The Rule of ’62

It becomes more readily apparent the longer I travel as an Anglican on the Christian Way, that we are indebted (or should be) to our ancestors. I hold no illusions about our Anglican forbears or even the Church Fathers being infallible, but they were wise. As we find ourselves traveling in times of uncertainties, illusions, and false paths that will lead us astray from the depths of the loving gaze of Jesus Christ our Savior and our Lord, it is critical to beat the bounds of our formularies and rediscover the ancient landmarks which fence out irreligion and protect the flock.

Yet in this confusing age where the zeitgeist would see fit to dismantle whole churches either through mimicking the world or downplaying doctrine for the sake of false unity, we Anglicans should find comfort in the old ways – not because they are old – but because they are immune to the whims of a Christless culture and self-serving society. It is a blessing that orthodox Anglicans in the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans, the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (better known as GAFCON), and the Anglican Church in North America, each ascribe an allegiance and authority to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

The Covenantal Structure of the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans holds the following:

a) the doctrine of their Churches is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer (1662), and The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, annexed to The Book of Common Prayer, and commonly known as the Ordinal;^[1]

Likewise, the founding document of GAFCON states:

6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.^[2]

Finally, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) concurs in Article I, Section 6, the following:

6. We receive The Book of Common Prayer as set forth by the Church of England in 1662, together with the Ordinal attached to the same, as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline, and, with the Books which preceded it, as the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship.^[3]

Notably, the ACNA also assents to the Jerusalem Declaration in the Preface to its Constitution, stating, “We affirm the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) Statement and Jerusalem Declaration issued 29 June 2008.” Id. The Jerusalem Declaration is also invoked as authoritative in support of ACNA Title II, Canon 8, “Of Standards of Sexual Morality and Ethics.” See Id. at p. 18, (“In view of the teaching of Holy Scripture, the Lambeth Conference of 1998 and the Jerusalem Declaration …”). This profession of the Jerusalem Declaration’s authority is further evidenced by the ACNA publishing it along with the Fundamental Declarations found in the ACNA Consitution in the 2019 ACNA Book of Common Prayer, under the section “Documentary Foundations.”

Therefore, when the 1662 speaks, we should listen. Perhaps one of the most often overlooked resources of 1662 is her rubrics. The word rubric, hearkens back to a tool used to measure, a rule. Despite post-modern man’s attempt to redefine language and reduce it to babble, even Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary provides the following guidance by defining “rubric” as “an authoritative rule,” “the title of a statute,” “an established rule, tradition, or custom,” etc. Each is fitting, particularly “an authoritative rule” for we Anglicans are (or should be) living under the rule of life the prayer book prescribes for us “miserable sinners.”^[4] Since we live under the rule of the prayer book life and what we pray forms what we believe, the rubrics are as important in explaining why we pray as we do and what we believe when we are praying. Hence, the authority of the 1662 should compel us to seek her wisdom, her counsel, and her discipleship as we learn at the feet of saints who have finished the race, who in turn followed the teaching of the Apostles, and who sat at the feet of the Master, our Lord Jesus.

Read the rest at The North American Anglican.

To Save Us All From Satan’s Power

Dismay is a condition we are prone to dwell in during these dark and evil days. The world and its uncertainty would be the “usual culpret,” but more often than not, the source of our dismay is from inside the Church. It seems that entire church bodies from the Church of England, Roman Catholics, (Dis)United Methodists, and everyone else in between are tearing themselves apart over matters quite clear from the plain letter of Sacred Scriptures.

Yet those same Sacred Scriptures speak of “tidings of comfort and joy,” specifically the angelic greeting surprising the shepherds one cold Bethlehem night, heralding, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” Those words alone should give us much to rejoice, despite those within the Church who wish to shackle believers to the zeitgeist of the world. The angelic proclamation comes from our Creator and the news is good. 

The news did not have to be good, for we are justly condemned.

And yet the news heard by Angels from on high is good. Good news, in other words, the Gospel, that truly turns our sadness into great joy – a joy not limited to the Jewish people but is “for all people” because the Jewish Messiah is the Savior of the world. God has entered into the world, or as C.S. Lewis once put it, the playwright has entered on stage. His entrance is not grand, but is as though He walked into the middle of a scene change and suddenly, there He is.

