Of a troublesome comma in the Creed
The morning office I presently use to structure the first part of my prayers invites me to recite the Apostles’ Creed each day. Famously, the Christological clauses of that Creed begin: I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried… The comma at the end of the second line has become rather notorious; it is apparently sufficient to summarise the entire earthy ministry of Jesus, and that is regularly held up as an indication of the weakness of the Creed as a summary of the Christian faith (focused as it is on Jesus); sometimes it is held up as an indication that the traditional formulations of Christian faith, which centred on the Creed, are lacking in a crucial area. I first heard this sort of argument, and began to be suspicious of this troublesome comma, something like twenty years ago from anabaptist friends. These days I hear it more from people interested in what gets called ‘Kingdom theology’: the true Biblical gospel is the claim that Jesus is God’s final culmination of the story of Israel. The creed offers us nothing of Israel, and nothing of the life of Jesus; it is seriously deficient as an expression of the gospel. An an innocent comma is the symbol of that. Twenty years ago I was not in the custom of using an office to structure my prayers, and when I started I used Celtic Daily Prayer, the office of the Northumbria Community, or Celebrating Common Prayer from the Society of St Francis. Neither of these includes a daily recitation of the Creed. It was when, a couple of years back, I switched to wanting an office on my phone (I use ‘The Daily Office’ from Mission St Clare; the iPhone app is free, here) that I began to trip over that comma each day. I began to wonder about the criticisms more seriously, and whether I really wanted to recite these words as part of my daily devotion… (I’m a Baptist. Creeds are optional!) I have come to the conclusion that the Office itself is the justification for the shape of the Creed. Morning Prayer begins with confession and some psalmody, and then proceeds as follows: Old Testament Lesson Canticle (generally from Old Testament) followed by the Gloria Patri New Testament Lesson Canticle (sometimes from New Testament; sometimes from church history) Gospel reading Apostles’ Creed The Lord’s Prayer, petition, intercession, and closing sentences follow. The Creed here is located in the context of participation in Israel’s worship (psalmody and the OT canticle); a hearing of an excerpt from Israel’s story (the OT lesson); and a hearing of events from the life of Jesus (the Gospel reading) – and also of a hearing of the Church’s story and participation in the Church’s worship (NT lesson & canticle); it offers a framing narrative for these stories and for this worship. Its recitation can be understood to be the liturgical claim/explanation ‘You have joined in the worship of Israel and the Church, and heard of their stories; now be reminded that the God to whom Israel and the Church offer worship is properly named as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that the stories you have heard are brief chapters in a larger story that runs from creation to “the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting”; You have heard a brief tale of the winsome wonder of Jesus; know that this tale is part of a larger story that runs from birth of a Virgin by the Spirit’s power, through cross, grave, resurrection, and ascension, to a return to judge the living and the dead.’ Of course, if the Creed is abstracted from its proper liturgical context, then it does not serve this framing function, and the criticisms that are made are fair – but it should not be. (Particularly not the Apostles’ Creed, which is not the polemical product of a Council, but – as far as we can tell – a concretisation of the creed used in the liturgy of the Roman church from at least as early as the second century.) So, I continue recite the Creed, in its proper liturgical context, morning by morning with some cheerfulness, and without stumbling over a troublesome...
