Friday, May 31, 2013
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Househusband observations
12 months ago, my wife went overseas for three weeks during my long service leave. I did single parenting for three weeks. Full respect to anyone who is a single parent all the time - I don't know how you do it.
Here's some observations I put on Facebook at the time:
Househusband observation no. 1: If you put the telly on in the mornings, you have less tidying up to do.
Househusband observation no. 2: porridge sticks to plates in
the dishwasher.
Househusband observation no. 3: children are at their
hungriest at about 4pm.
Househusband observation no. 4: pre-empting hunger and
boredom takes enormous mental energy.
Househusband observation no. 5: doing girl's hair is really
difficult if you've never had long hair yourself.
Househusband observation no. 6: socks can walk without feet
in them.
Househusband observation no. 7: Ants love muffins if you
haven't wrapped them up tightly.
Househusband observation no. 8: If you want to feel like a
superhero and giant, go and help with kindy reading groups.
Househusband observation no. 9: Apparently putting margarine
on salami sandwiches is a no-no.
Househusband observation no. 10: kids will eat it if you put
it in a) a wrap b) a cardboard box takeaway style.
Househusband observation no. 11: Donna Hay brownies for
afternoon tea can't fail
Househusband observation no. 12: the school day seems to go
a lot faster than it used to when I was actually at school.
Househusband observation no. 13: I am more stressed about
the kid’s homework - and certainly more interested in it - than they are. Who
is it for again?
Househusband observation no. 14: The number of showers a 14
year old boy thinks he needs is inversely proportional to the number he
actually needs.
Househusband observation no. 15: there's no such thing as
the 'easy' dinner, because everyone wants something different: baked beans,
noodles, boiled egg, toasted sandwich. You end up making four different
dinners. Hard dinner is in fact easier.
Househusband observation no. 16: cats don't like vacuum
cleaners.
Househusband observation no. 16a: After a day either with
kids or on my own, I am tending to verbally download on any grown-up I meet...
Househusband observation no. 17: the chirpiness of the
morning people is directly proportional to the grumpiness of the not-morning
people.
Househusband observation no. 18: a seven year old really can
cover every surface of a bathroom with toothpaste.
Househusband observation no. 19: if you have doonas, making
beds is a waste of time.
Househusband observation no. 20: the Simpsons is not a kids'
show
Househusband observation no. 21: someone always squeezes the
popper drink.
Househusband observation no. 22: if you flick, hang
properly, and fold straight off the line, there's no need to iron.
Househusband observation no. 23: if there were more
stay-at-home dads, there'd be more beards.
Househusband observation no. 24: ...the smell of the
lunchboxes after the long weekend... why did I give them cabanossi on Friday?
Househusband observation no. 25: there's no disappointment
quite like getting your child to a 7am music rehearsal that has been called
off.
Househusband observation no. 26: nobody ever admits to being
the one who pooed in the bath...
Househusband observation no. 27: the comic potential of the
English language is endless is you are under 10. 'Would you like butter on your
sandwich?' 'ha ha, you said 'butt' '.
Househusband observation no. 28: I wish my wife were here.
On the other hand, this is my first State of Origin live for years.
Househusband observation no. 29: typical household
conversation: 'Dad!' 'Yes?' 'inaudible'. 'What?' 'Mumble'. 'Excuse me?' 'blum
blum bllum' 'I can't hear you. What are you saying?' ...
Househusband observation no. 30: there doesn't seem to be a
company that does a 'my wife's been away for three weeks and I need to have the
house spotless' cleaning service. Why is that?
Househusband observation no. 31: we are never going to see
that school hat again.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Baptism in Reformation Anglicanism - a sketch
As in so many things, with baptism
the Reformers could agree on what they denied but found more difficulty in
agreeing on what they would affirm. There were of course the so-called
‘anabaptists’ of the radical wing of the reformation who insisted on ‘believer’s
baptism’ as against the practice of baptizing infants. Cranmer included in his
liturgy a service for the baptism ‘of those who are of riper years’ alongside
the service for the baptism of infants, but with the expectation that the
baptism of infants would be the norm. But what did it mean, and did baptism of
infants signal that they were regenerate? Does it work in some automatic sense,
ex opere operato?
At the time of the New Testament, the
Greek word ‘baptizo’ had both a religious and a mundane sense. The word could
simply indicate washing or immersing or soaking in water – something you might
do to your hands, or to the cups and plates. But the ritual of water baptism
had a long history in Judaism prior to the birth of Christianity. There were
ritual washings mentioned in the Old Testament code as acts of purification.
