Sunday School | Why Behind The What - Q&A

Introduction

Right there to get you guys to be quiet, but I really would like to learn to be with you also. Okay. So I'm gonna get started a little bit early even while folks are still getting their food because we have so much to talk about today. We got a long list. So no, we will not blow. Quig and I are gonna be so tight. We're gonna cover so much.

Before we jump in here, that's my middle man. Today is Q&A, from things you guys have been submitting for the last month, but not quite yet. The first thing is I want to give you guys a little bit of insight about the status of VBS because it's amazing. I don't know if you know, but we have completely redesigned VBS this year. It kind of changes year to year. We've redesigned the thing kind of post-COVID. We're really getting a lot of focus to the older kids, and it's gonna be just gonna be incredible.

We've got about 100 kids signed up. We expect about 100 more. And our number one need by a very wide margin is team leaders, crew leaders. What that means, there are groups of people. Well, there's groups of kids and then each little subgroup of kids gets assigned a crew leader. The crew leaders are here. Check this out. They're here Monday through Thursday. That's when VBS runs. Basically from like 8:45 till noon. So it's like, you know, a little over three hours.

If you get here a little early, you get free breakfast courtesy of Rob Wright, which is not something you'd wanna miss. And we need at this moment 15 more crew leaders. That's a lot of crew leaders. Okay? And some of the 15 crew leaders are in the room right now. You just don't know it. Okay? But we would— Is there anybody in here who has already served in this role in the past? We got crew leaders in here. There's a bunch— three at this table, others over here. I mean, there's a bunch of them that have been crew leaders.

You guys, it's super fun. It's probably the most impactful role in the whole VBS setup because you're with the same kids day after day. If you can't do it four days in a row and you can do like two days, we can maybe pair you with somebody else that could do two days. But it's seriously our biggest need. And so if you are able, if you're retired, if you're—you don't have to work, you can take a little vacation time and you could be with these kids those mornings, it's in like six weeks.

You got some details sitting in front of you on that little QR code thing. What you can do is you can take your phone out. If you don't know how to use a QR code, just ask somebody that's younger than you at the table. And basically, you kinda like let your camera hover over the QR code. It'll take you to a website, and then you can say, yeah, I'd love to be a crew leader. And we would love you to do that because it's the thing that makes the biggest difference for the kids coming, and we want it to be just the best week for them.

People come to Christ at VBS. It maps their lives. It's a very high-leverage way you can spend those few hours that week. Okay? So we'd love you to do that. And with that, we're gonna shift, and Quig and I are gonna be talking about a whole bunch of questions.

The Why Behind the What

So we did a series in the main sanctuary on the why behind the what. We've been talking about, like, why do we do weird Anglican things? We were talking about what the heck is our—the kinda whole vision for it. And along the way, we invited you to ask questions, and you did. We got, like, you guys, we got like 75 questions and there's just a ton of them. So what we did is we went through them, we grouped them, and we compressed them, and we combined them, and we organized them. And we're gonna answer as many questions as we can right now. So we're gonna be tight about it.

I'll kind of emcee it. Quig and I will both answer it, and then we're gonna hopefully get to your favorite questions. I do think that if we answered all 75, many of you would be bored. Okay? So we're gonna try to kind of put the high-octane stuff to the top, and we're gonna start off with this. You ready, Quig? I'm ready. Ready? Quig's been stretching. He's been preparing. He's ready.

Okay. Quig, I have a question. If we are Protestants, why do we use the word Catholic in both creeds and what does that mean? I'm actually so glad you asked that because it used to bug the fire out of me. Right? And so the reason it's just really simple. The reason we use the word Catholic is that that's the Greek word. That's the Greek word. When the church came together in 325, there's a reason all the bishops, all the leaders came together. There's a heresy called Arianism. We don't have time to get into that, but basically they're pulling Jesus down. Cults always do that. Lift man up, pull Jesus down. So they came together in 325 and they made the creed and they said we believe in the one holy Catholic apostolic church.

Catholic, some people say means universal. It really means a part of the whole. So all people that are believers are part of that church. Now, another quick point—and I'll hand it off to you—the church started at the time of Jesus. What year was that? Help me out. Thirty AD. Thirty AD. Okay. So, yeah, he was—he was raised about thirty AD. Where in what year? 2020. Okay. So there was only one church from the time that Jesus was raised from the dead until 1100. There was only one church. Okay? From 1100 to about 1500 or 1520, that there was another split. Okay? So you had the one holy Catholic apostolic church, the Orthodox leave, and then later you have the Protestant Reformation.

What I want to say is be careful not to curse your grandparents. We came from the one church. And so when we say one holy Catholic and apostolic church, we say it because that's the word the church fathers used. It does not mean Roman Catholic, ask an Orthodox. It just means those who belong to the body of Jesus. Go. Indeed.

