‘You’ll find the prayer room down the corridor on the right’, said the welcoming assistant cheerfully. ‘The Lord is there’, she added in a more serious tone.
‘Yes of course he is!’ grinned my wife, thinking it was a joke. The Lord is everywhere, of course, so He is also in the prayer room! And we went off in that direction.
It looked like any other prayer room in any other Charismatic conference – dark, quiet, peaceful and meditative – with just one difference. All the chairs were oriented towards one corner. In that corner stood a table with a small silver box on it. The box was ornately crafted, and covered on top with a velvet cloth. Whenever someone entered or left the room, they knelt reverently towards the box.
The box was a tabernacle, containing a portion of consecrated bread and wine.
For Christians whose faith is sacramental, a tabernacle is a special way of encountering the intensified presence of Jesus. It provides a reference point for worship and adoration of our Saviour.
The Familiar-Unfamiliar Combination
The collision of worlds on my first visit to a Charismatic Catholic celebration was both moving and surreal. I never expected to see people freely raising their hands in worship one minute, and crossing themselves (‘in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit’) next minute, as a bishop in full dress appeared on stage. I was the only one there who found it an odd combination, apparently – my 400 co-worshippers carried on as if it were the most natural thing in the world. But for me, the contradictory feeling of childhood-familiarity and unfamiliarity stayed the whole weekend.
The Celebrate! conference was founded about 25 years ago by the visionary Charles Whitehead. This was the first one I had gone to. I was touched by the explicit welcome they gave to non-Catholics like myself at the beginning of the weekend. I also learnt that some of the speakers were Anglicans and Evangelicals.
This year marked the 50th anniversary of Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church, and a bigger celebration was going on in Rome at the same time as ours. From our humble location in East Anglia, the big screen showed us live footage of the Vatican during mealtimes. We witnessed 30,000 people from all over the world, worshipping with all their might to songs such as Here I am to Worship and Shout to the Lord, with Pope Francis joining in. The sight of it moved me to tears.
Journeying Towards the Sacraments
As a Charismatic Evangelical since childhood, I confess I didn’t come to an appreciation of the sacraments willingly. I was dragged kicking and screaming, first by the power of theological argument, and later by the impact of personal experience. I have the kind of mind that loves pure, penetrating rationality. The sacraments seem offensive, a stumbling block to this way of thinking. Doesn’t it come dangerously close to idolatry? Why should Jesus be present in the bread in a special way? Why should it make any difference to my spiritual growth whether I eat it or not?
I also felt a contradiction between Charismatic and sacramental ways of encountering the supernatural. The one seemed free, uncontrolled, spontaneous and open; the other seemed mechanistic, formulaic, and closed. In most Charismatic churches, the Spirit blows where he wills; nobody can force him to show up. But in Sacramental churches, the presence of God is at the command of the priest, contained within a ceremony and repeatable at any time.
It has taken me until now to realise that God is big enough to embrace both ways of encountering his presence. More importantly, Sacramental and Charismatic churches have something in common that many other types of church do not. Both agree that the presence of God is tangibly there in a worshipping community, apart from his ‘intellectual’ presence in the preaching of the Word.
It is sad that these two beautiful ways of meeting Jesus have been separated due to the divisions in the Church. It is even sadder that both sides have a tendency to look down on each other as inferior or improper. But it fills my heart with joy to have learned that this is not the case everywhere, and that there are Christian communities which enjoy the richness of what both have to offer.
I am also glad to see a renewed interest in the sacraments among Protestant Charismatics such as Andrew Wilson, who is planning to write a book next year called Eucharismatic. In this book he hopes to show that “you can have the best of both worlds, the old and the new, the liturgical and the experiential, the depth and the bounce, the eucharistic and the charismatic.”
In the meantime, I plan to go back to Celebrate! next year (God willing). Anyone want to join me?
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Nice, Barney. Would love to hear more and absorb more of this appreciation that you and others have found that I have naturally or preferentially found yet, but am open to. Thanks for sharing. Paul
Hi Paul, thanks for the comment! May I recommend three places to go to start with?
1. Andrew Davison’s book “Why Sacraments?” is very accessible and introduces the value of sacramentality for Christians.
2. Alexander Schmemann’s “For the Life of the World” is powerful and moving. It shows what makes sacraments such a counter-cultural way of life in the modern secular world.
3. Raneiro Cantalamessa’s “Come, Creator Spirit!” is about Charismatic renewal from the point of view of one of the Catholic Church’s leading bishops.
Also, wanna come with me to next year’s Celebrate! conference? Or you could go to the similar “New Dawn” conference which is happening in a couple of weeks! http://www.newdawn.org.uk/
Apart from that, please ask me any questions you have about the whole area and I’d love to engage 🙂
Thank you, Barney. That’s much appreciated. It’s not the number one priority at the moment, so i think it will be a slow-burn thing for me. I value your pointers in the right direction to get started. And I might ask questions as things come up. Paul
I liked this post!