Any reader of the New Testament would of course be aware of the proto-Christian
baptismal ministry of John ‘the baptizer’. John was not practicing something
unfamiliar to the Jews, but a practice that had become common as a rite of
entry into the community of God’s people – one that signified repentance and
purification. The relationship of this ritual to circumcision is unclear – why
was it practiced when circumcision already existed as a rite of entry and a
mark of membership?
But John’s ministry was radical
because he was suggesting that even Jews who were already Jews needed to
‘repent and be baptized’. What’s more, he foreshadowed one who would come after
him who would administer a baptism with ‘the Holy Spirit and fire’ (Luke 3:16).
Here something crucial is being said about Christian baptism: that it is an
immersion not in the first place in water but in the Holy Spirit. The external
washing of water baptism serves to point to the inner transformation of baptism
in the fiery Spirit of God. Jesus also makes a shocking metaphorical use of the
idea of baptism in his words to his James and John in Mark 10:38: "Can you
drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"
The picture of baptism he is here evoking is something like drowning. His ‘baptism’
is his atoning death. This strange, metaphorical use of the word to refer to
Jesus’ death is picked up by Paul in Romans 6: ‘We were therefore buried with
him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from
the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.’
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus’ final
words to his disciples are
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have
commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Did he have in mind a water
ceremony here? Which baptism is he talking about – the Holy Spirit baptism, or
an immersion of the body in water? At one level, the behaviour of the early
church tells the story: in answer to this command, they immediately continued
to symbolize the baptism of the Holy Spirit by the rite of water baptism. The direct
result of the preaching of the gospel by Peter at Pentecost was that ‘Those who
accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to
their number that day’ (Acts 2:41). Peter had called them to ‘repent and be baptized’.
The Ethiopian eunuch asked to be baptized in water when he heard the gospel
explained to him by Philip. In Acts 10, Peter encounters a group of Gentiles
who evidently have experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and immediately
exclaims: ‘Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water?’ (Acts
10:47). This verse is particularly interesting because of the way in which the
baptism by water follows the Spirit
baptism. Water does not serve as the instrument of the Spirit in a direct way,
but as a recognition of the Spirit’s work.
While the Jewish ceremony of water
baptism had been adapted as a way of speaking about the death of Christ, Christians
would not do away with the ceremony of baptism with water. It would become a
symbol of baptism with Holy Spirit. A later development, first expressed in the
second century by Justin Martyr and others, was the idea that the water baptism
was in fact the same thing as baptism in the Holy Spirit. The sign had in fact
become the thing which it symbolized. As we have just seen, the New Testament does
not teach this at all. As Pascoe and Howe write: ‘…the typical pattern was that
people came to faith and were then baptized
in water as a public demonstration of their faith’.[1]
But if faith precedes baptism, why
then has the church practiced the baptism of infants since the earliest times? In
a number of places in the book of Acts, Luke makes reference to the fact that a
believer along with his or her household would be saved. Lydia (in Acts 16:15),
the Philippian gaoler (Acts 16:31-33) and Crispus (Acts 18:8) were all baptized
together with the members of their households. It is a reasonable inference
that these included children along with the members of the other generations usually
found living together in a Greco-Roman household. In its Jewish mode, baptism
was customarily administered to children;[2]
so it would make sense if it was also administered to the children of Christian
parents. Furthermore, the practice of circumcision, though not a complete
parallel to that of baptism, was administered to baby boys.
There was no sense in which
circumcision was held to work automatically – as if, by itself, the seal of
circumcision was sufficient to make one a Jew. It was a symbol of reality into
which a person would grow, or else the symbol would be rendered empty. But what
was declared by the inclusion of children in the sign of baptism was the inclusion
of children in the promises and saving purposes of God in Jesus Christ. And
naturally, it meant that the child was to be brought up in the faith, just as
Israelite children were to be. Of course, an Israelite child could grow up
waywardly and in no sense accept the promise of which circumcision was a sign.
Likewise, Christian baptism is not a guarantee that the child will be saved. As
Cranmer himself said ‘…in
baptism those that come feignedly and those that come unfeignedly both be
washed with sacramental water, but both be not washed with the Holy Ghost.’[3]
This leads us to somewhat of a thorny issue in
Anglican theology and history – the problem of baptismal regeneration. There is
no question but that the Baptismal Service has a form of wording that seems to
state quite baldly that baptism works in an automatic sense. The minister declares:
‘Seeing now that this child is regenerate…’. ‘Regeneration’ is simply the term
for new birth, which is that decisive event that the Holy Spirit works in a
person that brings them conclusively into the Kingdom of God. It is, that is to
say, Holy Spirit baptism.
In the nineteenth century, this phrase in the
Prayer Book was the centre of the famous ‘Gorham Case’. In 1847, a country
parson named George Gorham was recommended for the parish of Brampford Speke in
Devon. The Bishop of Exeter, Bishop Phillpotts, examined Gorham and declared
that his views on baptism were at odds with the doctrine of the Church of
England. Gorham held the position that a child’s baptism was a statement of
regeneration conditional on their acceptance of the promises later in life.