Questions on Doctrine and Practice

Next question. What's a catechism and do Anglicans have one? Okay. So a catechism is an ancient teaching methodology that's basically a verbal Q&A session. So we've been doing this for a long, long, long time. The earliest catechism I think is called like the Didache. It's like old old old school. But there's lots of catechisms that have been developed, and it's just simply a learning methodology. Like you memorize a question and then a response. A question and then a response.

And the question—the second question is, do we have one? Do Anglicans have one? And the answer is yes, we do. It's called—you may know what it's called? To Be a Christian. Right? If you guys recall, a couple months ago, at the beginning of the year, Bob Blacksmith led a class and was walking through the catechism. If you wanted to see a copy of the catechism, you can just go online and just Google ACNA catechism. It's called To Be a Christian. You can download it. It's free. And we've taught it; I'll be teaching it this summer in our Feast. I don't know if I plan on trying to sweet-talk Bob into doing his class again. So there'll be more opportunities. But yeah, you can grab it. And then it's just a great way to systematically walk through a whole bunch of stuff. So to be a Christian.

Number three, Quig. Why do we repeat song lyrics over and over when we sing songs of worship and hymns? Just want us question slash complaint. Okay. So take it in. I actually, I get that. Don't you? First of all, let me just say this. The hymn writers—so if you hate the modern praise music that goes on and on and on repeats, Lord, I love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. Hymns do that as well. One hymn had 18 verses. Just As I Am, I think, has six or seven, but some other people have added. So it's not just the modern praise and worship, it's also hymns do it.

But let me say, what do the four— is it creatures in Revelation four, the four elders around the throne? Yeah. What did they say over and over and they're probably saying it right now? They're gonna say it tomorrow, and they're gonna— Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. Yeah. And so if they can repeat, we can. Now that being said, if you're a music minister, repetition should be used sparingly.

Now, what other point I found in Scripture I thought was cool. Ecclesiastes says this, God is in heaven, you're on earth, so let your words be few. That's a proof text for not doing it over and over again. But there's another Scripture. Hold on. Oh, did I find it? Oh, here it is. Psalm 136 repeats the phrase, his steadfast love endures forever. How many times? Gosh, like 26 times. So I'm just saying, there's biblical precedent for repetition.

And also, how many of your parents or grandparents have a little chap that you love? Okay. So when we FaceTime our grandkids in Japan, we have a new grandson, Barrett. He's like four months. And if you could see us on FaceTime, we look so silly. Hey, bud. Hey. How you doing? Love you, man. Love you. Hey, bud. Boo boo boo boo boo boo boo. Over and over and over, over and over and over. It's a way we express love. It's okay to be simple. It's okay. Back to you, buddy. Indeed.

Religious Attire and Calendars

You're gonna give— I'm gonna do two in a row. Quick, why do we have robes and why do we use different colors in the services? First of all, I've told people there's no requirement to use a robe. We have church planters that don't use robes. If we were starting a church today and we were in maybe not a church building but somewhere else, I might not wear robes.

The reasons people get for using robes: a lot of people go, well, think of the priests in the Old Testament. Right? They would go up to Jerusalem and they would wear robes that said what we're doing is important. It's for the Lord, and it's holy. So that's one reason some people get it. The practical reason is this. Let's say that I go in the ministry and my dad has no money at all. Tommy goes in the ministry, his dad is a multi, multi, multi-billionaire. He has a $12,000 suit and pair of shoes. I don't even have a suit or a pair of shoes. And so one of the things by wearing that bedsheet over us, everybody's the same. It's like the military. It's like the police. It's like ambulance. And eventually it goes away.

Now, colors. Color. What's the purple deal? Purple means I'm a bishop, and there's no thing that says you have to wear this. Some bishops wear black. I wear black at funerals. But let's talk about colors. Imagine yourself in the sanctuary. I fought hard for those glass windows, by the way. When you look out the sanctuary, what do you see? If it's in January, what are you likely to see? Snow. Snow. And that color is? White. Thank you. And then let's say, in the spring when the flowers are coming up and out and maybe some new tender shoots, you're gonna see lots of colors. What about in the bleak of winter when there's no snow? What color are the trees? Brown. Brown. Dark. Yeah. Brown— almost black, dark gray. So you're seeing those colors. How about in October? It's like my favorite time of year here. Orange, yellow. Orange and yellow.