Why has the Lord God become one of His creatures?

To save us all from Satan’s power, when we had gone astray.

Read the rest at The North American Anglican.

Forced into the Habit – A Call for Anglicans in Prison Ministry, Part II

Imagine for a moment, a parish behind bars. It is not too crazy I assure you, because Chaplain David Noles (God rest his soul) was ahead of the curve when he planted Church of the Broken Chalice at Red Eagle Community Work Center in Montgomery, Alabama. Fr. Noles, who simply preferred to go by “Chap” was an inspiration to all who met and knew him. He shepherded not only those at Red Eagle but also served as a chaplain for Faulkner University Athletics. We need more like him and as I was reflecting upon my friendship with him, I felt compelled to write the following.

Let us begin with an often-overlooked but powerful prayer in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, is found on page 46:

O GOD, who sparest when we deserve punishment, and in thy wrath rememberest mercy; We humbly beseech thee, of thy goodness, to comfort and succour all prisoners, especially those who are condemmend to die. Give them a right understanding of themselves, and of thy promises; that, trusting wholly in thy mercy, they may not place their confidence anywhere but in thee. Relieve the distressed, protect the innocent, awaken the guilty; and forasmuch as thou alone bringest light out of darkness, and good out of evil, grant to these thy servants, that by the power of thy Holy Spirit they may be set free from the chains of sin, and may be brought to newness of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Book of Common Prayer, Prayers and Thanksgivings, For Prisoners.

This prayer applies to all of us prisoners enslaved to sin. Each of us needs to be aware of our guilt and reminded we stand guilty before the holy God, in need of clothing in Christ’s righteousness. During the remaining moments of Advent let us pursue Christ and His sanctification through good works as we enter Christmastide. Such good works include bringing the Light of the world into the dark places, including jails and prisons. May we all be delivered free by the Holy Ghost from our chains of sin and walk confidently in the Spirit in the newness of life provided by Life Himself, Jesus Christ.

The American prayer book tradition has a mixed history of changing the 1662 tradition – both good and bad – but one innovation in the 1796 edition was the inclusion of The Visitation of Prisoners. The prayer For Prisoners from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer is a shortening of an entire office formerly included in the American prayer books. The Visitation of Prisoners is not a perfect office by any stretch of the imagination but was retained and edited in the 1892 Book of Common Prayer before being omitted as a formal office and reduced to this single prayer beginning in the 1928 edition. However, this office demonstrated a care for the incarcerated and a certain expectation that the parish cared for the prisoner and the parson was expected to visit those in prison as envisioned in Matthew 25.

‘I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, … ‘And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Matthew 25:36-40, ESV

We live in interesting times. The cost of mass-producing Scripture has made it inexpensive and more easily accessible in print or online moreso than ever before in the history of the Church. Yet the over-saturation of Scripture’s availability has not created more disciples. Instead, ironically and tragically, the Church is perhaps the least disciplined and catechized since the dawn of the Reformation.

Read the rest at The North American Anglican.

FREEDOM BEHIND BARS – A CALL FOR ANGLICANS IN PRISON MINISTRY, PART I

Why care for the prisoner? It’s a question I’ve been asked more than once by a critical inquisitor. Reflecting upon the question recently placed this small piece upon my heart and I felt compelled to share not merely my answer to the question, but the call I feel traditional Anglicans have sadly neglected far too often.

Why do I care for the prisoner? Because “if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” Galatians 6:3 (ESV). As we traditional Anglicans confess each morning and evening, “O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.” Before I start to think I’m anything more than a redeemed captive, I need the reminder that I too am locked in bondage and require freedom from the only One who can break my chains.

The daily office’s confession provides much clarity as to who I am and who I am not. I am not innocent, you are not innocent, and the prisoner is not innocent when it comes to neglecting God and hating our neighbor. “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:22-23, ESV). The Law condemns us, one and all. We are each horrific offenders of the Lord’s commandments – and believe me, before you say to yourself “But at least I haven’t murdered or swindled someone out of their money like they have,” examine yourself. Such thinking smacks of the Pharisee who looks to heaven and side-eyes the tax collector in the temple behind him while saying “Thank you God I’m not a sinner, like him.” We are professionals when it comes to overlooking one’s own sin while obsessing over another person’s sin.

