Author: Douglas Knight

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Logiki latreia – rational worship

It has been one of the distinguishing marks of Western culture, from the nominalists of the late Middle Ages onward, that ‘mystery’ and ‘reason’ are continually held apart, even seen as opposed. In particular, in the development from the skepticism of the radical Enlightenment to 20th century positivism, the idea of rationality has taken on an increasingly narrowed definition, one which excludes, and is even pit against, notions of revelation, transcendence, and tradition. Yet the faith of the Apostles and Fathers is otherwise. The substance of this faith is that ‘the mystery hidden for ages in God’ and now revealed in Jesus Christ, is none other than the Logos, the infinite and uncreated Reason and Word of God. It is that this Logos assumed full humanity in the womb of the Virgin, uniting to Himself a human mind, with all its structures of created rationality, redeeming and sanctifying them, so that we might be transformed in the renewal of our minds (Rom. 12:2).

A positive and balanced understanding of the role of reason in the redemptive work of Christ and the life of the Church is reflected in the Pauline notion of logiki latreia, ‘rational worship’,which is to be found in the Orthodox liturgies themselves and in the writings of the Fathers. In Romans 12:1-2, St. Paul writes: I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your rational worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed in the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Paul’s discussion of rational worship and the transformation of the mind comes in a context in which the role of body is given place as well. This is indicative of the wholistic anthropology of St. Paul, in continuity with the Old Testament, in which body and mind are distinguished but held together in essential unity. This holistic anthropology is important for the theology of worship as it will also become important for the Fathers’ defense of the full humanity of Christ against the Apollinarian denial of a human mind to the Incarnate Savior. There seems little doubt that in its original context of Romans 12, Paul’s concept of logiki latreia refers not to the Church’s liturgy in the narrow sense of the term, but rather to the entire ‘liturgy’ of the Christian life, lived as an offering of worship to God.

Matthew Baker Logiki Latreia and the Mind of Christ

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Religious bodies have to deal with the question in their own terms

Unless you think that social and legal considerations should be allowed to resolve religious disputes which is a highly risky assumption if you also believe in real freedom of opinion in a diverse society there has to be a recognition that religious bodies have to deal with the question in their own terms. Arguments have to be drawn up on the common basis of Bible and historic teaching. And, to make clear something that can get very much obscured in the rhetoric about ‘inclusion’, this is not and should never be a question about the contribution of gay and lesbian people as such to the Church of God and its ministry, about the dignity and value of gay and lesbian people. Instead it is a question, agonisingly difficult for many, as to what kinds of behaviour a Church that seeks to be loyal to the Bible can bless, and what kinds of behaviour it must warn against and so it is a question about how we make decisions corporately with other Christians, looking together for the mind of Christ as we share the study of the Scriptures.

Archbishop Rowan William Reflections on the Anglican Communion

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Colin E. Gunton

Colin E. Gunton

The truth of the God of Jesus Christ is its own reward. Communication of that truth makes for joy and a life well-lived – a second reward. Colin Gunton taught me this.

Colin Gunton showed that the doctrine of God is not only about the truth of God. It also secures our own identity, our worth and our responsible freedom as children of God. The temptation to aspire to something we mistakenly identify as greater than created humanity makes us less than human. The truth that we are not God, but creatures of God – the doctrine of creation – is the really great gift of the Christian faith to the world. This is why Gunton focused on these two doctrines: God and creation.

Gunton taught that we creatures are able to know God because the Holy Spirit enables us to confess Jesus, who confesses God the Father. Often quoting Irenaeus to say that the Son and the Spirit are the two hands of the Father, Gunton showed that the doctrine of the Trinity provides us with a doctrine of mediation – God himself is not only the (christological) content but the (pneumatological) medium and bearer of that content. He argued that God is now at work making possible not only our worship and knowledge of him, but also our recognition of one another. God is the means by which I may see you for who you are, and let you become what God intends you to be – a unique and particular person.

In the years Colin Gunton taught systematic theology at Kings College, London, worldwide interest in trinitarian theology grew dramatically. Postgraduates would come to Colin to study Barth and other heroes of the Reformed tradition, but with him they also discovered the Church Fathers and learned how to think across the whole Christian dogmatic tradition.

In the weekly seminar, Colin hosted an intense encounter of ideas. With the first-timers he always wrestled through the issues again and found better ways to frame them, forever expressing delight in the richness of the Christian tradition. We would arrive with the patronizing assumption that we moderns have discovered crises of previously unknown complexity, but in seminar after seminar Colin would enable us to see that such self-consciously ‘modern’ theology was self-deluding. It is much more likely that we have to catch up with the intellectual rigor of previous generations of Christian thinkers. The result was not only Gunton’s powerful written work, but students who could think for themselves precisely because they could faithfully listen to what many generations of Christians had been saying. We who knew Colin Gunton are grateful to God for him.

