Anglican Heritage Part 1

[0:00] Thank you, Bill. It's very harsh of you, Bill, to know that you feel safe with me.

[0:18] Wish I could return the compliment. You do have good ideas, Bill, and set an excellent example on many matters, including the importance of removing unnecessary clothes before you begin waving your arms.

[0:50] And this is a good room, I think. It feels full. It is pretty full.

[1:03] And it reminds me of room 100. Back in the building, you have to locate even to having sunshine and coming in at the windows along the side of the room.

[1:16] Yes, the familiar feeling is quite strong. But we really are elsewhere. And it seems to me that it might be appropriate and helpful if at the beginning of our time as guests of the Abbasid, we cast our minds back to our Anglican identity and reviewed some of that.

[1:53] This, of course, is what we bring with us. And it would be a shame, I think, if any part of it got lost in the book.

[2:04] So, I propose to talk about our Anglican heritage. In the program, I see that I'm going to talk about Anglican heritage.

[2:22] The word our isn't in my own title. But in fact, it's in my mind and my heart. And I shall be talking all through as one who, with you, something, inherits something very precious and something that we must take care, not to lose or to have water down.

[2:55] That, then, is my angle of approach to my announced subject. I was originally going to give this talk under the title The Anglican Tradition.

[3:09] But I changed the word tradition into heritage at a fairly early stage because the word heritage says so much more.

[3:21] A tradition, after all, is an established pattern of behaviour that is just there. But heritage is a personal reality.

[3:35] It is something that is of value and has been left to you and to me for us to use.

[3:47] And that's, as I said, my angle. I rather labour the point here at the beginning because I don't want you to miss this, friend.

[4:00] I am talking about the Anglican heritage as one who sees himself as very much a trustee of it, very much a product of it, actually.

[4:16] The world knows me as an evangelical theologian and so, indeed, I hope I am. But within that, I would like to think that the world also and equally knows me as an Anglican theologian who values the heritage that has been bequeathed to him and is resolved, among the other resolutions that guide my life, who is resolved, as I say, to maintain the heritage and get the full benefit from it, indeed, more than that, to relay to others the full benefit of it because I believe it's a heritage that will do us all a great deal of good.

[5:09] So, I have a talk here which is divided into three parts. I'm heading for the first part, Anglicanism described.

[5:26] This is introductory. Heading for the second part, Anglicanism directed. This is a study of the goals that the Anglican heritage seeks to achieve.

[5:46] And heading for the third part, Anglicanism defected. And here I review the bits and pieces of the heritage which, when put together, make up its richness and its wealth.

[6:00] Here we go then. Heading number one, Anglicanism described. Anglicanism observed from the outside, if it were.

[6:16] Anglicanism focused, as one would focus it for any observer who asks the simple question from outside, well now, what's this Anglicanism of yours all about?

[6:33] And my one-sentence answer to that question is, well, Anglicanism is the present-day global form, worldwide form, of the Christianity of the Church of England.

[6:53] So that's how it all began. I am a great believer in the importance of knowing the origin of things. And the origin of Anglicanism was the Church of God in England, the Church of England, as it's always been called.

[7:14] The Church has been there in England from the second century, as a matter of fact. The momentous event in the course of Anglican history was, as we all know, I'm sure, the Reformation of the 16th century, when the Church was given a facelift, everything was overhauled, and the Constitution of Anglicanism that resulted was very decidedly Gospel-centred, conversion-centred, and the Church.

[8:01] What more need I say? Reformational is the word that I was going to use and will use, because it wasn't only the Church of England that put its house in order in the 16th century.

[8:19] Churches all over Germany did the same, and they, in due course, became the worldwide Lutheran denomination. I think I'm right in saying that Anglicanism and Lutheranism are the two largest Protestant denominations worldwide, both of them with something like 80 million adherents.

[8:45] but, as I say, our focus today is the Anglican mutation that took place in the 16th century, and the shape of Anglicanism since has been determined basically by what happened in the 16th century.

[9:12] Geographically, of course, Anglicanism has spread from England around the world, as I've been implying already. The whole English-speaking world has its Anglican province nowadays.

[9:30] Wherever English is the first or second language in a community, there you will find a form of Anglicanism.