As a young Baptist pastor, many years ago now (!!), but one newly baptised in the Holy Spirit, one of my great friends and unwitting mentors was a godly (70-year old) Roman Catholic priest who lived in one of the villages where we had a Baptist chapel which I served as pastor. I was on a journey in more ways than one. I was going deeper in my own spirituality than ever before, having become rather dissatisfied with my current somewhat superficial prayer life. I was also trying to discover what church was about, and how spirituality worked in the context of Christian congregations, along with spiritual gifts etc etc. We had a number of joint services, but they were not a great highlight. The most significant time we ever had together was when I heard that he was unwell, and I went to visit him in the presbytery where he lived. The housekeeper let me in, and ushered me into his bedroom, a typically spartan and ascetic affair, with just a wrought-iron bed and a hard chair. We caught up for a few minutes, then I offered to pray with him. He welcomed this offer, but we had two different visions of what was about to happen. I being well, expected to pray for him, since he was sick. I started off, calling down the blessing of God upon him, and then paused for breath. He stepped into my prayer, and continued to worship the Lord (and the presence of God was tangible in the room as he prayed). He then paused for breath, with the expectation that I would continue to pray. And so we prayed turn and turn about for 40 minutes or so – one of the best lessons in “praying in the Spirit” that I ever experienced – listening to one another, interjecting and taking up the flow of one another, and joining hearts and voices in a constant stream of worship and prayer to our Father God. I left the Presbytery a transformed person, and resolved to try to teach others to pray as I had just learnt. Having been raised in the city of Liverpool, where the orange/ Roman Catholic divide was strong and heartfelt, this changed my notion and understanding of Catholic spirituality. I was not about to change my theological convictions on the sacraments, but I learnt that the unity of the Spirit was lived at a far deeper level than that. Over the following years, I preached at several Catholic charismatic conferences, and found the depth of spirituality wonderful and moving. The sense of mystery and wonder is also profound. Equally, I have worshipped in charismatic orthodox settings and touched a similar deep vein of the presence of God. I have shared these experiences often, in the hope that people would share in a culture of honour surrounding other traditions and the depth they carry. This does not mean that we need to agree with every theological conviction that others have – I am not a particular fan of the “generous orthodoxy” approach, of believing a bit of everything, but a good bit of fair-minded appreciation of one another will probably go a long way to helping us appreciate others, and perhaps to their appreciating some good clear evangelical convictions and passions. This culture of honour can surely be mutual. We don’t have to yield our convictions for the sake of relationship; we can passionately believe what we believe, while honouring deeply the deposit of God in others. I have personally looked again and again at the question of sacramentalism in the context of baptism and the Lord’s supper and remain unconvinced by the position generally, while believing profoundly that the exercise of both of these with faith in our hearts strengthens the believer profoundly.
Thanks for sharing these experiences, Steve! Wonderful that you’ve had so much to do with Charismatic Catholicism already!
You make a good point about how reaching across the divide doesn’t necessarily mean giving up one’s own theological convictions. I have noticed that even those who favour a “generous orthodoxy” still have a set of implied ‘core’ standards for judging other Christian traditions, even if they are not conscious of them. I haven’t yet caught any of them reaching out to Nazi theology or the Klu Klux Klan, for example! But this raises a crucial question in my mind: what are the right standards to use to evaluate other Christian movements? How do we discern when we can learn something enriching from elsewhere, versus when we must politely & respectfully stand firm in our own traditional doctrines? Do you have any insight to share on this question?
Hi Barney, well yes, of course, that is a very pertinent question. I probably need to think about this a bit longer, in order to give a considered response. But I don’t have that time just now, as I am about to go away on two Salt & Light church camps – in UK, and then France. My initial response is a bit lame: I don’t think it is my job to evaluate every other Christian movement, but it is my responsibility to keep reviewing my own convictions in the light of other teachings and traditions. I am responsible for what I teach and think, and not for what everyone else might propose! So, for instance, so far as the sacraments are concerned, since the two principal ones we espouse are baptism and the Lord’s supper, we have to go back to the story of Jesus, from whom they derive their potency and origin, and ask: “What does Jesus appear to be encouraging here? And what do the first apostles, those closest to him in time and teaching, have to say about the matter.?” With regards to the Lord’s supper, it seems to me that the power is in telling and re-telling the story of the death of Jesus. It’s a proclamation that evokes faith. Equally, baptism needs to be accompanied by faith to be effective in the life of the believer and the community. No particular magical properties ex opere operato. ETc etc. Often it seems to me that the teaching and practice of Jesus encouraged simplicity, and that we all (in whatever tradition we stand) add certain complications/accoutrements of our own. This is true for charismatics as much as for others, of course, and I need to own that too. What charismatics have practised in terms of clothing themselves in spiritual armour (by going through certain rotes) or binding and loosing has probably also to be questioned. Finally, I think what I am really after is appreciating the strengths of other traditions, and asking where that might challenge our own superficiality. As we do that, we are probably aware of concomitant weaknesses to be wary of, but I would rather not start or finish there. A book that helped me a lot in this respect was “Water from a deep well” by Gerald Sittser. But discussion definitely to be continued!
