16th Century Replayed

I have just been hauled over the coals by the Catholic lady in my workplace fellowship. You may recall a few posts ago, I discussed her views on praying to saints. Well, apparently she took offence at me because I was too forceful, appeared to be trying to convert her, and kept quoting the Bible when she couldn’t respond in those terms because as she herself says Catholics don’t study the Bible. She also took the opportunity to assert her church’s position about tradition being equal or superior to Scripture, and that they are the oldest church so they are right.

Hmmmm.

I hold my hand up to the accusations of coming on too strong etc. I am passionate about what I believe, and I believe it is right….obviously if I didn’t believe it was right I wouldn’t believe it.

And yes, I do want to ‘convert’ people – if I believe that what I believe is right then obviously I want to convince them that that is so.

But I don’t want to upset people. I don’t want to browbeat them into submission, or leave hem stewing in anger over the Christmas holidays. I want them to hit me back! I want them to tell me why I am wrong, to challenge my assumptions, to show me scriptures I have missed, to show how my tradition is of less value than theirs. I expect them to treat me the way I treat them.

The trouble is, in any sphere of communication, although both people may be speaking English they may still be speaking a different language. In this case, I can quote Scripture at her till I am blue in the face, and she won’t budge an inch. She can quote tradition at me till she is blue in the face, but I only regard it as interesting and informative not authoritative – full of blunders as it is – and I won’t budge an inch.

So I can only pray for the Holy Spirit to illuminate us – to take from tradition what is right and good, and to understand the Scriptures and how they apply to us. To know what is worth mutual excommunication, and to know what is just diversity within the kingdom. For me particularly, in my role as a Licensed Reader and hence a recognised Teacher, to know how to go about that Teaching without being obnoxious about it.

Praying to Saints and Angels

So..

It was my turn to lead the workplace fellowship Bible study. I forgot until it was time to go. So I had a minimum number of minutes to get ready - couldn't even remember where we were up to in the gospel. So I jumped ahead to the story of the Gadarene demoniac, and did some standard questions on that, and in the end the Bible study went reasonably well.

I noticed that the only woman in the group had not said anything, so, by way of drawing her into the topic for inclusiveness I asked her what the perspective is on demons, exorcism etc in her church, which happens to be Roman Catholic. She was glad that I had brought her into the discussion, but was rather caught on the hop, not sure what to say, so she said that they normally pray to the Archangel Michael.

You can imagine that in our predominantly non-conformist evangelical fellowship this was met with a rather stunned pause. I was able to state that other views exist on the topic of praying to angels, and then later on disagreed with the Pentecostal guy so that RC lady wouldn't feel too 'got at'.

But then the next week, she brought along a printed copy of the prayer to Michael, so when while praying for the carol service I prayed against the forces of Darkness, she got out this pre-printed prayer and read it out.

Now in our fellowship prayers are normally net with a whole hearted 'AMEN', so when she had finished it was very obvious that only one person managed a half hearted amen that might have been a cough.

Now personally, I can't say amen to a prayer addressed to anyone other than a member of the trinity. To me the Bible makes it plain that we have access direct to God in prayer, without need for intermediaries. But I did feel sorry for her, trying to contribute, and trying to follow up on my query the previous week, so afterwards I thanked her for bringing the prayer in, and explained why it was not our normal practice. This lead on to a good conversation about the RC view of prayers to angels, the single communion of believers dead and alive, and that we ask each other to pray so why not ask those who have gone before, etc. She also emphasised that they do not worship saints and angels. So we parted as friends.

But on a theological note, I remain convinced that simply saying you don't worship something means little when you bow before its statue, kiss its statue, attribute miracles to the something, or answers to prayer to the something, or assume that anyone in the world can pray simultaneously to the something ie omnipresence/omniscience...then even if you say you don't worship it then you have in practice made a god out of it, and I still think it breaches the first few commandments, and that throughout the Bible any attempt at communication between the dead and the living is forbidden eg the Saul/Samuel incident at Endor, and Lazarus and Dives. And fundamentally, prayer to anyone other than God makes them take the place that should be occupied by God alone. Which is a polite way of saying that despite her assurances to the contrary, it is idolatry.

A modern saint

Much as I resent going on courses AFTER my licensing, last night was very good indeed.

It was lead by the same guy that ran our pre-licensing training programme. Outwardly, he is a plain ordinary Church of England vicar – wears his vestments for communion, never seen without his dog collar etc. The green shirts and beard complete the image. Being with him for three years you also come to realise he is an outstanding story-teller, and more importantly he really really knows his stuff. And not just academic knowledge – he has a real gift for seeing in the text the blinding obvious fact that you have never seen because of your pre-conceived ideas about it. I have huge respect for him as a teacher.