Refused his post by the Bishop, Gorham took the matter through to the (secular)
Privy Council and narrowly won.
The Articles are quite explicitly against the idea
that Baptism works in an automatic way to regenerate the infant. Despite the
stringent efforts of the Tractarians since the middle of the nineteenth
century, it is impossible to read the Prayer Book as expressing unambiguously
the view that by dint of the sacrament of Baptism the child receives
regeneration, since it was not Cranmer’s personal view, nor was it the view
expressed in the other formularies. Therefore, the intention of the author of
the BCP cannot have been to express the theology he elsewhere expressly
repudiated.
How then should this declaration be read? We could
simply acknowledge an inconsistency – a slip of the pen, or an editorial lapse.
But that seems unlikely. The best attempt to synthesize the statements of the
prayer book and the formularies is that of Bishop J.C. Ryle, in his book Knots Untied.[4] This was fairly the knottiest of those
knots. Ryle’s view is that the declaration of regeneration is ‘hypothetical’ on
the basis of a ‘charitable supposition’. That is to say, the child is not
automatically considered ‘regenerate’, and may indeed turn out not to be; but
he or she is presumed so until otherwise. Ryle points to other parts of the BCP,
including the funeral service, in which the same sense of a charitable
supposition is accepted. Here also, then, the declaration that the child is
regenerate is not, in fact, a denial that a worthy reception of the sacrament
is essential to it. It is however a statement that such a worthy reception is
to be prayed for and expected in the normal course of events. Baptism is in
this way an anticipation of what God may do in a person’s life.When
it is understood in the light of the central Reformation conviction about the
gospel of free grace in Jesus Christ alone that is received by faith, baptism
is a most apt and edifying practice. It is rightly described as ‘effective’
when a person takes hold of the promises of God declared and demonstrated
[1] John W. Howe and Samuel C. Pascoe, Our
Anglican Heritage : Can an Ancient Church Be a Church of the Future?, 2nd
ed. (Eugene, Or.: Cascade Books, 2010), loc 1472.
[2]
See the Talmud
[4]
Ryle wrote: ‘I cannot see that I ought to hold doctrines which make the
Prayer-book clash and jar with the Articles and Homilies’ John Charles Ryle, Knots Untied,
10th ed. (Lond.: Chas J. Thynne, 1898), p. 158.
Monday, May 13, 2013
The effective Lord's Supper - a sketch
In the church that the Reformers
inherited, the service of the Mass was central and ubiquitous. As we have seen,
the assertion of a new theology of justification also meant a revision of the
place and meaning of the Lord’s Supper in the life of the Christian. Grace was
not, somehow a property or a thing that could be conveyed in the elements of
bread and wine themselves. Divine grace is an attitude of God – the attitude he
demonstrates in the redemption of sinners on the cross of Jesus Christ. Grace,
the Reformers argued, meant that God was now disposed to forgive sinners and
show them mercy. The sacraments, and especially the Lord’s Supper, were
By translating the services of Holy
Communion into English, Cranmer made a decisive statement about the nature of
Christian faith. The meaning of the Eucharist was not hidden or mysterious, or
magical. It was to be declared and remembered. It was to be species of the Word
– an intelligible sign of the gospel. Those who attended the Lord’s Supper
needed to know what it was that they were eating.
The Lord’s Supper was classified
along with Baptism as a practice commanded by Jesus himself and so held a
privileged place as one of the two sacraments on the reduced list of Reformation
Anglicanism. The words that Jesus used at his Last Supper ‘do this, as often as
you drink it, in remembrance of me’ indicate that he envisaged the disciples
continuing to celebrate and remember his life-giving death. Paul’s first letter
to the Corinthians contains the lengthiest discussion of the practices of
Christians as they gathered and in particular of ‘the Lord’s Supper’. The
difficulty of course is that, as with almost everything else in the epistle,
the discussion of the Lord’s Supper takes place in response to abuses of the
practice. We have no template or manual for its performance.
The particular context into which
Paul speaks is the question about sharing in the pagan temple feasts. Can a
Christian eat meat offered to idols?
14
Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak to sensible people;
judge for yourselves what I say. 16 Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we
give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that
we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one loaf,
we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.
18
Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate
in the altar? 19 Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or
that an idol is anything? 20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to
demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have
a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.
As usual, Paul deploys a complex
layering of symbol and metaphor. The ‘one loaf’ in which Christians share is
Christ’s body – a spiritual body, but one represented by the literal
participation of Christians in eating the bread (and drinking the cup) that
symbolizes that body. And that body is not only the broken body of Jesus of
Nazareth, but it is also the ‘body’ of believers.
