You Believe Whaat?!

So, what does the Anglican Church believe about the Holy Spirit?

This coming Sunday is the celebration of Pentecost, the Jewish Feast on which the Holy Spirit descended in Power upon the 12 Apostles.  In today's Church different sects and denominations hold widely differing views of the Spirit and His role in the life of the Church and the believer.  So where exactly does the Anglican Church stand on this important theological point?

Well, of course we need to first note that the Anglican Church stands in line with Christ's One Holy catholic (meaning universal) and Apostolic Church.  In the universal Creeds of the Church we affirm that we believe in the Holy Spirit and that He is the Lord and Giver of Life.  But what of his activity in today's Church?  Well, we cannot deny our story and what we have experienced.

In 1929 a discouraged English missionary to Rwanda named Joe Church traveled to Kampala, Uganda for a few weeks of respite.  While there Mr. Church searched the Scriptures and came under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that, “There can be nothing to stop a real outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Rwanda now except our own lack of sanctification.”[1] Church returned to his post in Gahini, Rwanda where he began to fervently pray for personal and national revival.  The Lord answered those prayers and within weeks Joe Church led a number of people through the process of conversion to Christ.  Additionally, many of the local Christians became deeply convicted that they were not loving and honoring their neighbors the way Christ would want them to. 

The result was a massive outpouring of repentance.  As the people repented the Lord continued to pour out the gifts of His Holy Spirit.  Not only were relationships healed but sicknesses and infirmities of all kinds were miraculously cured.  The tidal wave of God’s Spirit was unleashed.  This revival quickly spread like wildfire into Uganda and Kenya.  Thousands upon thousands turned to the Lord Jesus as Savior or returned from their wanderings to follow him as Lord.  This was a rebirth and indeed the dawning of a new chapter in the Church in Africa.  Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this revival is its lasting affect.  Even today most East Africans will trace their own conversion and the faith of their family to the Revival.  The Spirit is still surging through Africa, turning hearts toward God, healing and revealing Himself to the believers there.

This reality is a real challenge to the image of Anglican churches as stuffy, dead museums devoted to an antiquated tradition.  Certainly and sadly many churches in the West fit that description.  But across the globe Anglicans of many tongues, tribes and nations continue to experience the vibrant, enlivening, surging power of the Third Person of the Trinity.  We cannot deny our corporate experience nor the witness of saints throughout the ages who knew the transforming power of God.  We believe in the Holy Spirit!

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[1] As quoted in the article, New Dawn in East Africa: The East African Revival, Michael Harper, Christian History and Biography, January 1986.

Why Do You Do That?!

Recently someone asked me a good question which I felt was worth sharing here.  She had apparently been having a conversation with an evangelical friend who was trying to make the case that liturgy is dry, dead and rote.  She asked me, "How do you, as a priest, approach the common opinion that liturgy is dry, repetitive, rote, and has no spirit (or Spirit) in it, and how can the church as a whole dispel that belief?"  So here was my answer:

The first, punky short answer I thought of was - have you been to our church?   Does it feel dry and rote?  
(For those readers who have not had an opportunity to worship at Christ Our Hope, Fort Collins you need to know that we are a very lively blend of traditional liturgy with upbeat contemporary music and lively extemporaneous prayer where you might encounter "hand raising" and even some people quietly praying in tongues - not generally dry, repetitive and lacking Spirit). 


But for a more serious answer I think we need to acknowledge a couple things.  First of all, every church has a liturgy.  Even "non-liturgical" churches have a liturgy.  Opening song, weclome, more songs, announcements, offering, a prayer, a long sermon, closing song.  That's a liturgy because these days most churches in America do exactly that week after week without much variation.  The point is every church has a liturgy, some are just better and more thought through than others.  And some, like ours, have more of a history and a deeper theological content than others.

Now, yes it is absolutely true that liturgies (all of them - even the Bible Church ones) can become rote.  How many times have you or I gone through the motions (sometimes literally) of a worship song or even a set of worship songs and get to the end and think - "wow, I can't even remember what I was just singing."  I was singing the words, maybe even had my hands in the air but my heart and mind were totally elsewhere and not engaged.  It can happen with familiar songs, it can happen with familiar prayers.

However, I believe, because I have experienced the fact that, when liturgy is engaged in such a way that the Spirit does come and enliven the hearts of the participants and therefore He moves and speaks in the midst of it, then the traditional, content rich liturgy of the Church has a positive, shaping affect on our hearts.  

There is a story from the sayings of the Desert Fathers (those are those proto-monks that fled the creeping mediocrity of the newly legalized Christian religion and sought God in prayer and contemplation in the Egyptian desert during the 4th century).  It goes something like this, a young monk came to a very wise and holy Father and began asking him all of these questions about how to lead a life of stillness and peace and prayer.  And the Father told him, "return to your cell (that is his monastic enclosure - probably a cave) and stay there, and your cell will teach you everything you need to know."  I think in the same way if we stay in the liturgy, the liturgy teaches us everything we need to know about worshipping God and living the Christian life.  The Liturgy teaches us to read and study the Scriptures, it teaches us the creedal center of the faith, it teaches us to respond to God in prayer, it teaches us to confess our sins, to make peace with our neighbors, to give thanks to God in all things, how to have communion with Him and finally how to go forth into the world rejoicing as his ambassadors of reconciliation.  The Christian liturgy sums up the whole of the Christian life and enables us to live those truths week after week.  

As for how we dispel the misconception - just keep worshipping in Spirit and Truth and inviting others to come and see.

That was my answer.  What are your thoughts?

Why Do You Do That?!

The Dog Collar

I recently attended a gathering of evangelical pastors in my community where the chairman of our group shared an encounter he had at a recent interdenominational pastors' prayer retreat.  He and some others were grilling an Anglican colleague about the clerical collar he unfailingly wears.  “Why do you wear the collar?  What does it represent?  Where did the tradition come from?”  These were their questions.  They are questions worth asking and symbols worth knowing.

Indeed the clerical collar is a very ancient tradition and it stems from the days of the Roman Empire when it was not uncommon for slaves to be seen wearing collars.  As barbaric and inhumane as that may sound to our sensibilities, for the clergy the collar became a symbol that we are slaves of Christ, servants of God and servants of His people.  This symbol has been traditionally worn  to remind the clergy that they are not their own, they were bought with a price and they should therefore honor God with the very members of their body (see 1 Corinthians 6.20).  In other words, it is a reminder of holiness. 

In addition, contemporary "dog collars" button at the back.  This too is symbolic.  It comes from the 19th and early 20th century when all men's shirts had separate collars that were often starched and then buttoned onto the shirt.  But for the clergy, instead of buttoning at the top of the front like a regular collar of say the average businessman's attire, they button at the back as a symbol that we have turned our back on the world in the pursuit of Christ.

That is the symbolism of the collar as far as I know it, the only other tidbit I would add is that if you ever wondered if they are uncomfortable...the answer is yes.