So God, at least in Virginia, maybe not in Phoenix or Florida, but in Virginia, God marks seasons, he marks time with color. And so that's the way Anglicans mark their church year. And there's that long season where we wear green forever, and that's called ordinary time. Just ordinary time. Any other particular questions on colors? That's the one we only know we had. So what can you—you do, you can—you do you can you rattle off the this season? Sure. This color? What are you know, these things? So, alright. Let's start. What is the color of white used for? Take a guess. Easter. Easter. Great. Resurrection. What else is it used for? Weddings, which is supposed to symbolize purity. And there are other things, but that's white. Okay? Think of resurrection. Think of weddings and funerals, which also talk about resurrection.

How about black, which we—our church uses on Good Friday. Some churches use red; we use black. But what does black stand for? Johnny Cash. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about purple. We use that in Advent and Lent. What is purple? Is it just a random color? I like purple. It's royalty. Royalty. And do you know why royalty wore purple and no one else did? It's expensive. Because the little slug or whatever they made purple dye out of was so crazy expensive, nobody could afford it but kings. Yeah. And so those are times we look forward to the coming king, but also the church always grabbed the thought that Lent and Advent are times where you ask the Lord to search you and try you. And so purple became a time of repentance and asking the Lord to search us and try us.

Other colors? Red. Red. Pentecost. Why would Pentecost use red? For the flames. The fire from heaven. Right? The fire from heaven. Also, saints days. You know, like, do they mean saints? We don't, that makes me nervous. Well, if you're a Christian, you are set apart. That word means. That's what saint means, one who is set apart. But why do we, why would we use red for saints' days as we remember the apostles and other famous or mighty men or women of God? Why would we use red celebrating their day of death? They're martyred. Because they were martyred. They spilled their blood. And so every color has a reason. Did we leave any colors out? Red and yellow? Green is ordinary. Green is ordinary. That's it. Right? I think that's the—I think that's the calendar.

The Liturgy and Holy Communion

Alright. This is kind of a similar vein. The question is what is liturgy and why should we care? Okay. So the word liturgy literally—you know what it literally means? Like what the root here is? It's the work of the people. The idea with liturgy, the reason we design things the way we do, rather than just having an audience member that just sits in passivity and some professional on stage doing everything, the liturgy is like it's the work of the people. Together we're jumping in. We're—it's participatory.

But here's I think, from my, for me at least, the single most helpful thing to think about the liturgy and in particular the repetitious nature of the liturgy is that it's formational. Okay? And what we mean by that is when we say, well, you might be able to—I'm not gonna make anybody do this, but you might be able to stand up right now and like—and then rip your way through the confession of sin, the prayer that we do every week about confessing our sin. Right? And whether you could or not, I guarantee that if you sat back, if you're here for a while, you're gonna hear there's these certain phrases that kinda run through. Right? We've not loved you with our whole heart. We've not loved our neighbor as ourselves. Right? There's sins we've committed in thought and word and deed. Right? You've got these phrases that have been kind of woven into your brain. And when we're doing that, this is the dirty little secret of liturgy. Okay? Is I want you to think of liturgy as practice. I want you to think of liturgy as training. Okay? And you might think, well, never need to say these things. I will never need to do these things. But if you've ever been to a gym, if you've ever lifted weights, okay, there's—there will never be a time in your life that you need to lie on your back and press a 135-pound—what do you call it?—above your chest 10 times in a row. It will never happen. Right? But by doing that, by laying on your back and doing a bench press, you gain the ability to do other things in life that you actually need to do. You're training your body.

Liturgy is reps, okay? It's training. It's practice. When I was at Penn State, I would take students. We'd go out and we'd share the gospel all the time on campus. And, but when we were doing it, what was—the secret there was I—we weren't really merely trying to reach the students that we were talking to on any given afternoon. It was training. Because if I would take—I could take a student out, and we could have over the course of a semester, literally, 30 gospel conversations with people, over and over and over. It was reps. We're just getting repetitions in. And all of those reps are training people in the way things can go and what to do and what to stay in the situation, which they can then go apply in a natural context. Right? And if all we ever did was this natural mode of evangelism, we might have like one or two opportunities a semester to do that, and our training would have been dramatically diminished.

Okay? We do things repeatedly because it's formational. It's training. It's preparing so that when you're at home all by yourself, and we're not in the sanctuary, and you realize you need to confess your sins, you're like, oh, thought, word, deed, things I've done, things I haven't done, loving God, loving my neighbor—and you've got these categories for it. So everything we're doing that feels like the liturgy, that feels like rote memorization, that feels like repetition, it is but it's formational. It's training. And that's why we do it. Cool? Yeah.

Baptism and the Sign of the Covenant

Yeah. Alright. Quick. What's the next one? Oh yeah, here's a big one. Why do we baptize infants? Next question. No, you got this. So I just gotta be honest with you guys, like I was forced by my Episcopal Bishop around 1993 to go back to seminary and meet with the dean and learn about infant baptism. Actually, I already knew about it. I just didn't believe in it. And you can't really be an Anglican priest and not believe in infant baptism.