Read MoreContemplative prayer and contemporary worship
A recent conversation with our pastor, Andrew Rollinson, about those spiritual practices which I find useful/generative/satisfying/whatever the right word is, brought to mind a blog post from Vicky Beeching which noted that she, as a leading worship leader in the contemporary evangelical style, finds broadly contemplative practices of spirituality most nourishing for her personal spirituality. I had indicated to Andrew that charismatic worship and contemplative prayer were the two places where I most regularly experience connection to God and personal transformation by God. This in turn brought to mind an argument I gestured at in a footnote of a paper on contemporary worship (a paper that is currently under review by a journal), and had intended to develop more fully. Let me assume (without a lengthy footnote exploring the present academic discussion…) that the study of (Christian) ‘spirituality’ is fundamentally a discussion and interrogation of the ways in which (Christian) people find personally-meaningful connection with the awesome reality that is the triune God. On this basis, spirituality cannot be reduced to technique – there are, simply, no practices we can engage in which will guarantee God’s response – but it can be analysed in terms of discipline – there are many practices we engage in which seem, for at least some practitioners, to tend to promote (an awareness of) divine response. (Parentheses to duck the question of whether practices in fact lead to divine response, or whether God always responds, but our practices aid our awareness of that.) On this basis, it seems to me that the basic orientation of charismatic spirituality, expressed in traditions of contemporary worship, is remarkably similar to the basic orientation of contemplative spirituality. I am aware of (some of) the many schools of traditional contemplative spirituality, and thus of the danger of generalising; for the sake of a blog post, however, I generalise. Many historical Christian traditions of spirituality school their disciples in practices of lengthy attentiveness, with words, images, or objects providing a helpful focus for this attentiveness. Somehow (and it is variously theorised) such lengthy attentiveness results in an awareness of God’s presence, and an experience of divine activity towards one’s own soul, that is held to be either the goal of the practice of prayer, or at least a substantial good to be achieved by the practice of prayer. The endless repetition of the ‘Jesus Prayer’ commended in the anonymous Russian Way of the Pilgrim; the practice of lectio Divina; meditation on object or phrase, be it candle, host, rock, or fragment of liturgy; even exercises directing mental focus to particular parts of the body – all seem to suggest that sustained attention or focus somehow allows openness to God’s life and activity. (I am aware of criticisms of this analysis in, e.g., Turner’s Darkness of God; to the extent that they highlight that the modern obsession with felt experience can eclipse the reality of divine action, I wholeheartedly agree with them; but I do not think that this changes my argument here very much.) The fundamental mode of charismatic spirituality, the extended time of worship, functions in exactly the same way, it seems to me. Through the repetition of songs and the extended time of singing, the worshipper is enabled to leave behind whatever baggage she brought with her into the meeting and to become focused in serious and transformative ways on God’s presence and action. Again, sustained attention or focus somehow allows openness to God’s life and activity. The two traditions are surprisingly congruent; it should be no surprise that some of us – like me – find nourishment in...
Read MoreJesus is my favoured suitor? Erotic spirituality in earlier ages
A good-natured, entertaining, and informative discussion occurred a week or so ago online, sparked by Carl Beech and Vicky Beeching, concerning the perceived ‘feminization’ of worship songs, resulting in a ‘Jesus is my boyfriend’ spirituality in (some strands of) contemporary worship which (it is argued by some) might keep men away from the church. I don’t want to argue the subject at hand particularly, but some historical context occurred to me. I was typing up some songs for our evening service this afternoon, and came across a query from our musical director with reference to Isaac Watts’s ‘How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds.’ One verse, in Newton’s original, read: Jesus, my Shepherd, Husband, Friend, My Prophet, Priest, and King, My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, Accept the praise I bring. Our more recent songbook, apparently, suggested replacing ‘Husband’ with ‘Saviour’ (which could only be entertained by someone with a tin ear; the more common ‘Master’ is better). I chose to retain ‘Husband’; Newton’s Biblical reference is Song of Songs 1:3, so ‘Husband’ is appropriate. This brought to mind a long tradition of Puritan spirituality, drawing extensively but not exclusively on the Song of Songs to picture the relation of the human soul to Christ. The texts that survive are mostly from male authors (Anne Bradstreet or Elizabeth Rowe would be the most obvious exceptions); they are strikingly graphic and direct in their appropriation of marital and erotic imagery to narrate the relationship between Christ and the believer – or sometimes, drawing on Eph. 5 and similar, between Christ and the church. There is a good discussion of this theme in Belden C. Lane’s Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality (Oxford: OUP, 2011), pp. 105-115. Lane quotes, for instance, Edward Taylor’s funeral poem for his wife, which moves on to reflect on his own experience of God’s love: Shall Mortall, and Immortall marry? nay, Man marry God? God be a Match for Mud? The King of Glory Wed a Worm? mere Clay? This is the Case. The Wonder too is Bliss. Thy Maker is thy Husband. Hearst thou this? John Cotton, famous pastor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, repeatedly used the image of maternal milk to describe the teaching the pastor offers his people. In commenting on the Song of Songs he casts himself as the ‘breasts of Christ’ from which the pure milk of the Word can be sucked (Lane, p. 114). Michael Winship’s 1992 paper, ‘Behold the Bridegroom Cometh! Marital Imagery in Massachusetts preaching, 1630-1730’ (Early American Literature 27, pp. 170-184) contains other striking examples: for Samuel Whiting, the joy of heaven will include ‘his sweet embraces … in that Celestial Bride Chamber and Bed of Love’; for Samuel Willard, the reality of earthly devotion is that if the saints ‘could but now and then, steal a Sight of him, or obtain a Kiss from him … they reckoned themselves happy.’ Contrast this to heaven: ‘there shall be that intimacy which there is between the most loving husband and most beloved wife and transcendently greater … they will not be interrupted Carresses which they shall have from him … There will be no more Coyness on their part … but the delights which they shall enjoy, shall be both full and uninterrupted … the reciprocal ardours of Affection between him and us, shall break over all Banks and Bounds, and we shall be entirely satisfied, both in Soul and Body.’ (Really, comparing the current Vineyard stuff to this is like comparing Stephanie Meyer to D.H. Lawrence…) There are other examples of such extreme rhetoric in the tradition – medieval Western mystics, for one. The Puritan tradition flowered fairly briefly, with Watts the dying end of it in the 1730s. Some explanations of this sort of spirituality major on the fact that the word ‘soul’ in Latin is grammatically feminine (anima); I think this is a mistake: confusion between grammatical and biological gender seems a very recent phenomenon to this non-linguist, at least. Grammatical explanations also fail to explain the ebbs and flows of such language in history: Tillotson and a moderate Anglicanism disdained such spirituality whilst the Puritans were luxuriating in it; this is not because the Puritans were better Latin grammarians! (And if the Evangelicals of Watts’s day and after also refrained from it, it is not because they were less passionate in their devotion.) Freudian readings are also available (Leverenz, The Language of Puritan Feeling suggests Puritan men desired to be transformed into women and children and protected by a transcendent father); like most Freudian readings of most things, these can and should be ignored....
Read More‘the fuel for mission’s flame’?
I was on a website recently (no url, to protect the guilty…); in the corner was a counter, which purported to tell the visitor how many people had died and gone to hell since s/he arrived, with a brief homily underneath suggesting that active participation in evangelism would be an appropriate response. The crowning glory of this particular piece of crassness was the fact that whichever cheap/free html counter the website owner had borrowed counted to one decimal place. When I left, apparently, 153.7 people had been irretrievably damned during my visit. This came back to mind as I drove my daughters to school and nursery this morning. Matt Redman’s Facedown was in the car CD player, and I listened to the penultimate track: Let worship be the fuel for mission’s flame We’re going with a passion for your name We’re going for we care about your praise – Send us out. Let worship be the heart of mission’s aim To see the nations recognise your fame Till every tribe and tongue voices your praise – Send us out. What is the proper motivation for mission/evangelism? The website with which I began suggests concern for the lost; this (in less crass forms) has a noble history, not least in Evangelical spirituality: Frank Houghton’s ‘Facing a task unfinished’ for instance: Where other lords beside Thee Hold there unhindered sway Where forces that defied Thee Defy Thee still today With none to heed their crying For life and love and light Unnumbered souls are dying And pass into the night. Matt Redman’s song offers an alternative vision, where the motivation for missional engagement is not the fate of the lost but the glory of God. This is hardly less ‘conservative’ (if such labels worry you) – Jonathan Edwards would have agreed; so, I seem to recall, would John Piper. (In fact, probably a view of mission as serving God’s glory is the mark of the consistent Calvinist, and the other a more Arminian take.) Which is right? 2Cor 5:6-21 is interesting in this context. Just reading vv.10-11 might seem to offer support for a ‘evangelise them because they’re going to hell’ position, but the wider passage seems much more focused on the vision expressed in the Redman song: ‘we make it our aim to please him’ is the controlling thought. So what? Well, two things perhaps. If this is right, then one of the standard evangelical justifications for a traditional doctrine of hell, that it is important as a motivation for mission, is removed. Second, on this understanding our motivation for evangelism would be less about the results and more about faithfulness to a calling, which feels right to me. Love for God simply comes before love for neighbour,...