[9:40] But again, I'm not going to be betrayed, very betrayed, into an elaborate geographical description of all the various aspects of Anglicanism in these different parts of the world.

[10:01] I was nurtured, after all, in England, in the Church of England, and here in Canada, well, I was in the Anglican Church of Canada until I was thrown out, as you know.

[10:18] and this is the form of the tradition that I know best, rather than, say, a central African version of Anglicanism, or an Asian version of Anglicanism, both of which, of course, exist, and are very lively and healthy at this present time.

[10:46] But now, I stand back, I'm describing Anglicanism, remember, at least I'm attempting to, and I affirm, as my next point, everywhere that Anglicanism has gone, there have been two central focal points in the reality that has resulted.

[11:22] Focal point number one is congregation. There are many, many Anglican congregations, but everywhere in the Anglican world, the goal of spiritual life, Christian life, for the congregation is a goal that is constant.

[11:48] And then, the second focal point of interest is the communion, that is to say, the way in which all around the world, Anglicans relate to each other.

[12:03] At all realms, Anglican travelers attending Anglican churches in countries where they're strangers, Anglican provinces relating to each other through their bishops, Anglican provinces as a group relating to the Archbishop of Canterbury, their constant concern in the Anglican world about how different Anglicans in different parts of the world, different congregations in different parts of the world should relate to each other.

[12:47] Well, alright, the bottom line of all this is that all around the world, Anglicanism seeks to be a family fellowship.

[13:00] And there are certain features of family life which, in occasion at any rate, don't change. Thus, faith in the Trinity, faith that is, that the three persons of whom the New Testament constantly seeks, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they are as truly one, one God, as they are free.

[13:34] Trinity is, in terms of grammar, and ordinary speech, an anomaly, and inevitably will be an anomaly until the Lord comes back, because they are he, and he is they.

[13:54] And the New Testament speaks both ways, speaks of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in relation to each other, in the work that, as a freedom, they are doing in this world for the redemption of individuals and the building up of the Church, and yet, they are one and referred to, as is the faithful through the Old Testament, as quite simply God.

[14:24] Well, if the three are one and the one is three, you can't avoid that, and the Bible doesn't avoid that. The Bible gives us both ways of speaking, and Anglicans, like other Christians at this point, have picked up those ways of speaking, and it's part of our vocabulary and usage and way of thinking about God.

[14:54] The Trinity, however, is maintained by all Anglicans, as is the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, and the atoning death, and resurrection, and ascension, and enthronement, and future return of that person, Jesus Christ is the mediator.

[15:23] Yes, that's how Scripture puts it, and that's how Anglicans receive it. And so, Anglican Christianity focuses constantly on the Lord Jesus, the mediator, the saviour, the master, and that's something which Anglicanism all around the world maintains.

[15:48] And then, certainly, Anglicanism all around the world is officially committed to the authority of the Scriptures. the Bible, the canonical Bible, they call it, if you like, the Protestant Bible, that is, the authentic Bible, without improper editions.

[16:14] The 66 books of the authentic canon, they are received by all Anglicans and treated as the authoritative word of God.

[16:29] That, at least, is the theory. And if, in particular places, it doesn't happen, well, then, it is Anglican to say, these folks are eccentric, defective, inadequately focused Anglicans.

[16:52] We mustn't follow their bad example. We must think rather to correct their thinking so that they'll handle the Bible, or let the Bible handle them, as should be.

[17:07] Well, as I said, the Anglican Communion and each Anglican congregation, they have these same basic qualities, at least by profession, they do, and so, Anglicanism is a world become, Anglicanism is a worldwide big, a world feel, I'm trying to say two things together, Anglicanism feels like, and indeed is a worldwide family fellowship.

[17:49] And it is just a fact that Anglicans, who have internalized their heritage, do feel a bit different from other Protestant and evangelical communities, simply because there are elements in the Anglican heritage, which the others don't have.

[18:15] And I'll jump ahead for the moment and say, these elements are all of them brought together in the prayer book, of which all Anglican provinces, communities, have a version, doesn't always a version closely matching other people's version, but at least all Anglican provinces, all Anglican communities, do have a prayer book.