So I was in a situation. The reason—the problem I had with it initially was there's words in the prayer book that talk about those who are here being baptized or born again, cleansed from sin, made an inheritor of the kingdom. And I'm like, we can't say that. That person has no obvious faith. And so that was why I said, I'll do it but I'll hold my nose. Okay? But what changed my mind? First of all, when God initiated a relationship, a covenant with his people Israel, especially with Abram. Okay? Genesis 15, he starts a covenant, a relationship. And then in Genesis 17, I think that's right, he tells them there's a sign of that covenant. This is when you're glad you're a lady and not a man. What's a sign of the covenant? Circumcision. So 1800 years before Christ, God's people were given a sign, a real sign of the covenant, one they'd never forget. Okay? Alright. So if that had been the practice for 1800 years, God's people, now what do you do when you come into Jesus? You're people of the new covenant. Is circumcision now required? No. And we found out the answer is no. I don't think many of you had your male child rushed to Church of the Holy Spirit to be circumcised. And so what sign or marking do we say for children of believers? Not children of non-believers, children of believers. If even one parent is a Christian, the Bible says your child is holy. Your child is set apart. Doesn't mean they're saved, but it means they're set apart and that God is at work. He's placed them in a Christian home. Even before your child was in your womb, the Lord knew him. And so we give them the covenant sign.

Now, wait a minute, wait a minute, quick. Are you telling me that every child that's baptized is gonna be a Christian? Do you believe that? Adolf Hitler was baptized. Is he a Christian? Jim Jones was baptized. Is he a Christian? No. But what we're saying, friends, is we give the covenant sign. We say this child is in a Christian family. God has sovereignly placed them under the leadership of Christian parents. And so we give him the sign, and we pray, as parents, Lord, help us to disciple this child. We are not gonna treat our child as a pagan. Why? Because the Bible says that if you're a Christian and you have a child, your child is a child of promise. And so it's not magic. Right? God doesn't force anybody to love him. God doesn't have any grandchildren, but we give that child the son of the covenant, and we welcome them into the body of Christ. But it's expected at some point in the future that that child will say, I'm so glad I was baptized. I'm so glad the Holy Spirit did that. But at some point, I'm gonna step forward and say, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we have confirmation. Anything you wanna add to that, Tim? I mean, a minute. We could talk about that for a long time. So maybe, maybe I'll— if we have time at the end, maybe we'll see if they have follow-up questions on that, but not yet. We wanna get through our first round. Then, and maybe I'll jump in if there's there. But I think that's an excellent answer and I completely agree.

Here's another one on baptism. It says this, baptism and creed. It says, why does the creed say, quote, "one baptism for the forgiveness of sins"? Then he goes on to explain why they have a question about that. Our sins are forgiven when we come to faith in Christ and as we confess our sins throughout our lives. Baptism is an outward sign of an inward faith and does not seem to me to have anything to do with the forgiveness of sins. Please explain. Okay. I think it's a great question, and I think there's a perspective there that's consistent with what Quigg is saying. We do not believe that baptism confers salvation. There's a doctrine known as baptismal regeneration. I do not think that we— we don't believe in baptismal regeneration. And so the spirit behind this question, I think, I'm in agreement with. However, I would be cautious not to like go too far with this. When the questioner asks or or makes the claim, baptism is an outward sign of inward faith and does not seem to me to have anything to do with the forgiveness of sins, I think you're going too far. Okay? So Peter says in— in Acts two, it says, Peter replied, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ. Does anybody know the next line? For the forgiveness of sins. For the forgiveness of sins. Peter is clearly making a linkage here. Or later on in Acts 22, it says, "And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name." Okay? So while I would— I would strongly reject the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. It does not follow that baptism has nothing to do with forgiveness of sins. Right? So we gotta say, okay, if it's— what does it have to do with? And I think that what I think we have— what we should understand is there are a couple of things that are being signified in baptism. Okay? On the one hand, there is this image, literally, of being washed clean. Right? There's some language that the Bible uses to talk about the idea that our sins are washed away, right there in Acts 22. But it is also, I think, the primary understanding of baptism is that it's our identification with Christ. That if you were to baptize a piece of cloth in purple ink, purple—what would you call it? I guess ink or dye. Thank you. Couldn't think of the word. Okay? That the cloth would be identified with Christ, with the purple. It's what what's been baptized into, it is now soaked through it. And this is, I think, one of the primary images that we'll find in Romans 6, which I would say Romans 6 is probably the most important passage in the Bible on baptism. In Romans 6, Paul says that what you're doing is that you are identifying with Jesus in his death. As he died, he went into the grave, you go into the water. You're identifying with him in his death. And as he came up out of the grave, we take you up out of the water and you're identifying with him in his new life. And so I would be very, very slow to say— in fact, I would not say— that this idea that we are being identified with Christ in his death and identifying with Christ in his life has quote, nothing to do with forgiveness. It has everything to do with forgiveness. This outward sign is a picture of the only possible way that our sins are gonna be forgiven. It's by our identification. Okay? Now, Peter, who said, "repent to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins" in Acts two also says in— listen to what he says in his letter. He says, "This water symbolizes," he's talking about baptism. "This is 1 Peter 3:21. This water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also." Okay? And you could—that could freak you out a little bit, but hang on. Listen to what he says. "Not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand with angels, authorities, and powers—"—

