation of the Son of God (1891). And thus came the title later of ‘Liberal Catholicism’. Liberal stands for freedom of conscience, etc. And a Catholicism that is ideal to the sense of an undivided church: universal, and structured visible society in apostolic belief, and who had authority handed down from the Apostles. But we must admit that it is a weak and pilgrim church, as all the Church has ever been, etc.

I am myself, back to this position theologically, at least the Anglo-Catholic theology and Church. But now, as is our time and history, I am also much closer to Rome. But for the moment and time right now, I am standing in the Anglo-Catholic place. And so I am reading and seeking my past Anglo-Catholic brethren, as the great Charles Gore. And for Gore here are the three supports, no one of which is sufficient by itself – the Bible, or Holy Scripture, the Church, and the individual mind and conscience. And to this we pray; Help us Oh Lord!

Fr. Robert