[18:44] Anglicans, who have learned to value and use a prayer book, not only for public worship, but for personal devotional use, do find themselves feeling just a little bit different from those who don't have a prayer book, and who therefore work their life of fellowship with God in a slightly different way.

[19:18] There are, of course, and historically there regularly have been, cultural differences between one part of the world and another, and one period in history and another, and these have marked the indigenous Anglicanism in these different places at different times.

[19:48] And, let's be honest with ourselves, we all of us, to some extent, are products of the overall culture in which we were brought up and of which we are a part today.

[20:05] It's a West Coast Canadian culture. And the culture of our time and our place operates in the way that glasses operate on the nose.

[20:23] That is to say, they focus your vision and if, in fact, there is something distinctive about the glasses, like, say, tinted lenses, well, everything that you see will be tinted, and in the Anglican world there is an element of different tints of Anglicanism resulting from the fact that each Anglican thinking and speaking group is already wearing glasses that are tinted in one particular way.

[21:03] But this only makes a difference at surface levels. The central realities, say it again, trinity, mediation of Jesus Christ, authority of Scripture, these things transcend cultural variations, as does the response to them that is distinctively Anglican, I should have mentioned this a moment ago, the face of the trinity and the incarnation and the authority of Scripture calls for acknowledgement of sin, recognition of grace, exercise of faith in Jesus

[22:03] Christ and exercise of repentance as a life pattern God-oven. we are all of us scarred by sin and the scars come out in finest clear, a measure of expression in all that we are and all that we do.

[22:29] The salvation that Christianity proclaims seeks seeks to take us into a new life from which progressively the scars are removed and a pattern of smoothness and soreness replaces them.

[22:59] I don't know whether that comes across as what it meant today namely an illustration of the fact that Jesus Christ the mediator is also our model this is God's plan that we who are sin-scarred as it says should be recreated as persons in the moral and spiritual image of our Lord Jesus and this is the process of what is called sanctification which is matched by the lifelong practice of repentance repentance is a matter of saying no to behaviour patterns and allurements and behaviour patterns and allurements that are not

[24:09] Christ-like but rather express the spirit of independence and so defiance toward God I will be God to myself that was the basic lapse in the garden of Eden and that is the basic lapse in all our natural lives and that is the lapse which the grace of God in Christ and the pattern of Christian devotion to Christ and the pattern of life energised by the spirit of Christ is seeking to transform into quite simply Christ-likeness and antichrist and antichrist and antichrist and antichrist officially professedly in the prayer book and in life has always thought to be strong on sanctification and repentance now granted very close to us as we sit in this room this morning is the

[25:30] Diocese of New Westminster which is grievously astray on certain questions of sanctification and repentance and if you look a bit further turns out to be grievously astray on aspects of the mediation of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit also and we who have had to look at these things and take note of them have probably got fixed in our minds the thought that apart from conservative evangelical anglicans like ourselves the anglican world has flipped from its murals but do understand friends the diagnosis of new westminster is not typical of the rest of the anglican world if you want to generalize about the anglican world well get your figures straight in britain plus canada plus the states plus australasia australia new zealand if you put together the number of anglicans who will be found in church on the lord's day you get a figure of something like five living granted the lead in theology in all those parts of the anglican world is in the hands of liberals and there's a bashful of liberalism going on everywhere in that older english-speaking world

[27:42] I call it the old west but if you look at central africa and then asia you will find that in church on the lord's day are something like between 40 and 50 million worshippers you will find that diocese after diocese from top to bottom is committed to the kind of anglicanism that we seek to represent on the land seeking to talk about in other words the liberal element in anglicanism is at best a 10% affair and faithful evangelical anglicanism is a 90% affair relations between different parts of the anglican world at the present time reflect something of potential that arise here because you see let me be frank let me be realistic it's in the old west that you got the money and it's in the old west that you've got the academic experts you can be an academic expert on christianity on many aspects of christianity without being a mainstream anglican believer and there are many many such people operating in universities and theological colleges in the old west but if you go by the numbers well it's 90% to 10% as I told you so as I think we are entitled to say we have a better case for claiming to the authentic