Sorry, I lost the trail. So I believe that what Peter means there is when he says it's baptism that saves you, and then his next thing is, I'm not talking about the water; that's not literal—the water, but the fact that you are identifying with him, that he is the one who is cleansing you—that's the thing that saves us. So I think Peter would agree with us that he's not teaching baptismal regeneration, but he is saying absolutely, this is how we do it. This is the marker. This is the sign, the outward sign, but the inward reality, the blood-bought forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Right? This is what saves us. But we get baptized as an act of obedience to him because this is how we say to the world, hey, I'm with him. I'm in him. Makes sense? Can I do a PS? Please. This is what happens when you get old, you forget things, and it's like the train goes off the track, and if you chase it, you can't catch it. But if you sit there and have another conversation, it comes around. So if you were to say, why do you baptize infants? I would answer a question with a question. Why do you dedicate infants? Could you show me? Go ahead. You have to Google right now. Show me one scripture in the New Testament, even one, for the sacred practice you're holding on to and fighting for. Can you show me one example of infant dedication in the New Testament? There is God. Hold on. You're telling me this is the thing that I fought for? Almost got kicked out of the Episcopal Church? Dedication, dedication, dedication.

The thing that changed my mind was not covenant, though that might have done it. The thing that changed my mind was sitting down with my Bible and a notepad, and I went through the entire New Testament, and I could not find one case of infant dedication. If we're people of the Word, don't you think that might catch our attention and could inform what we do? And of the occasions of baptism in the New Testament, guess how many there are? I mean, I would've thought 200. Three thousand were added that day. How many separate cases of baptism in the whole New Testament? Ten. Hazardous guess? Five. Anybody think three hundred? Two hundred? One hundred? Fifty? Twenty? Three. Ten. Ten. Ten separate occasions of baptism. If I'm off one, forgive me. Of the ten, how many were household baptisms? Household means whole house. They heard the word of God preach to them, and Cornelius and his household were baptized. Lydia and her household were baptized. Who's another one? I don't have blood in my brain. Yeah. Yeah. Philippian jailer. Okay. So of the ten cases of baptism, fifty percent were occasions of somebody who had a household, and the entire household was baptized.

Again, go back to the question. How many times is infant dedication mentioned in the New Testament? And you're Bible people, aren't you? And so if that's true, we might have to change what we do. Back to you.

The State of Same-Sex Marriage and Anglican Practice

Alright. Very good. Alright. Quick. This is a bigger question, but what can you tell us about the current state of homosexuality in the Anglican church? The first thing I want to recognize is that just statistically, several people here struggle or don't struggle with homosexuality. And what I would say to you, when you come to my office, I usually say, I believe that's sin, but let me share with you the things I struggle with. I do plenty of things or don't do plenty of things that grieve the Lord and separate me from Him.

Anglicans 100% believe marriage is between one man and one woman until they die. We've always believed that, but that's not what people believe now. But Anglicans believe one man, one woman, holy matrimony. Do you know what Jesus said? A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. So to Jesus' own mouth, this whole idea of marriage, same-sex marriage, it just cannot be justified by Scripture.

Even you think about why God gave us a helpmeet. Part of it was, like it or not, it's for procreation. And so the Anglicans have traditionally believed that, but like everything else, you know, it's kind of like asking, do Americans believe about subject A? We're gonna have all kinds of opinions, and people, you know, when there's no king in Israel, everybody does what seems right in their own eyes.

And so we started to see the wealthy Americans, Canadians, Australians, Scottish, who are very enlightened, started kind of getting away from clear Scripture teachings and started to do whatever they wanted to do, i.e., blessing same-sex relationships, ordaining, practicing. And I want to underline that word, practicing. Practicing homosexuals. But I would say this, if you're practicing heterosexual sexual sin, there's no difference. There is no difference.

