By Robin G. Jordan
Historically Anglicans have recognized some practices as being compatible or in agreement with what is taught or practiced in the Holy Scriptures. They have also recognized other practices as being not in line with what is taught or practiced in the Bible. While these practices may not be specifically prohibited by Scripture, they are not consonant with what is taught or practiced in Scripture.
For example, the practice of invoking the descent of the Holy Spirit upon inanimate objects is not prohibited in Scripture. At the same time you find no instances of this practice in Scripture. What you do find in Scripture is several instances when Holy Spirit descended upon people when they heard the gospel or when an apostle prayed for them. You also find other instances when God bestowed the gift of his Spirit upon people.
In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus teaches that God will give the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who ask for this gift. In the Gospel of John Jesus tells Nicodemus that no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless he is born again. Just as he is born physically of human parents, he must be born spiritually of the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells the disciples that, when he returns to heaven, he will send to them the Holy Spirit who will take his place. When Jesus appears to the disciples in the upper room, he breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
It is quite clear from these passages and other passages in the Bible that the Holy Spirit only descends upon people. As hard as you may look, you will not find in the Holy Scriptures any instant of the Holy Spirit’s descent on inanimate objects. One can safely conclude that invoking the descent of the Holy Spirit upon inanimate objects such as the bread and wine on the communion table and the water in the font is not a practice agreeable with Scripture. Descending upon such objects is not something that the Holy Spirit does.
The Bible does not teach that God inhabits inanimate objects or his Spirit dwells in these objects. The Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and other peoples of the ancient Mediterrean world and the ancient Mid-East believed that their gods inhabited the idols that they made from wood, stone, and precious metals. However, the Ten Commandments forbade the Jews from making idols and worshiping them out of the belief that the Spirit of God inhabited or dwelt in them. The Bible does teach that what these ancient people were worshiping were inanimate objects or demons.
When we consider this teaching alongside what the Bible teaches about the Holy Spirit, it is quite clear that the Holy Scriptures do not countenance the practice of invoking the descent of the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine on a communion table or water in a font.
When you accept the Holy Scriptures as your final authority in matters of faith and practice, the antiquity of a practice is of no consequence. Eucharistic prayers that incorporate an invocation of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the communion elements are not Scriptural. It does not matter if a number of the older anaphoras have such an invocation. Prayers over the water in the font that incorporate such an invocation are also unscriptural. It does not matter if the older baptismal rites have this feature.
In New Testament times all kinds of false teaching quickly emerged and troubled the infant Church. The apostolic age was not miraculously preserved from false doctrine or false practice.
While some practices may go as far back as post-apostolic times and the Church has accepted these practices over the centuries, their great antiquity and general acceptance offer no assurance that they are not error or superstition. Longstanding and widely accepted errors and superstitions, after all, are errors and superstitions that have been around for a while and which a large group of people mistakenly believe are valid or correct. Great antiquity and general acceptance does not make them any less error or superstition. It just shows that human beings are prone to getting things wrong and being credulous.
As we are learning in this age of digital media and “fake news,” people are going to pay attention and give more weight to opinions that fit with their own. They are not interested in hearing or reading factual information. They are going to heed whatever reinforces and supports what they already believe.
One of the reasons a growing number of those who identify themselves as “evangelicals” are reading the Patristic writers is that they are seeking affirmation for what they have come to believe and practice. The Patristic writers are a mixed lot. Some used sound exegetical principles in interpreting the Scripture, teasing the meaning of a text from the text, the surrounding passages, and the larger context. Others interpreted Scripture allegorically, reading their own meaning into a text. On one thing the Patristic writers appear to have been agreed: they did not view their own writings and the writings of their fellow Patristic writers as “God-breathed”—inspired by the Holy Spirit. They were just their opinion on a particular matter. They would be puzzled by the weight that later generations assigned to that opinion.
The English Reformers read the Patristic writers through the lens of the Holy Scriptures. They recognized opinion for what it was—opinion. Where the opinions of the Patristic writers appeared to be confirmed by what was taught and practiced in the Bible, they cited the Patristic writers’ opinions in their own writings. However, their final authority in all matters of faith and practice was Scripture, not Scripture interpreted by Patristic opinion and Church tradition, but Scripture interpreted by Scripture and reason.
Contemporary Anglicans who give far more weight to Patristic opinion and Church tradition like to think of themselves as walking in the steps of the Caroline High Churchmen. In a sense they are but not in the sense that they think that they are . They are repeating the same kind of mistakes that the Caroline High Churchmen did. They are not taking a critical approach to works of the Patristic writers and subjecting Patristic opinion to Scripture. They are giving more weight to antiquity than to Scripture. A few Caroline High Churchmen would realize that they were mistaken in their earlier views and distances themselves from them. In some of his earlier writings John Cosin appears to embrace the Objective Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated elements of the Holy Eucharist but later in life, following his exile in Europe during the Interregnum, he would adopt a view of the eucharistic presence more in line with the central Anglican theological tradition. In reading the works of the Caroline High Churchmen, we should read them critically as we should those of the Patristic writers, using the touchstone of the Bible to ascertain whether their opinions are genuinely Scriptural.
We also need to bear in mind what Jesus himself said. He had harsh words for the Pharisees who negated the Holy Scriptures for the sake of their own tradition.