[30:02] Anglicans than certain other people have even if they have the money and the influence and the academic expertise what do you call it the academic expertise that's Anglicanism described now move on with me to Anglicanism directed what are the goals the ideals the aims the purposes of Anglicanism as I have described it what is it in other words that Anglicanism in the 90% of the ancient world that I spoke about speaks to be my answer can be given by the use of five words like this

[31:05] Anglicanism seeks always first to be biblical I said that before so I don't need to spend much more time over it right now the biblical focus of Anglicanism in its approach to worship work and witness three main streams of the ongoing life of the church and of every healthy Christian is at least professedly and is for 90% of the church happily shaped by scripture that's true of corporate Anglican life that's true of personal Anglican life and those who take scripture furiously know that the focus of

[32:14] Christian living according to the Lord Jesus himself is twofold there is a great permission namely to spread the gospel through the world and there is a great commandment namely to practice love to everyone everywhere and a life shaped by the great tradition and the great commandment is the Anglican ideal we can bring in other words here to flesh out the idea biblical Anglicanism will be theocentric that is to say God centred and the glory of God will be the over mastering purpose of the

[33:17] Anglicans individually and corporately everywhere and then there is the word doxological you know that word it is the word that means as a description that whatever it is that you are doing thinking saying is all for the glory of God and glory I am sure you have spotted is a word that in scripture has a double meaning although the two meanings are very closely connected actually in the sermon at the 730 communion this morning it was said that the glory of God in scripture this is the first of the two meanings means God on display God showing himself showing himself as praiseworthy showing himself in a way that should evoke adoration and thanksgiving and celebration and joy and then second meaning of the word derived from the first is that it signifies praise to God for his praiseworthiness praise adoration appreciation so well of course you've got in the communion service you have got these two meanings side by side holy holy holy

[35:04] Lord God of hosts the whole earth is full of your glory that's the first meaning of the word and you know you have that in the communion service and then we give God glory we praise you we glorify you for your great glory there you've got the two words used side by side well biblical Anglicanism focuses on God in this way just because the Bible does first to last Genesis to Revelation the Bible is God's word of self revelation and it is in book after book God revealing his glory to us his praiseworthiness so that adoration should be our first response for everything that we see of

[36:14] God in the pages of Holy Scripture the second word that I want to highlight here is orthodox truth one thing that scripture makes very clear is that God's self revelation is truth and to be received as truth and honored as truth and that those to whom it comes are trustees for this truth put in charge of it to hold it fast to maintain it to spread it and to defend it against being falsified by any form of human error and so Anglicanism like other brands of Christianity has creeds and it has a domestic creed not only does

[37:16] Anglicanism use the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed in services but we have a domestic creed we can call it that a confession of faith if you like in the 39 articles in the 16th century cross currents of theological confusion were flowing up plenty and so the churches that were seeking to put their house in order scripturally found that they needed to formulate statements of what they themselves believed so confessions of faith came to be written and the Church of England had just such a confession in the 39 articles and the quest here is for soundness healthiness in the

[38:23] New Testament whenever you read the word sound and in some of the modern translations healthy well you're being confronted with the thought that just as physical health is maintained by good food and is certainly harmed by bad food and doubly so when the bad food is rotten and poisonous well so it is with the notions that are fed into our minds truth makes for spiritual health falsehood does the reverse well orthodoxy is the word that the Christian community has used for for the quality of the leaf which matches what the

[39:28] Bible tells us as from God about God his ways and his works and his glory is the word catholic that word down the centuries has come to mean two things which are complementary to each other and indeed are two aspects really of the same blessing catholic means first and foremost comprehensive in the sense of embracing all Christians throughout the world that word catholic comes from the Greek phrase which means worldwide so it is the Anglican way to open its arms to everyone who shares what we recognize as the faith that we share and then secondly connected with that the distinct from it there's the thought that

[40:47] Anglicanism speaks to the mainstream in the flow and sometimes the cross current of world Christianity some parts of which are not flowing in the mainstream and indeed are marked by a good deal of mud and one has to say girt Anglicanism speaks to the mainstream think in terms of the Fraser River or better still the Mississippi River the mainstream is out in the middle and it flows steadily by the banks there are reeds growing and shallows and often a great deal of mud that illustrates what I'm talking about the water over the mud the water in the reed beds and so forth is pretty stagnant it doesn't move it doesn't go anywhere it isn't much of water well part of the goal of being catholic in our church life is the goal of being out in the mainstream flowing with the main flow of