So, eventually, what happened in 1998, all the bishops in the Anglican world came together and, in a huge vote—like 527 to 70—they voted that marriage is between one man and one woman, and it can never be other. We will not ordain people who are practicing homosexually or those who are practicing outside the bonds of marriage heterosexually. And then the bishops went on to say, however, we call you to great care—take the beam out of your own eye, right?—be humble, recognize your own sin, and minister in love, because many of those friends that struggle with that are our brothers and sisters.

And I, you know, Jesus says, "Whatever scale you use will be used on you." We want to speak truthfully. We never want to change the bull's-eye, but we also want to speak gracefully—grace and truth. So in terms of our denomination, homosexuality—the practice of it, not the desire maybe, but certainly the practice of it—is sin. So is heterosexual relations outside of—before or after marriage. We're clear about that.

If we have clergy, we've had clergy that were addicted to pornography, doing all these different things, we deal with that gracefully, lovingly, but there's a time to say no. And we will not ordain somebody that is operating sexually outside of that covenant marriage.

The Eucharist and the Real Presence

Alright. This is another long one, so bear with me. It’s about communion. So, when taking Holy Communion, it seems that the Anglican Church, or more specifically those churches within our diocese, have varying and/or unclear views on the "real presence" of Christ. We clearly don't believe in transubstantiation— as that is repugnant to us according to the 39 Articles of Religion.

When the celebrant says, "feed on him in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving," could this be misconstrued by some? We quote from Scripture and say that we are doing it in remembrance of Christ, but I believe it's more than just a memorial celebration. We’re not offering it as a sacrifice to God as some have said because we always say, in accordance with Hebrews 13 and Romans 12, we are offering a sacrifice of praise and offering ourselves as a living sacrifice, respectively.

Moreover, the celebrant clearly states that Christ "has been sacrificed once for all upon the cross," and not each time during the process of the Lord’s table. How does CHS view the efficacious nature of the Eucharist? Okay. There's a lot in there, and that's—I’ll give you like the five-minute version of this. That doctrine—when we call it transubstantiation—is the official Roman Catholic doctrine that the substance of the elements is transformed—that the bread becomes flesh and the wine becomes blood. And not only is that happening, but it's happening because, in each mass, Christ is being crucified again. It is a reliving of His death for us.

That doctrine, and this question is exactly right—the 39 Articles call that view "repunktant," strong language, to the Word of God. So we don't believe in that. But from there, there's this range of things—from transubstantiation to consubstantiation, which has not been transformed into blood and flesh but is with it. And you can walk down kind of a continuum over to here, where you get to, finally, it’s merely a memory, a token that points to. And the question is, where does Anglicanism—where does CHS—line up on that spectrum? Okay? And the real answer is, Anglicanism lines up right about here on the spectrum. Okay? I mean, genuinely.

One of the secrets of Anglicanism is that we're fond of what's called the "via media," the middle way. And so Anglicanism, by design, is very broad, and there's a range within Anglicanism—from something we would call Anglo-Catholic that kisses right up against the Catholic view down to what we would call Reformed Anglicanism, which is rather far from that. Generally speaking, CHS is going to be on the reform side, although people are welcome to believe all sorts of things here—they're delighted to have you wherever you line up.

But if you're asking what we believe: the real presence of Christ—my answer is yes, He is present. There's something going on there. But I believe there's something that is missing in our understanding—by and large. I'm going to teach on this. I'll be teaching First Corinthians 11 in a few weeks. The thing that I think is generally missing, that we would do much better to understand at a deeper level, is that there is both a horizontal as well as a vertical element.

We generally, throughout, have turned this meal into a vertical phenomenon. The way that we do it is very, very vertical. But I think that what you find in First Corinthians—well, the most, I'd say, the most important passage on communion, where Romans 6 is our text on baptism, First Corinthians 11 is probably the key in understanding what's happening. You'll recognize it instantly—it's like the stuff we say every week.

Chapter 10—and 10 and 11 are about this. And the word Quig used—right here—"koinonia." You might have recognized that. It's where we said, is this not a participation? That's "koinonia." Is this not a participation in the body of Christ, and in the blood of Christ? I think that the best way we should understand what is happening at the table has to reckon with this: Jesus says, "Where two or three or more are gathered, I am there with them." Is Jesus— I do not believe I do not believe in transubstantiation—this bread did not become the body of Christ, but you are the body of Christ. We are the body of Christ. Is Christ present when we celebrate the table? You bet He is, because He's present in the community, in the gathered community of these things.

I think that tends to be somewhat lost in the discussion. We got fixated on the bread and the wine. I think really, what's going on is we're supposed to look and see the people. And I think I could prove that to you if we took more time in the Scriptures. But so we do believe in the real presence of Christ. I would personally hold to a view that the real presence of Christ is seen chiefly in the people at the table, not just the food on the table. But God has invited us to take a meal. He's the host. It is His table, and we are sharing that meal with Him, and we shouldn't treat Him like that.