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Sacrifice in the Old Testament 1

The Eschatological Economy

In The Eschatological Economy I wanted to show that when we talk about sacrifice, in the bible or in ancient pagan world, the first question we have to ask is whose sacrifice? Do we mean Israel’s, or the sacrifices of other nations? The difference between sacrifice in Israel, and sacrifice in the rest of the (pagan) world is the difference between the true God the false gods. Failure to make this distinction confuses everything said about the topic of sacrifice.

I argued that, for Israel, the decisive point about a sacrifice was not that something was killed, but that something was presented – to God and to his people. Sacrifice was a public act so the animal admitted to the temple is a public demonstration that Israel, and the individual Israelite, is admitted by God.

It was also a double act. The sacrifice is coming from God to Israel, and from Israel to God in thanks and recognition of God’s initial gift. God gave Israel gifts and he did so publicly, before the watching world – Thou hast prepared a table for me before the face of mine enemies… (Psalm 23). So sacrifice serves to sustain the relationship of the people with their God, and to show Israel and the gentile world beyond, what that relationship was.

You can find out more about The Eschatological Economy at Amazon.com or at Amazon.co.uk or at Eerdmans

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Coming up on DK

Mihail Neamtu Lincoln Harvey Alan Brown

My picture shows the Orthodox are doing all the talking and the Anglicans all the listening.

Let me remind you of the theologians whose work I have been posting (find them in the ‘Contemporaries’ section) –

Christopher Seitz, Ephraim Radner, Oliver O’Donovan, Augustine DiNoia, R.R. Reno, Reinhard Hütter, Douglas Farrow, Oswald Bayer, Gavin D’Costa, Stephen Long, TF Torrance, along with the others whose books are displayed in the ads on this blog – Robert Wilken, Robert Jenson and John Webster.

People always ask about books to read, and in the case of diploma students and undergraduates just starting out on this subject I don’t know what to suggest. I have make lists of books for students and lost them again. You can see my latest efforts to compile book lists on my Amazon page – please make suggestions, or alternative lists. Anybody can get an Amazon page, by the way, just by posting a book review.

But after teaching Anglican ordinands – always the most lost on the subject of the Christian faith – it occurred to me that there are no good introductions to Christian theology. So I have decided to write one – it is called The Apprenticeship. I did promise you that I would post pieces for this as I went along, and I really must make more effort on this.

Coming up on the DK blog:

Servais Pinckaers, George Weigel, Benedict XVI and the whole mountain of John Paul II’s papal teaching – Fides et Ratio, Veritatis Splendor, Evangelium Vitae, Ut Unum Sint. And we should have a look at the Catechism and Compendium. You are not Catholic? Neither am I, but when your neighbour comes up with a good idea, don’t you ‘borrow’ it?

More on the issues of Christology, sacrifice, atonement, Israel and the Old Testament, supersessionism, history and modernity – and on why I wrote The Eschatological Economy.

Colin Gunton

Matthew Baker on reasonable worship and Christ our great high priest (Matthew has very kindly started to take my education in hand. Solly and Alan Brown will be relieved).

And there will be more from the Anglicans, particular from Ephraim Radner and the Anglican Communion Institute.

James Merrik provides much more intelligent comment on the Anglican crisis than I can, while the Anglican Communion website formally and Kendall Harmon at Titus 1.9 conveniently channels the torrent of statements that issue from all parts of the Communion.

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We are bound to each other

No member Church can make significant decisions unilaterally and still expect this to make no difference to how it is regarded in the fellowship; this would be uncomfortably like saying that every member could redefine the terms of belonging as and when it suited them. Some actions – and sacramental actions in particular – just do have the effect of putting a Church outside or even across the central stream of the life they have shared with other Churches.

We now face some choices about what kind of Church we as Anglicans are or want to be. Some speak as if it would be perfectly simple – and indeed desirable – to dissolve the international relationships, so that every local Church could do what it thought right. This may be tempting, but it ignores two things at least.

First, it fails to see that the same problems and the same principles apply within local Churches as between Churches. The divisions don’t run just between national bodies at a distance, they are at work in each locality, and pose the same question: are we prepared to work at a common life which doesn’t just reflect the interests and beliefs of one group but tries to find something that could be in everyone’s interest – recognising that this involves different sorts of costs for everyone involved? It may be tempting to say, ‘let each local church go its own way’; but once you’ve lost the idea that you need to try to remain together in order to find the fullest possible truth, what do you appeal to in the local situation when serious division threatens?