Thanks for giving me a preliminary reply, especially considering how busy you are! I eagerly look forward to a more considered response! My own questions arise from a burning concern to take seriously the positions of other Christians, especially where it is possible they’re right and I’m wrong. Here is my response in three parts
PART 1: ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FAITH
I was teaching my students the other day about the tendency of our culture to posit a radical “either/or” making you feel forced to choose between them (think of US politics!), instead of recognising the ways that both may sometimes be true. I think it important that we don’t make that mistake in regard to the sacraments. As best I understand sacramental doctrine, there is no question that the real presence might be a kind of magic that works even if faith is absent. Faith is a crucial ingredient as well. The argument between sacramentalists and non-sacramentalists is not equal, as if both sides were denying each other’s positions. Everything Zwinglians believe positively about the Eucharist is also believed by sacramentalists, but sacramentalists believe more on top that Zwinglians deny.
PART II: ON THE WITNESS OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS
It is fascinating to me that you think “those closest to Jesus in time and teaching” denied a sacramental view of the Eucharist. Your own evidence is only that they affirmed the importance of faith, which sacramental Christians fully agree with. Obviously a sacramental understanding of the Eucharist cannot be proven purely by arguing from Biblical texts any more than any other controversial debate in the history of the church. We both know the disputed verses on this topic (1 Cor 11:30; John 6:53). I fully admit that a reductionistic account of New Testament doctrine leaves the question open – there is no knock-down proof text for real presence. But I sincerely doubt whether the fullness of wisdom and insight is restricted to what can be proven in the New Testament beyond question.
I doubt my own intuitions on this topic, because I am aware how much my own cultural lens affects the way I read the Bible. That is why the witness of history seems so important, to counterbalance my own subjectivity. And almost everyone I know who studies patristics has concluded that the earliest post-New-Testament witnesses believed in real presence. They disagree over whether the early church was right to believe this, but not whether the early church did believe it. Consider, just as a small example, this website: http://catholicpatristics.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/real-presence-of-christ-in-eucharist.html I know you have read the patristics a lot, so I would love to know how you interpret them in this particular area. If you think they were Zwinglians, I would love to hear your reasons because I have never met someone who took such a position before.
PART III: ON OVER-COMPLICATING THEOLOGY
It’s very interesting to me that you say the complications in theology are a flawed and decadent departure from the pure, simple teaching of Jesus. I suppose this may be sometimes the case. However, as a general guiding statement that keeps us on the straight & narrow, I have come to doubt it. Here are my reasons:
1. Chesterton argued the opposite – that most heresies are a truth oversimplified and detached from other balancing truths. Examples could include Arianism, Sabellianism, Modalism – all much simpler and easier to understand than orthodox Trinitarianism. When we look at the false teaching around today (e.g. prosperity gospel, antinomianism, universalism, denial of penal substitution) would you not agree that they are in essence far simpler than the traditional teaching? They either collapse two truths that should be distinguished, or else take one idea to an extreme at the expense of another idea.
2. If all complications are a corruption of the pure, simple teaching of Jesus, then how do we explain the multitude of disagreements that abound on what Jesus actually taught? It seems to me that one is forced to explain it by saying that the simple teaching of Jesus is what I understand it to be, and everyone else has misunderstood what is right in front of their eyes. Doubtless the zoomed-out practical message of Jesus is simple (love rather than hate, forgive rather than take revenge, follow him rather than others), but as soon as one progresses two steps on such a journey, one is forced to decide how to love, and one is presented with a cacophany of different opinions.
3. I would venture to suggest that even the example you give about the Charismatic tradition is actually a simplification. To make a mechanism out of the spiritual armour is to over-simplify our relationship to the Holy Spirit, would you not say?
CONCLUSION
I’d be very keen to hear your thoughts on these three points. Maybe I’ve misunderstood you or am barking up the wrong tree. But please correct me if so!