The problem he then addresses in
the next chapter shows that the symbolism of the meal is deeply compromised by
the way in which it is done. The inequality and selfishness of the participants
is unedifying. It destroys the very meaning of eating together in Christ, since
they do not eat together at all. Instead, says, Paul, they should eat at home
if they are hungry. The meal of the Lord is not for the indulgence of the
physical appetites, but for spiritual nourishment. The consequences are
terrible – for eating and drinking in an unworthy manner is tantamount to a sin
against the body and blood of the Lord himself (1 Cor 11:27). The practice in
the Christian church of having a purely token meal – a sip of wine and a small
piece of bread, served in careful order - stems from taking good heed of the
warnings here in 1 Cor 10-11.
Cranmer clearly made a careful
study of these passages as he put the service of Holy Communion together. As he
wrote:
Christ
ordained the sacrament to move and stir all men to friendship, love, and
concord, and to put away all hatred, variance and discord, and to testify a
brotherly and unfeigned love between all them that be the members of Christ.[1]
The rite of Holy Communion is a
sign of the unity of the church in Christ – a sharing by all in the fellowship,
the koinonia, that comes with being
bound into Christ. The oneness of the believers with each other is not achieved
simply by dint of eating together, but it is both an expression of that
spiritual unity and a means by which is in fact encouraged. The moment of the
taking of the sacrament involves a reflection on the fellowship of Christ’s
body – it takes a ‘discernment of the body’, as Paul puts it, such that those
who eat and drink are not to do so as mere individuals. The Lord’s Supper
should not be thought to substitute for fellowship, or to establish it on its
own: to take the signs of the Communion and then not actually engage in the
community of God’s people perverts the very nature of the rite – just as a
wedding after which the couple refused to speak to one another would be marriage
in name only.
Paul warned the Corinthians very
sternly about their abuse of the Lord’s Supper:
27
So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy
manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28
Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink
from the cup. 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of
Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.
In the 1549 service, Cranmer had
ensured that no potential communicant was in any doubt as to the seriousness of
the rite, and the spiritual consequences of partaking illegitimately. But this
had the unfortunate consequence of turning people away from the service. It had
been intended for weekly use, but, as MacCulloch speculates, “conscientious or
shy potential communicants may have felt that they were not worthy to receive”.[2]
This led to the new emphasis on the services of Morning and Evening Prayer as
the staple of the Church of England liturgy, with Holy Communion as a more occasional
alternative. Only in the twentieth century was the Communion service returned
to more frequent celebration – and, it is worth noting, contemporary revisions
of the liturgy do not emphasize the Pauline warnings in the way that Cranmer
did in 1549.
On the basis of this theological
understanding of the rite of Communion, then, it is indeed possible to partake
of the elements and yet not validly receive the Sacrament. Cranmer spoke of
three ways in which the Supper may be eaten: “one spiritual only, another
spiritual and sacramental both together, and the third sacramental only”.[3]
As with baptism, it is important to grasp that Sacrament points to a spiritual
reality. This means that it is perfectly possible to have the spiritual reality
without partaking of the thing that points to it. One can easily ‘feed on
Christ’ without eating the Lord’s Supper. It is also perfectly possible to
consume the bread and the wine and for that eating to be not accompanied by a
spiritual eating at all, or worse. The unrepentant evil-doer may come to the
Lord’s Table and eat; but it will not be effective for them, except as a
judgment on them.
The form of eating, in which the
spiritual and the sacramental coincide, is described by Cranmer thus: “…there
is a another eating both spiritual and sacramental, when the visible sacrament
is eaten with the mouth and Christ Himself is eaten with a true faith”.[4]
The sacrament of the Supper enacts a spiritual eating, which is the true form
of faith. But by being itself a declaration of the gospel, it will also enable
that spiritual eating of the faithful. It becomes in itself the instrument of
God’s blessing of his people in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. In
this way, the sacrament can be understood as ‘effective’.
[1]
Cranmer Works, Vol 1, p. 30
[2] Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer
: A Life (New Haven, CT. ; London: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 510.
[3] Cranmer
works, Vol 1, pp. 205. He went on: “I
teach that no man can eat Christ’s flesh and drink His blood but spiritually,
which forasmuch as evil men do not, although they eat the sacramental bread
until their bellies be full and drink the wine until they be drunken, yet they
eat neither Christ’s flesh nor drink His blood, neither in the sacrament nor
without the sacrament, because they cannot be eaten and drunken but by spirit
and faith, whereof ungodly men be destitute, being nothing but world and
flesh...”
[4] Cranmer
Works Vol 1, pp. 205
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