What may appear to be a innocent or harmless practice at first glance may prove to be otherwise. In evaluating a practice, we should consider the history of the practice, the doctrinal accretions that the practice has gathered over the centuries, and its particular use in a rite or service.
For example, the 2019 Proposed ACNA Book of Common Prayer contains two formulas for use when the priest shows the consecrated bread and wine to the people and invites them to receive communion. One is from the Byzantine Rite; the other from the Roman Rite. The formula from the Byzantine Rite was said at the first elevation of the consecrated elements for the adoration of the people. In the Byzantine Rite the consecrated elements are elevated three times, each time for the people’s adoration. The practice of showing the consecrated host to the people dates to the twelfth century in the Roman Rite. It was shown to the people for their adoration and was the highpoint of the service for the people who normally did not receive communion. In the Roman Rite the bread and the wine are also elevated at the time of their consecration.
These practices are associated with the belief in the Objective Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated elements of the Holy Eucharist, that is, Christ is really and substantively in the consecrated bread and wine. Their natural substance is transformed into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ. This belief was associated with the doctrine that through the priest Christ offers himself for the sins of the world, for “the living and the dead for the remission of their punishment or guilt.” This offering is an extension of the offering Christ made on the cross. What is transpiring on the altar is what is transpiring on the cross. They are not separated by time and space. They are the one and the same event. Or so the Roman Catholic Church teaches. While the Roman Catholic Church requires belief in this doctrine as an article of faith and as necessary for salvation, the English Reformers rejected the doctrine on the grounds that it cannot be found in Scripture and cannot be proved by Scripture (Article 6). English Reformers rejected the worship of the consecrated host as idolatrous (Article 28).
If the minister faces the people across the communion table when saying the prayer of consecration on behalf of the whole assembly as “the tongue of the assembly” and performing the manual acts, laying a hand on the bread, breaking the bread, laying a hand on the wine vessels, he does not need to show the consecrated elements to the people for any reason. They have watched him with word and gesture set apart the bread and wine for sacramental use.
The 1552, 1559, 1604, and 1662 Prayer Books direct that the minister stand at the north side of the table for this reason. The people can see what he is doing as well as hear what he is saying. Standing behind the table, facing the people, is the older of the two positions, and also permits the people to see and hear what the minister is doing and saying. In their communion services the communion of the people immediately follows the Words of Institution and the people see the consecrated bread as it is put into their hands and the consecrated wine as the cup is put to their lips.
The practice of showing the consecrated elements to the people then is far from innocent or harmless. From the perspective of historic Anglicanism it is unscriptural. Even the partially-reformed 1549 Prayer Book prohibited the practice.
In First Letter to the Corinthians Paul articulates an important principle that we should apply in deciding whether we should incorporate a practice into the worship of the Church or our lives as disciples of Christ. Even though we may believe that a practice is innocent or harmless, we should refrain from that practice if the practice troubles the consciences of our fellow believers.
For example we may be convinced in our own minds that blessing oil is not unscriptural. On the other hand our fellow Anglicans do not share our convictions. They find no real support for our belief in Scripture. We believe that the practice is allowable. They are not convinced. The use of blessed oils in various rites and services troubles their consciences even though their use is optional. In such a case Paul’s principle would require us to remove any reference to blessed oils from the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book along with any form for their blessing and the practices of anointing the catechumens, the newly baptized, the hands of newly ordained priests, and the foreheads of newly-consecrated priests with blessed oil. The practice of anointing the sick with unblessed olive oil might be retained provided it was made clear that such anointing is not a means of grace but an ancient practice that Jesus’ disciples and the New Testament Church adopted.
Some pastors do not give any thought to the practices that they adopt. They may pick up a practice from a pastor who trained them. They may adopt a practice simply on the basis that it appeals to them in some way.
For example, they may make repeated signs of the cross over the bread and wine as they say the prayer of consecration, setting them apart for sacramental use. They may bow repeatedly to the servers and expect them to bow in return. These gestures serve no purpose. They do not make the service more reverent. In the case of making multiple signs of the cross, they make the consecration of the communion elements look like a magical ritual. A Wiccan or a practitioner of an animistic religion visiting the church would have that impression.
Byron Stuhlman makes an excellent point in Prayer Book Rubrics Expanded (Church Publishing, 1987, 2000).
Ceremonial actions are the “body language” of Christian worship; they are best understood as functional actions and rhetorical gestures which draw out the meaning of liturgical prayer. In the words of the section entitled “Of Ceremonies” in the 1549 Prayer Book, they should be “so set forth that every man may understand what they do mean, and to what use they do serve.”If their meaning and use is unclear or obscure, they should be omitted.
The liturgical principles of simplicity and less is more are applicable to ceremonial actions as they are to the other aspects of Christian worship. Uncluttered liturgical rites, spare ceremony, and restrained gesture* are marks of the Anglican tradition of worship at its best. They enable Anglican congregations to focus on what is most important at their worship gatherings—the singing of God’s praise, the proclamation and exposition of God’s Word, prayer, and the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
*When I refer to "restrained gesture," I am referring to the ceremonial actions of the service leader. I am not suggesting that the members of the congregation should be discouraged from raising their hands in praise and prayer, moving to the music, or clapping in time to the music.Photo Credit: Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Plainville, CT, Convocation of Anglicans in North America
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