Far too often, we are not beating our chests and looking down at the ground while crying out kyrie eleison. Instead, when we reflect on our spiritual state in comparison to our fellow man, we pat ourselves on the back and dwell on the sweet-sounding poetry of the Lord’s Beatitudes. Allow me to share a word of caution, return to the Scriptures, and take a gander at how the Son of God expounds upon the true depth expounding and expanding upon the law in His Sermon on the Mount. We all love the Beatitudes but we ought to wince in pain when we hear that simply calling our brother “fool” endangers us to hellfire. The bar is low in our Lord’s eyes as to what constitutes murder – and I assure you I have called people far worse than “fool.” Do not get lost in the poetry of the Beatitudes and bypass the harsh realities revealed in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. We require His righteousness and do not merit any blessing apart from His grace.

As the saying goes, “But for the grace of God, there go I”; and precisely because of the grace of God, I there go – to the prisons, to the parishes, and to fellow priests, advocating for greater ministries to the incarcerated and the families impacted.

Read the rest at The North American Anglican

Stirring for Advent

The leaves have fallen and the air is finally crisp amidst the defiant, evergreen, Alabama pines. Advent is in the air. The chill as I walk through my neighborhood is a warm greeting within my soul. Walking the pavement of my street is a sort of beating of the bounds. My eyes assess the homes around my own and I notice brightness permeating my once dark walks.

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS.

Throughout the town and neighboring cities where my parish resides, I have noticed something. With each passing year since Covidtide, lights are put up earlier and earlier and by more homes than ever before. I genuinely wonder whether this is a local phenomenon or representative of a trend across our nation. The lights go up before Thanksgiving and now immediately after Halloween, often on All Saints, which is an unknown feast to many Christians and nonbelievers alike.

However, I write not as a grouchy proponent of saving Christmas lights for post-Advent, but as an observer who cannot help but wonder if those who do not follow Christ are setting man-made lights upon their homes because deep inside, they know the world is retelling a lie from hell that the only thing in this life is matter. Perhaps even the most secular materialist cannot help but yearn for the spiritual realm to permeate and penetrate the darkness of old man winter. Could it be that even in the cold hearts of faithless men the Spirit is moving them to deny the cold reality of a materialism-only Christmas, which is really no Christmas at all? Despite ourselves, has post-modernity burned itself out so all that remains is the spark of light hanging upon outdoor shrubbery, begging for meaning?

The brightness of neighborhoods in my community despite the emptiness in the pews tells me that even the unchurched, formerly churched, and self-righteous materialist rejects their own culture of “always winter and never Christmas.”

Read the rest at The North American Anglican.

The Daily Grind

The alarm blares as I slide off the bed and somehow make it into the shower – nearly blind without my glasses and halfway sleeping-walking with my eyes closed as I turn the shower on. My routine begins. It mirrors the daily lives of so many Anglicans across North America and beyond. Before anything gets accomplished, the coffee is brewing and hits my lips. Now I can concentrate. Now I can pray.

Unlike my lay brothers and sisters however, I am bound by the spirit of the 1662 rubrics to begin the daily offices. Although bound by law, I must remind myself that the daily offices are not a burden to my soul, but are unmerited grace prodding me to bow before my Maker, confess my sins, and be reminded of His most excellent Son’s sacrifice atoning for my miserable offending with my darkened heart and disordered passions.

Morning prayer begins. The grace of hearing the Word of God passes through my lips and returns to me through my ears.

The Lord is present.

He always is. He is never far from us. I finish my first of many cups of coffee (black and unadulterated, the way the Lord made it) and head towards my basement to my office nook. The blue light of my computer fires up and I start the day reviewing contracts, answering questions and concerns about compliance, and counseling others on how to handle situations with legal implications. I am a minister to God’s Word, God’s sacraments, and an attorney at law.