Hi Steve! I hope you had a great time at Transform and Destinéé. Just a reminder that I would love to hear a more considered response from you – as well as what you think about my 3 points below. Whenever you have time 🙂
Hi Barney
Not sure that my thoughts are as collected as I would like them to be, but here goes:
1. The Lord’s Supper starts out as a memorial feast of the release of God’s people from the bondage of Egypt. The story of that freedom from bondage is told and retold. Jesus invests a new meaning into an old story, when he tells his disciples to remember him as they eat the bread and drink the wine, which portrays a new covenant in his blood. As we well know, the similarity between all the stories in the gospels of the trial and death of Jesus marks how the story was told and retold. The telling and retelling of the story is hugely important, and manifests the primary importance of the Lord’s Supper. Our faith is in the story of Jesus’s death for us. If there is a “present reality”, it is the reality that as we break one loaf, we demonstrate that we are “one body” (1 Cor 11.17ff). This is not particularly sacramental, as I understand it, but symbolic. I am not sure that I fully understand all the differences between the Zwinglians and the sacramentalists (that’s a disclaimer, although I do understand some of them!), but I think that sacramentalists go a lot further than this.
2. Yes, I have done a lot of study on the Patristics. I was tutored by an orthodox theologian (Father Kallistos Ware) who influenced me greatly, and who taught me to appreciate the mystery of the Trinity, and the Person of Jesus. I think that the early centuries of Christian faith were trying to make sense of who Jesus was, and how the Trinity works. All of that I appreciate hugely, and I regularly thank God for these theological foundations. The mystery of the nature of the Trinity, however, and the nature of Christ, are one thing. All of this is pretty huge, and beyond our understanding. I think that early Christians often transferred the sense of mystery over to everything, including the sacraments, when they did not need to. We have to ask whether they were right to do so. I suspect not, because I don’t think that Jesus did. That’s the simplicity I am talking about.
3. With regards to the over-complication of theology, I have some sympathy with what you say. My Bible College principal used to say of those who professed to be “simple Bible believers” – “You show me the simple Bible, and I’ll believe it!”. I confess that the Bible and theology is more complicated than we would like to think, but, at the same time, it’s probably not as complicated as theologians have tended to make it. If it were, it would be beyond ordinary people whom Jesus came to save!
Love and blessings
Steve
Thanks for this reply and for taking the time to engage, in spite of a busy schedule! You make a number of valuable points in your post. I appreciate you bringing up the “back-story” of the Eucharist in its Old Testament roots. Very important to remember.
Here is an analogy (you can tell me whether it’s helpful or not): Is a toilet simple? Well, yes, if all you want to do is use it! As you say, if it were complicated, it would be “beyond ordinary people” for whom it is made! But if it breaks, or if a new one is needed, suddenly you discover the complexities under the hood which are not ‘invented’ by toilet repair handymen, but which are part of real life and are the reason we have toilet repair handymen!
As you rightly noted the “complexity” of the Eucharist is, for sacramentalists, just like the “complexity” of the Trinity, of predestination/freewill, justification, the problem of evil, and many other doctrines. It is out there in real life, but not every ordinary believer is expected to understand it. In fact, quite the opposite of prioritising theological learning. It actually makes intellect less important. As C.S. Lewis said, “Here the prig, the don, the modern , in me have no privilege over the savage or the child. Here is big medicine and strong magic … the command, after all, was Take, eat: not Take, understand.”
We must remember that the vast majority of “ordinary believers” today and throughout history have been sacramentalists (if you count together Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Calvinists and Lutherans). I suppose it’s possible that they were led astray by the complexifying inventions of ivory tower academics. But it’s never seemed to bother them or do them any harm. It seems to me that the real divide is not between “complexifying theologians” and “simple people” but between those who have a mystical view of matter, and those who think matter is crystal clear to the scientific eye.
You suggest that the early church transferred the mystery of the Trinity into everything, whereas Jesus did not, because Jesus had a simpler view of everything. It’s a coherent position and cannot be disproven as such. But it does lead you to take a higher view of your own understanding of Jesus than the early Church’s understanding, which strikes me as a risky wager. It opens the possibility that the early Church overcomplicated other things that for Jesus were much simpler. It gives each individual Christian license to place their own “simpler” understanding of Jesus above traditional “complex” understandings, be it on the Trinity, gay marriage, the authority of Scripture, the place of the Old Testament, etc. Then what is “simple” becomes shorthand for “what I, from my cultural perspective, can more quickly make sense of without challenging my existing worldview.” Can you think of a way of avoiding this slippery slope, while maintaining that the entire Christian tradition before Zwingli was wrong about the Eucharist? If so then I would be very keen to hear it.
Thanks for this interchange! I am learning a lot through it 🙂
Thoroughly enjoyed this recounting of your experience, which I would love to do one day, as well as your stimulating dialogue with Steve. I hope he can maybe continue at some point.
I am reduced to left hand typing, so short!
I like sacraments. There is depth and history there to support flailing souls and communities, sometimes expressing our deeper aches and desires in new ways. Most importantly, they join us together. I am especially discovering prayer in this sense at the moment, even solitary.