All that I knew.

But last night I found out that although he is usually very scathing of all things remotely Pentecostal or Charismatic, he has also been involved in three bona-fide exorcisms, one or two miraculous healings, falling-over in the spirit, etc.

Take the healing for example. He was working at a kids’ summer camp, where one of the roughest lads was brought to him with a broken arm. You could hear the bones grate against each other. The vicar said ‘shall I pray for it?’ to which the lad replied ‘you can do what you like so long as you get me to hospital quick!’ So after a quick prayer off he went. Four hours later, he was brought back from the hospital, with the report that the X-ray showed there was nothing wrong with the arm. The awed lad said ‘I’m with the Christians now!’ and spent the rest of the camp pointing at his arm and trying to persuade his friends that his arm really had been broken and healed, because no-body believed him and even the vicar thought he must have got it wrong.. The lad went on to become a vicar in his own right, and 15 years later had another, unrelated x-ray. The doctor again said ‘nothing wrong’, but added ‘except for the old break’ – and sure enough there on the x-ray was a healed break. So the guy grabbed the x-ray off the doctor and shot off to show to all his friends again.

But this talk of healing etc was well balanced by a lot of other stuff abut how usually we are not exempt from the trouble of this world (which matures us as Christians), and usually we do not meet demons, etc. The overall message was one of keeping calm and sensible and not seeking the spectacular, while still being open for God to remarkable things in his own way.

Fantastic.

Shame I don’t believe in canonising saints.

Trapped

I thought arriving late at evensong would get me off the hook of having to do anything. No luck, I was asked to do the OT reading. I agreed. I was given a reading from Wisdom 3. No time to object to being asked to read an Apocryphal book as if it were part of the OT. I have no objection to the Apocrypha as contemporary literature offering insights and some good stuff, as per the 39 Articles, but I don't like the way it was given the same presence as canonical books. I didn't like the way I was cornered into it, but that is my own fault. Anyway, I also think that sometimes God has to resort to these methods becasue if he asked me upfront I would say no. Can't have God's will getting in the way of my theology, can we?

Incidentally the 39 Articles also condemn the invocation of saints. So the score is

Cranmer with SaintSimon 2, Placement Church 0.

God is working his purpose out

Today’s main news is the fulfilment of God’s purposes.

Followers of my blog will know that in answer to my prayers for an increased income, God showed me the path of working as an independent contractor, rather than as an employee.

Well here I am, in my new working arrangements. I should say new job, except that I am sting at the same desk doing the same thing, its just that instead of a multinational engineering consultancy getting the profit, I do! This has to be a gift from God!!

I have not yet reported on Sunday’s Church. This is because I have been spending the time (far too much time) participating in the vestments debate on Vindicated. Reading the debate you probably don’t appreciate just how much my views have changed as they are influenced by my placement church and by Kyle Potter’s Vindicated blog. I salute you, Kyle!

Sunday’s church was, well, different. The sound system failed, and instead of processing up the aisle to organ music with dignity, we processed up the aisle to the terrifying, deafening, horror science fiction feeeeeeedback!!!. The only thing whiter than the vestments was the silently panicked Vicar’s face.

Fortunately things came under control in time for the service to start properly shortly after we arrived at the end. In his sermon introduction the Vicar invoked the patron saint of PA systems, praying to him/her to keep the gremlins out, amen. So now all you Anglo-Catholics can set up blog debates as to why displacing our prayers to God onto the saints is not idolatrous. I can just about accommodate the idea that asking a saint to INTERCEDE for us is just like asking a living friend to pray for you, but I can’t stretch to praying directly to the saint for the saint to do something for you. That is to treat him/her as a god, and breaches the first commandment.

My own prayers, [after much editing-out of my favourite bits by the Vicar so that only the bland bits remained] seemed to go down well. People commented on how clearly they could hear – I think this was a polite way of saying I was too loud. But I have been trained to project my voice and there was also a microphone, and it takes practice to get the volume right.

I must spend less time blogging and commenting on blogs, and my resolution for today is to only check them once a day, and that must be during lunch break not working hours. It has been becoming too much of a compulsive addiction lately. Time for some self control.

Mrs is keeping quiet about whether she feels pregnant or not. We have had too many disappointments before, and it is not implantation time yet. We can but wait and see.