My vocation, like everyone’s vocation, is multifaceted. I do not necessarily have two vocations, but like a diamond, all Christians are multifaceted and reflect and refract several vocations at once. After all, I am a father, a husband, a minister, an attorney, a citizen of my locality, a volunteer, a writer. But underlying (and Lord willing) permeating through each of these facets is the diamond that gleams – Christ Jesus – who has bought us from slavery into adopted sons of God Almighty.

Read the rest at The North American Anglican.

You Visited Me: Prison Chaplaincy in the ACNA

“I was in prison, and you visited me.”

Those are the words of Jesus to His disciples, to His body, to us, the Church, in Matthew 25:36.

These are words that Father Julio Valenzuela takes to heart as a prison chaplain at a federal correctional facility in New Mexico. The days are long as a prison chaplain. The correctional facility needs more chaplains as they are short-staffed. Therefore, Fr. Julio often works seven days a week to cover another chaplain’s absence or vacation. The hours are also long and irregular, with a need to have a chaplain on duty 24/7. This means there are many nights when he is away from his family and ministering to the prisoners in his care.

Read the rest and the spiritual warfare Chaplain Julio faces daily at Anglican Compass.

And the Truth Shall Set You Free

A book review of Neil Shenvni’s, Why Believe?, published at TNAA.

My Banned Amazon Review – Clarity in Confusing Times

Edit: I found out this morning that my review was removed by Amazon for violating their “Community Guidelines” without further explanation nor a process for appeal. Read the “gritty” review below at your own risk:

Dr. Trueman’s Strange New World is well worth the low price of admission for its final chapter alone. Chapter 9, appropriately entitled, “Strangers in This Strange World,” addresses how the Church – the gathering of the faithful – must take the first step in addressing the topsy-turvy world we live in. He encourages the Church to refrain from pessimism or optimism and instead endeavor on a realistic mission within our neighborhoods and communities living as an alternative to contemporary Western culture.

Lest you are tempted to merely skim the final chapter, the entire book is phenomenal in distilling exactly what has happened in the last several hundred years that led to such an accelerated change in Western culture in a few decades. Trueman successfully explains to laity and scholars alike why culture has shifted and changed so dramatically and reminds the Church that is it part of abdicated our role as living witnesses of Christ that is to blame.

Rather than ending his work in an opportunity to lambast the Church, Trueman guides us back to the ancient church of the first two centuries. He provides us with a few examples from the age of the apostolic fathers to remind Protestants and Roman Catholics alike, that we have much to learn from the Church surviving and thriving in a pagan world. Much more, he would say (and I agree), than navel-gazing and wishing it were the age of the Magisterial Reformation or High Middle Ages.

I highly recommend and thoroughly enjoyed Trueman’s work. It will lead me to tackle his more complete (and much larger) work, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.

Disclaimer: Crossway provided a complimentary copy for my review. This review was not in exchange for a favorable review.

From Kigali to the Home – Moving Forward from GAFCON IV

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!

The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

The Paschal acclamation should ring along with the bells of Easter during this Eastertide. We have further news to celebrate as GAFCON IV ends with the Kigali Commitment – a statement issued by one of the largest (if not the largest) gatherings of Anglicans from across the globe. The commitment is clear and succinct: Anglicans must be disciples of Jesus Christ and we find His teachings and are bound by His Spirit-inspired Word – the Holy Scriptures.

But now the work begins.

The response from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s office demonstrates precisely why we are called to unite under the Word of God. The last sentence from Canterbury’s statement is clear. Clear as mud: “it is also how the world will know that Jesus Christ is sent from the Father who calls us to love one another, even as we disagree.”

The Scriptures wisely remind us, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” and our own Lord notes “And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” No sir, “we ought to obey God rather than men.” Should the Archbishop of Canterbury desire true unity, it must be a unity based upon “one body and one Spirit […] one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” and not a false unity ignoring faithfully following the Word of God. As the Kigali Commitment puts it, “The Bible is God’s Word written, breathed out by God as it was written by his faithful messengers (2 Timothy 3:16). It carries God’s own authority, is its own interpreter, and it does not need to be supplemented, nor can it ever be overturned by human wisdom.” The unity that our Lord Jesus invites us into involves faithfully walking in His Word, which will always separate us from the world. As our Lord Jesus prayed in John 17:14, “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”

Read the rest at The North American Anglican.