[42:33] Christianity and keeping clear of what shall I call them the corruptions out of the mainstream along the banks so Anglicanism directionally seeks to be biblical and orthodox and catholic and with that forcefully to be evangelical I used that phrase right at the beginning of the talk I didn't define it but I'll define it now as I'm sure you know the word evangelical comes from the Greek evangelion which means the gospel the good news and evangelical Christianity is quite simply Christianity as shaped and kept in order by the good news the good news of salvation from sin through Jesus

[43:33] Christ the good news of acceptance whereas previously we were alienated from God and he from us the good news of freedom whereas previously we were the slaves of sin in our spiritual system now our hearts have been changed by the Holy Spirit in such a way that that no longer is the case sin doesn't have dominion over sin still marauds shall I say in our moral and spiritual system seeking to lead us back into the path of self-deifying self-centeredness independence of God defiance of God sin as I spoke to you of sin a moment ago but we're free from that and we are able in the power of God's

[44:42] Holy Spirit to fight the inner urges to lapse back into that kind of behavior which are still there but which no longer rule us as once they did last Sunday morning I remember preaching I was talking about conversion as the initial fruit of the calling of God is the approach to and work in needy souls sinful souls like ours and I quoted a verse from early 20th century British poem by a man named John Nacefield which says it all I think very beautifully I'm going to quote that same verse to you now this is the testimony of a man who has just been converted

[45:46] I did not speak I did not strive the deep peace burned my me alive that's a tremendous line memorize it first the deep peace burned my me alive I don't know any form of words that says more and more clearly in so little space I did not speak I did not strive the deep peace burned my me alive the bolted door had broken in that's the door bolted in reverse against the approach of God the bolted door had broken in I knew that I had done with sin I knew that I I knew I had been brought to birth to brother every soul on earth that's the love of neighbour as I said well when

[46:58] Anglicanism seeks as Anglicanism seeks to be evangelical so it's aiming at a Christian life which fundamentally is like that and goes on being like that all the way so it's the life of acceptance and the life of freedom from the dominion of sin and it's the life of hope Anglicanism historically you'll find this in the prayer book prayers has been very strong on the hope of glory which God has promised to his own children it's not perhaps a 21st century emphasis in the way that it needs to be but it's there in the Anglican heritage there in the Anglican prayer book as something which ought to be which ought to be a big thing a central thing in our mindset

[48:00] I am a hoper a hoper for glory I hope you are a hoper for glory the same and will be happy to say so in public if called on to do so meantime there's a fifth word that I want to use although I've already given you a good deal of the thought that it carries that's the word transformational Anglicanism seeks to be transformational and again the prayers of the prayer book are very clear and very strong on this the gospel requires us to change the gospel empowers us to change Jesus Christ leads us to change the Holy Spirit prompts us to change and as I said earlier it's the Holy Spirit's word to reshape us in the image the moral image of our

[49:09] Lord Jesus Christ so one dimension of the Anglican direction is universal sanctity or universal sanctification radical change that finds us in the image of Satan and brings us to bear the image of Jesus our Lord and then finally Anglicanism defected here what I do is list the part the elements of the Anglican reality let's call it that the elements that together make up the functioning of Anglicanism in terms of its proper direction

[50:10] I'm going to give a second talk a bit later on on our Anglican heritage and then I shall be elaborating what I say now for the moment I simply give you a list of the items and the focus of living Anglican on a daily basis here we are A elements B style C discipline elements there's the Bible we've spoken of that the Bible expanded read thought about there are the creeds the reference points for orthodoxy we use them in set forms of worship to identify ourselves as believers why is this important worship why is simply because there are so many false notions going around of what it means to these

[51:33] Christians we therefore identify ourselves as authentic Christians as part of our honoring of God in worship further there's the Bible and there's the creeds and the liturgy the idea of a set liturgy goes right back to the beginning of Christianity it didn't occur to the pioneers in the first and second and third centuries that worship could be up to standard without a liturgy that is without set forms of words thought out shall I say polished because our shoes are polished so that they'll look their best the liturgy is polished worship and the liturgy is a form of words which embraces and holds before our minds all the things that need to be there orthodoxy and holiness and everything that goes into