Most Protestant reformers—most all of them—believe that Christ is present to those who receive, drink, and eat in faith. He is present. Now, how He's present— they would argue about. Even Menno Simons, the forerunner of the Anabaptists, most of his quotes—if you look him up online—is really against any idea that Christ is present. But I found one straight quote where he basically said, when God's people come together and eat in faith, basically, the Lord is with them in a special way.

Yeah. Alright. Quig, there's a question about the prayer requests that we do. I want to give you a chance to jump in on that. So I'm all about knocking down barriers to get what you want, right? And so I always tell people, hey, you can fill out a prayer request, and you can stick it in the offering—that's one way. You can text PRAYER—the number, I can't remember the number, it's always on the screen—you can do that. You can write a note and give it to Tim or Barbara or Brian or me. We want to pray with you.

In fact, we have a prayer team that prays over different needs. We have some prayer requests where they say, "Don't share it with anybody," but the vestry or, "Please don't share it with anyone but the staff or please don't share it with anyone but the pastors." So we dole out those prayer requests as you have asked. I don't know if you know this, but our vestry meetings—ever heard "death by meeting"? We used to have three, four, five-hour meetings, and, you know, people are tired, blah blah blah, and it just got to be miserable.

So we changed what we do. We do all our business outside the meeting. We do all the heavy lifting outside the meeting. And so the first forty-some minutes of a vestry meeting— that's only an hour and a half—forty of those minutes are given to praying for people who come to meet with our vestry for prayer. Bottom line is, if you have a need, ask. Grab me, text me, write me, Tim, put it in the basket. There are a million ways to get there. But the vestry, the staff, all of us, we want to pray with you and for you. And we really do. I promise. We get these things in an email every week, and I promise you, we pray for you guys.

We care deeply about you. We know life is hard. Those prayer requests are—they're sometimes tough. Man, there's so much going on. It's a hard world.

The Beginnings of the Anglican Church

Okay. The clock is ticking. Okay? So was the Anglican church begun by Henry the Eighth? I wish I had more time on this. Okay? So here’s the deal. Here's the caricature: there was this wicked king, and he wanted to get a divorce, and thus was born the Church of England. That’s kind of the way that tends to get framed. And there are elements of that that are true. There was a wicked king, and he did want to get a divorce, and the Church of England does show up conspicuously at that time. But here’s what that misses. Here’s what that really misses.

As the Reformation is breaking out across Europe, right, country after country, God is raising up different people that are saying, "Hang on a second. Time out. Time out. Time out." The church has gone completely off the rails. You're saying things that aren't true. You're failing to say the things that are true. What is happening? And different individuals rose up.

In England, one of the earliest guys was John Wycliffe. Right? John Wycliffe was just this lion, and he's like, no, no, no. This is not true. And he begins to translate the Scriptures into English for people to know and understand the truth of the gospel. Okay? He had no interest in Henry the Eighth getting a divorce. Henry didn't even—and wasn't even alive when this starts. Right? And after Wycliffe, you got Tyndale. And Tyndale is one of my absolute heroes. Tyndale is this unbelievably courageous, brilliant, godly man. And again, as he studies the Scriptures, he realizes, oh my gosh, like the church is completely teaching all kinds of false things.

He gets into this dispute. He was having a conversation with somebody who basically worked in the Roman structure. This fellow says—had the audacity to say to Tyndale, "We would be better off without the laws of God than without the laws of the pope." And when that happened, something broke inside him. He responded: "If God spares my life, I defy the pope and all his laws." If God spares my life, I will make the boy who drives the plow no more of Scripture than you do. And he said about his great life, work to translate the Bible into English for all the common people to hear it.

Then we come to Latimer and Ridley—these guys are just absolute studs, these reformers who are advocating strongly for the truth of the gospel. They were burned to death at the stake. Burned to death at the stake because of their faith. They had no interest in the political powers in England. But they happened to be good friends with Thomas Cranmer. Okay?

Cranmer was their friend. He was the third point of that triangle. Cranmer was made to watch his friends burn. He was made to watch them die. As he watched, in absolute horrific agony, he himself recanted his faith. He just didn't think he could do it. He couldn't live; he couldn't endure the pain.

But Cranmer, this man who watched his friends die, believed in the true gospel but also happened to be very close to the king. He knew he had to have political cover if the church in England was really going to transform. He was brilliant, strategic, wise. Not merely being faithful to the gospel for gospel's sake, but knowing that sponsorship with a king would greatly facilitate things.

By the way, he didn't only recant his faith but recanted his recantation and was ultimately burned alive at the stake as Tyndale was, as all these guys were— in order to see the gospel truly take root.