Read MoreA cold and broken hallelujah?
I was down at Evangelical Alliance Council last week, and added several other meetings in London with it. I had a conversation over a glass of wine with someone who I like, and indeed respect greatly, which, at one point, was depressingly familiar. My friend had been at a big Christian gathering; some recently-written choruses had been sung; the theological content (or lack thereof) of the choruses was deplored and/or ridiculed. I hear so much criticism like this that sometimes I feel that I ought to join a 12-step programme – ‘My name is Steve, and I am a charismatic…’ The fact remains, I enjoy, appreciate, benefit from, this style of worship. Several times a year, I find myself in ‘big tent’ worship gatherings, and for me they are amongst my spiritual highlights (along with solitary silent retreats, prayer with certain friends, and being at worship with my own local church). I’ve had a go (or two or three) at defending modern worship music before on this blog, but a new thought struck me that seemed worth recording. Some of the common criticisms are of course merely irrelevant. The poetic quality of the songs is not up to… So what? If I want poetry, I’ll read Eliot or Dante or (current favourite discovery) Whitman – if I want devotional poetry, I’ll read Donne or Milton or Herbert (or R.S. Thomas, actually). Hymns are not poems; this is just a confusion of genre. Wesley and Watts were not great poets; they were great hymnwriters. (And Cowper was a very good poet, but a lesser hymnwriter.) The theological content of the songs is not up to… So what? If I want theology, I’ll read Augustine, Thomas, Calvin, Schleiermacher, Barth, … This is another confusion of genre. Wesley and Watts were very, very far from great theologians (Watts tied himself in knots over basic Trinitarian grammar later in his life). More interestingly, perhaps, and repeatedly, in the criticism I hear or read, the song is taken as an object (‘text’) complete in itself, and then criticised as incomplete in some way: it does not address this or that idea, held to be so central that it may not be omitted; or it is one-sided in its appreciation of a complex truth; or it does not adequately identify the One who is addressed in worship. This, however, is to mistake the nature of these songs. It is akin to criticising an arm because it is not the whole body (to borrow an illustration). No song intended for public worship is written to be a whole, complete in itself; rather it is a component that may be correlated with other components to build a complete and adequate liturgy. An act of worship may be incomplete, less than adequately theological, or whatever; an individual song, prayer, or other liturgical component cannot be, considered of itself. Now, there are no doubt songs – and indeed readings, written prayers, and other liturgical actions (elbow bumps of peace, anybody?) – that are so confused, lacking in content, or just plain wrong as to be unusable in any liturgical context. And, sure, there are plenty such in recent charismatic hymnody. (I had a friend who edited one of the early songbooks. He said that every other song arrived with a note saying, ‘the Holy Spirit just gave me this…’ to which his standard reply was, ‘well, I can see why He wanted to be rid of it.’) But more often, when you explore the criticism, the song is in itself perfectly serviceable; it was just used badly, placed in a context where it didn’t fit, or asked to support a weight it could not, of itself, bear. That doesn’t make it a bad song. It might be a great song, distorted horribly by an awful liturgy. (It happens to the great hymns as well, of course. How often, at the wedding of a non-Christian friend, have you been asked to sing ‘breathe through the heats of our desire thy coolness and thy balm, let sense be dumb, let flesh retire…’ because ‘Dear Lord and Father’ is the only hymn the couple know? This is a far, far worse liturgical placement than any example from my recent experience of charismatic liturgies, but no-one blames the hymn for it.) Recent Christian worship songs can be used to construct meaningful and beautiful Christian worship that is theologically profound and liturgically satisfying. Routinely, in my experience, they are. If they are mis-used, it is not the fault of the songs, but of the liturgist. Of course, all of us who have led worship have made egregious errors often...
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