[52:59] God honoring worship all of that is verbalized in liturgy for us and it only takes a moment for to realize well yes of course this is common sense forms of words thought out planned are better than improvised verbals if you know that word become question of sincerity of improvised verbals but just a performer on the stage a singer shall I say because we've had a bit of this recently when a singer forgets the lines of the song he or she is singing model model for not well quietly we who have paid our pay for our feet since we're there for the entertainment we get disgusted and in similar terms we may fairly suspect that God gets disgusted when people burble in his presence without thinking in advance what they're going to say don't hear this as if

[54:31] I'm objecting to extemporary prayer as being always second class that's not what I'm saying at all but I am saying that in the regularity of worship a liturgy is the natural rational way of ensuring that all the things we say to God are if I put it this way worth saying and this is the fullness of the point I want to make for God only the best is good in us we'll agree with that well in worship when people are together what do we do we sing hymns well that's liturgy which all is we have set forms of words in which we all join and the words have been hammered out by people with a gift of poetry and there's how can I say it there's a wealth of worship of worship and glory when a congregation sings together and things hymns together which isn't really matched when sometimes in circles that we know well people as they say sing in the spirit and everybody sings whatever happens to come to their mind each moment so that you've got a tremendous unfocused polyphony going on well

[56:26] I don't say more but I do believe that evangelicals often undervalue the literature and overvalue the appropriateness of extemporary prayer I'll say more about that in a more balanced way perhaps when I give my second talk but certainly it's the ancient memory for public worship for congregation or togetherness to use a liturgy and we've got an outstanding liturgy in our prayer book our fourth ingredient in our deflection of Anglicanism pastoral ministry the clergy are there for mutual care and gifts are given throughout the congregation for mutual care this is labour life being practiced and in Anglicanism it's a big thing leadership ministry ministry is also an Anglican ingredient and that's what bishops are for of course in every congregation a clergy amongst the other things that they're called to do should be fulfilling leadership ministry and then

[58:04] Christianizing ministry the further element of the Anglican mix this is a matter of seeking in any and every context in which the church stands to establish the moral order of the moral order which the law of Christ focuses focuses so that the whole community will be permeated as far as possible by divine truth granted that's a ministry that cannot be fulfilled very effectively today because the anti-Christian currents in our culture were so strong we live in a day of secularism we live in a day of post-Christianity we live in a day of materialism when we try to maintain

[59:14] Christian standards in particular debates think for instance about terms of debate on abortion well we get how done and there are many debates debates on many different subjects in which that happens but yes we do try to be a Christianizing influence wherever we are that is part of the Anglican pre-Anglican vocation as we understand it that is one of the ingredients in the Anglican reality and the final one is openness to learn Anglican Anglicanism is a learning version of Christianity and that is why I am so thrilled that here in St.

[60:11] John's we have learners exchange as well as the regular preaching of the word because it does defend and deepen the possibilities of seeing a learning community in Christ well Anglicans are stronger on that than most other evangelicals that is just a fact as for style well all I need to say there is that Anglicans value dignity and reverence in public worship and all that we do at a congregation in the presence of God if you ever wonder why the clergy are required to dress up for services in the curious way that is required of us well the reason is that it is believed that there is more dignity and reverence when we don uniform like a historic uniform

[61:20] Catholic and circus and scarf for leading public worship than when we don't again we can talk about that when we come back to the subject in my second talk and then there is the Anglican discipline this isn't different in its ingredients from the discipline of personal Christianity in other sections of the body of Christ but we have it in a distinctive form because we have the prayer book and the Anglican discipline consists of following on a day-to-day basis the devotional pattern that is suggested by what is sometimes called the prayer book system daily prayer with praise and Bible study and morally a quest for the best in everything that we do and on

[62:31] Sunday coming together for the Lord's Supper for a sermon and for a pattern of prayer that is sometimes described with the mnemonic Acts universe a a is for adoration c is for consecration t is for thanksgiving s is for supplication that is intercession for others in and outside our own circles these are just headings topics that I hope to enlarge on when I speak about our Anglican heritage in a second talk meantime I leave you with a question in as much as this is your heritage as much as it's mine do we appreciate it do we apply it should we perhaps take it more seriously than we do and that question hanging in the air