Cranmer was very savvy, very smart about using political institutions and realizing the king's sponsorship could help him. But this thing was not started by King Henry VIII. It was not desired by King Henry VIII. It was created by these faithful men who saw the truth of the gospel, wanted to see it alive in England.

Cranmer had the insight to understand how to bring good theology under the king’s authority. He ultimately was killed for it. We are a people faithful to Christ, wanting to know and teach true things, living in our times.

So one thing you could Google when you go home: When were the first churches built in England? Because a lot of us think, oh, they started in 1540 with King Henry VIII. No. No. No. Hundreds of years before— Wycliffe’s time was way earlier. The church existed. There were Bible-believing, orthodox Christians, some with theology a little off, but they were Christians in England. It’s because they were fighting over who the man was—pope or no pope? Yeah. Yeah.

Women in Ministry and Church Orders

Now, we have about 300 more questions, but it’s 10:46, so do you want to stop? You’ll keep going? Five more minutes? Okay. Alright. Here’s the next one. Tim, this one’s for me. Do we ever invite women to share the Bible teaching on Sunday mornings? What is the Anglican perspective on this? Okay. So this is, again, another lengthy topic. Every one of these could be developed at greater length.

The Anglican perspective is this: Quig and I, our diocese, holds to a framework known as complementarianism. Okay? This means we believe the Scriptures teach that men and women are complementary. We’re not interchangeable, but we fit together. We are made for different things. Obviously, there's a lot of overlap, but there are some things God has uniquely called men to do, some things God has uniquely called women to do.

One of the things the New Testament seems to teach is that men are called to the role of presbyter. Okay? So when you see Quig as a priest, I as a priest, or Brian as a priest, priest is not Old Testament priest. Priest is short for presbyter, which means elder. And we believe that the rules for presbyters are chiefly laid out in 1 Timothy and Titus. Those rules seem, I would say— and I hold this humbly but strongly because I think that’s what the words mean—that God has ordained men into the role of presbyter.

Now, as I say this, we're going to do this next week. We’ll study Romans in this room if you want to come. When we study Romans, we’re going to look at Romans 16, which is completely filled with women making dramatic, meaningful contributions. I believe Paul believed women could serve; Paul relied heavily on women. All over, Paul affirms their roles—women play a huge part, and Jesus affirms the roles women play.

He does. The women had enormous influence in His ministry—supporting, being part of it. But just as Paul and Jesus believed in the significant contributions of women, it seems these roles are specific. Jesus specifically and meaningfully chose men to be disciples, apostles, and Paul chose men to be presbyters. There are reasons for that.

We want to stay faithful to both sides of the charge: to have numerous meaningful opportunities for everyone to contribute, to participate. We want the wisdom men bring, but also the wisdom women bring. We have numerous opportunities for women to teach and lead—Bible studies, conversations. We constantly learn from women. I learn so much from my wife. I learn from the Scriptures from my wife all the time.

We want women's voices here in this Sunday school class. But the particular role to be the priest and to be the ones serving at the table, the authoritative teaching of the Scriptures—those seem to be reserved for men, based on the New Testament record. We believe in that paradigm.

Some Anglicans disagree—they say women can be ordained as priests. I believe that’s a mistake—they've misunderstood what the Bible says. But they are within the Anglican communion. Not our practice nor our diocese.

Yeah. The College of Bishops addressed this issue, and it’s very contentious in the ACNA, because part of me goes, that’s not fair. I’ve got two daughters who are women, and they’re great ministers. They’ve led many to Christ. I want them to do their ministries. But to be a presbyter? No.

The College of Bishops said, looking at Scripture and church history: the ordination of women as presbyters or bishops is a recent innovation, against apostolic order. They acknowledged people have different opinions, but this is what the bishop said: it’s recent.

And here’s how recent. I went to seminary in 1982. I started the process in 1981. The first ordination of a woman as a presbyter in the Anglican Church in the US was 1977—that’s just three and a half years before I began. That’s how recent it is.

Barbara’s Role

Finally, quickly, clarify Barbara’s role. Yeah. So Barbara is a deacon. There are—we have three orders of ministry: deacon, presbyter, and bishop. Quig is both a presbyter and a bishop, which is unusual. Usually, bishops aren’t at the local level, but she’s a deacon.

In the New Testament, we see the role of deacons—some have deacons and deaconesses. We’ve combined those into one order. The deacon's role is what you see Barbara doing. The word literally means servant. Barbara serves behind the scenes in countless ways—you guys, some haven’t had a chance to see that firsthand.

In our diocese, both men and women can serve as deacons; only men can serve as presbyters and bishops.

Alright. We gotta go to church because we’re long on time. Thank you for your attention. I know that was...