Second, it ignores the degree to which we are already bound in with each other’s life through a vast network of informal contacts and exchanges.. These are not the same as the formal relations of ecclesiastical communion, but they are real and deep, and they would be a lot weaker and a lot more casual without those more formal structures. They mean that no local Church and no group within a local Church can just settle down complacently with what it or its surrounding society finds comfortable. The Church worldwide is not simply the sum total of local communities. It has a cross-cultural dimension that is vital to its health and it is naïve to think that this can survive without some structures to make it possible. An isolated local Church is less than a complete Church…

The idea of a ‘covenant’ between local Churches (developing alongside the existing work being done on harmonising the church law of different local Churches) is one method that has been suggested, and it seems to me the best way forward. It is necessarily an ‘opt-in’ matter…

The idea of an Archbishop of Canterbury resolving any of this by decree is misplaced, however tempting for many. The Archbishop of Canterbury presides and convenes in the Communion, and may do what this document attempts to do, which is to outline the theological framework in which a problem should be addressed; but he must always act collegially, with the bishops of his own local Church and with the primates and the other instruments of communion.

Archbishop Rowan William Reflections on the Anglican Communion

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Anglican Covenant

A well-written and concise covenant would clarify the identity and mission of the Churches of, or in association with, the Anglican Communion. By articulating our ecclesiological identity, a covenant will also help the Anglican Communion in self-understanding and in ecumenical relationships. A covenant could provide, for all provinces and/or national churches, a fundamental basis of trust, co-operation and action in relationship with one another and in relation to the whole Communion. A covenant could express what is already implicit, by articulating the â??bonds of affectionâ??, that is, the â??house rulesâ?? by which the family of Anglican churches wishes to live together . These would be intended to develop a disciplined and fulfilling life in communion.

It could also become a significant educational tool within the Communion, enabling Anglicans worldwide to understand and deepen their commitment to the beliefs, history and practices they share in common and their development of these as they engage together in Godâ??s mission in the world.

Any covenant also has the potential of providing what is currently lacking – an agreed framework for common discernment, and the prevention and resolution of conflict. It could do this by bringing together and making explicit much that until now has been a matter of convention within the Communionâ??s common life.

The Proposal for an Anglican Covenant

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Solly on 'The Eschatological Economy'

Recapitulation – God’s reverse engineering of creation. Eschatology has tended to mean that which is to come. Then it meant that which is to come which has actually come in Christ, the proleptic future. Now it means the bow wave of God’s work of recreation, coursing through the created order, renewing everything in line with the end. It’s quite an image, and an idea, and in one sense challengeable at every point, yet we see by faith not be sight. The Church is on the crest of that bow wave, or it should be. Sometimes it isn’t. The world seeks to resist that bow wave, puts up its sand banks, and storm walls. But God just does a new thing, outflanking the world. A crucified God: who’d have thought it?

Douglas Knight reminds us, once again, that we are grafted into Israel, not the other way around. We then partake of Israel’s paideia. We are in the same school as them. Yes, things are different, for Christ has come, who has summed up Israel in himself, yet also, the people of Israel are still being formed. Their story is not a handy source of illustrations, much as we might refer to Shakespeare, or Dickens for illustrations; their story is our story, which is God’s story, his narrative. Israel is still central to God’s plans. This is the election of God, through which the world is blessed.

Pay a visit to the all-new Solly Gratia.

You can find out more about The Eschatological Economy at Amazon.com or at Amazon.co.uk or at Eerdmans

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The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole

So koinonia / communio is a foundational term which gained fundamental significance for the early church, and which in the eyes of many once more occupies a pre-eminent place in defining the essence of the Church today. The Church is shared participation in the life of God, therefore koinonia with God and with one another (1 Jn, 1,3).

So from the beginning the episcopal office was ‘koinonially’ or collegially embedded in the communion of all bishops; it was never perceived as an office to be understood or practised individually. In his history of the Church Eusebius describes in detail the endeavours to maintain peace, unity, love and communion during the violent conflicts of the second century regarding the correct fasting practices and the dating of Easter (Hist. eccl., v,23f; cf. vii,5). The collegial nature of the episcopal office achieves its most impressive expression in the consecration of bishops.

‘The episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole’ (Cyprian of Carthage De ecclesiae catholicae unitate, 1,5). Such statements and admonitions recur again and again in Cyprian’s letters (Ep., 55,21; 59,14 et al.). Most familiar is the statement that the Church is the people united with the bishop and the flock devoted to its shepherd. ‘The bishop is in the church and the church is in the bishop, and if anyone is not with the bishop he is not with the church.’ But Cyprian goes even one step further: he not only emphasises the unity of the people of God with its own individual bishop, but also adds that no one should imagine that he can be in communion with just a few, for ‘the Catholic Church is not split or divided’ but ‘united and held together by the glue of the mutual cohesion of the bishops’ (Ep., 66,8).

Cardinal Walter Kasper An address given to the Church of England Bishops’ Meeting (5 June 2006)

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The holy community forms Scripture, and is formed by it

The action of Israel that we have received in the form of scripture and liturgy topples the alternative constructions of the gentiles, and prevents the world knitting itself together into any form other than the form of Christ. It is the one action that keeps the world open, reminding us that the Messiah is not here, and that what the world presently is, is not the end. True reading produces the transformation of the readers, so hermeneutics is ethics, the reading of people into the Church.