[63:43] I take my full 16 minutes and thank you for listening now let's move from monologue to dialogue comments questions let's talk could you compare the Jewish prayer book to the Catholic prayer brought to the Anglican prayer book did we inherit things that have been incorporated into the Anglican prayer book yes those things are none the worse for having a prehistory in Jewish synagogue worship where prayers and reading of scripture are the basic ingredients and none the worse either for having been used as forms for congregational prayer and praise in the

[64:45] Roman Catholic community error of course or inadequate Christian doctrine as the Jewish the Jewish prayer book they both call for correction and in the Anglican liturgy I believe appropriate correction has been achieved but yes there's a common genealogy there you're quite right and there isn't anything to say about the worship contrasting with what's there of positive liturgy in Jewish and Catholic forms the most appropriate to say is that the Anglican liturgical forms seek to do it better and in my estimate have succeeded at key points in doing it better that is the daily

[65:57] Bible services which have their background the Jewish synagogue worship or Exodus they include the full gospel trinitarian and Christ centered which Jewish worship forms of course don't and they don't include any of the additions which we Anglicans believe have attached themselves to Roman Catholic worship to Roman to Roman to Roman Catholic talk about the daily office just as a lot of Anglicans do well the office form that Catholics use nowadays is basically reading and reading from scripture prayers and the use of canticles and Old

[67:04] Testament psalms as the basic pre-hymn book music form let's say that so there is a genealogy there but I think that as I say in the pre-book we've got a purged amplified and indeed um outstanding version all this passage your comments about extemporaneous prayer um this is a big debate that goes right back to the beginning of the English Reformation so you told us what the objections would be to having um people make up their own ways of approaching

[68:11] God what was their objection to the prayer book prayers the discussion went on um through the puritan movement which is best to think of as the second generation reformational movement discussion went on through the puritan movement to the end of the 17th century and by the end of the 17th century the objection to a liturgical pattern for worship has boiled down to two objection number one the gift of prayer leading in his sympathy prayer is one of the gifts that God gives to those whom he calls to pastor congregations if therefore we require the pastor to use the liturgical form rather than to lead an extemporary prayer we shall be quenching the holy spirit that's argued in detail by

[69:28] John Bunyan and John Owen the salvation to puritan who wrote whole books and such it and the second objection was that whereas in liturgical form there will be economy things will be expressed in a fairly concentrated way in extemporary prayer things will be elaborated according to the importance which they hold in the thought and the heart and the thinking and the heart of the guy who is leading in prayer the purisms did believe in extended corporate prayer and sometimes they would extend it for as much as half an hour well the argument was that this glorifies

[70:46] God more because it elaborates the things you're concerned to say to God and here I think we have to ask ourselves well do we believe in the value of concentrated utterance as distinct from expansive diffuse utterance people going on and on elaborating essentially the same thing in the 16th century and in the 70s there was a very strong sense that kept breaking surface in British culture that the longer you went on saying something the more valuable your utterance became the more sincerity it had and if it was prayer or the best matter of sermon well the more

[71:56] God was glorified through it so as I say you've got extemporary prayer that would last up to half an hour and nobody complained of the name they celebrated the name this is the gift of prayer they said well I myself see that as a cultural quirk I don't feel the least sympathetic towards the idea that the longer you go on saying something the better you're saying it I think we've just felt beyond that but that was the second element that the exponents of extemporary prayer highlighted and then they said from this second standpoint also you'll be quashing the

[72:58] Holy Spirit if you don't allow it to happen allow time for it to happen and allow freedom in the situation for it to happen people are strange aren't they well these are the same people that said they were holding their congregation spellbound for a three hour sermon you know there was no Sunday football so clearly this is a form of entertainment as well yes I don't think there's any doubt about that just that your bread and butter or your toast and butter are improved by putting marmalade on top on top whatever m da done same d marriage on the one that em to

[74:02] DIY with black marmalade, and yet created it to improve the flavor of what was going on. Good answer. Thank you. Well, um, I'm so sorry.

[74:17] I'm so sorry, yes, yes. Dr. Tuchin, you gave five words at the end of your talk there, writing adoration intercession, and I missed you at the same time. Could you repeat those for me, please?

[74:31] Very well. Oh, thanks for giving him, it was at the end of your talk. Adoration, thanksgiving, celebration. I think celebration was the word that I used.

[74:43] Was there one more I wrote? Five, but I couldn't get wrong. Adoration, it's a great word with you as a thing. Thank you so much, and I enjoyed it so much.

[74:54] Well, thank you for sitting here. Please. Um, thanks. I just thought I'd say, as an illustration of what you previously said about a long-winded and short-winded, um, just another example of that would be the Gettysburg Address.

[75:14] I think the guy that spoke before Lincoln went on for an hour in 2017, and then the guy who's very dressed is, I think, three minutes in length. Yes. Which one do we remember? Well, you're making a very fair point.

[75:25] Very far reaching point. When you remind us of that. No, I say it again. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, um, length was venerated.

[75:41] Thank you. Thank you. There's all the problems of that's in it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[75:52] Thank you, Bill. I think you may now close this to them. Is it possible? Is it possible? There is one. Where is there? Sorry. There's one. I'm glad you got a club interview. I'm glad you got a club interview.

[76:03] I'm glad you got a club interview. I'm glad you got a club interview. I'm glad you got a club interview. I'm glad you got a club interview. Oh, let's see. I grew up in the friendship experience. I'm very excited. And, again, there are lots of pitfalls and there are lots of times when people persepare on, um, remarkably trivial detail.

[76:21] And, like, I think of what a huge value of it is that we learn as children to pray ourselves in our own words. And I wonder how, in the Anglican tradition, where we use set forms of words, that that is taught and that is encouraged.

[76:42] Well, one of the things that the Anglican way is of is parents teaching children to pray.

[76:56] And there aren't detailed instructions about this in the prayer book, but the wisdom of the generations is that you teach the children certainly the Lord's Prayer and the grace that set prayers such as those.

[77:21] that you teach them to talk to the Lord Jesus and to their heavenly Father and to tell them what's in their heart and the way of things they want to say thank you for and the things that they want to ask them please to do.

[77:42] And they want to say those things in their own words. So that you have both the one and the other side by side in the young person's mind right from the start.

[77:55] I think that you have both the other side of the world. So that you have both the two and the other side of the world. Is that a problem? No. I don't think so. I didn't know a Anglican. I didn't know, really. No, well. How he's combined with them. I could have said in relation to every single affirmation I made, of course, we have to acknowledge that not all of us Anglicans do it right.

[78:20] Anglican isn't an ideal. I didn't say that. I've underlined it. An ideal in which one does the best one can in terms of a goal that remains unachieved over and over again.

[78:43] We're after the best and we don't quite achieve the best. But we try and go on trying. Bill, you're being very patient.

[78:56] I think you really do want to. So, this is a time to go over to each other because the third and seventh drafts the Red of the cross.

[79:07] I would like to make a remark that it truly is amazing that with all the checks and balances in the system, I would insist that they can produce an archivist of cancer at least.

[79:21] And a great angle. The two men are so, so opposite that you have to marvel at the grace of God to be able to break through to someone like me.

[79:37] Thank you for that comment, Bill. May I make a responsive comment before you finally close the stone.

[79:50] May I make a mistake. May I make a mistake. May I make a mistake. May I make a mistake. When I lived in England, serving the Church of England as one of its ministers, I thought that the way in which Archbishops of Canterbury, all bishops in England actually are chosen, was very deficient, and one of the things I look at, very deficient, specifically because of the involvement of the political arm of the country, the government, in making the choice.

[80:33] And still, the government is involved in choosing bishops in England. When I knew that God was calling me to Canada, one of the things that was in my heart was the thought, well, no, I'm going to a country where bishops are chosen from within the Church, and we don't have this governmental involvement.

[80:59] And I was looking forward to it. 33 years later, for 40 years, I contemplate, excuse me, the Bishop of New Westminster, and say in my heart, hmm, when the Church is in the condition in which they elect bishops of this caliber, well, now I can see the wisdom in the British.

[81:41] I leave the matter there. I think that I'm as, well, couldn't be, as your own thoughts guide you. Thank you. Thank you.

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