What Kind of Church Are We? - Part 3 - The In-Depth Version
We are a Charismatic Evangelical Anglican Church
What does being an Evangelical mean to me?
As an Evangelical I have a very high view of the Bible
Essentially I would see myself as having similar views to John Stott in his book ‘Evangelical Truth’.
I have taken the liberty to quote sections of his book but please buy a copy if you wish to explore further.
‘Since God is our creator, infinite in his being while we are finite creatures of time and space, it stands to reason that we cannot discover him by our own researches or resources. …in addition He is the all-Holy god while we are fallen, sinful … there is a chasm between him and us which we from our side could never bridge.’ Only if God reveals himself in some way can we know what He is and how He can be known. This occurs through revelation.
Along with Stott I believe there are four kinds of revelation
General or natural revelation
This is the revelation to everyone which comes through the nature. The heavens declare the glory of God.’ God has made plain His invisible attributes of power and divinity ‘from what has been made’. ( Romans 1:19 – 20.)
For a year or so I ran an AA group – Agnostics Anonymous – and ‘ wonder and awe’ in nature has been one of the pointers for them that led beyond this material world.
Then there is Special or supernatural revelation
There six differences between Special revelation and General revelation
General revelation |
Special Revelation |
1. It is general because it is made to everybody everywhere 2. It is ‘natural’ because it is made through nature 3. It is continuous because it never ceases 4. It is glorious because it reveals God’s glory in creation 5. It is visible because through it we see God’s works 6. It is ‘judging’ because those who reject it are condemned. |
1. It is special because it was made to particular people in particular contexts 2. It is supernatural because it was made through miracle ( The inspiration of scriptures and the incarnation of the Son 3. It is ‘final’ because it was completed in Christ and the biblical witness to Christ. 4. It is ‘gracious’ because it reveals God’s grace in salvation |
The climax of God’s special revelation was his incarnate Son. But how do we know about Christ and his significance. ‘ The answer lies in the apostles’ who ‘ were chosen and equipped in order to record and explain what God had said and done though Christ.’ Therefore the only authentic Christ is the Christ revealed in the Bible.
He is the Word of God and He has been revealed through the word of God.
Progressive revelation
This is the third type of revelation.
God did not reveal everything to his people at once ‘He taught them gradually as they were able to assimilate it. In particular in the transition from the Old Testament to the new the indispensable truths behind the Old Testament are revealed to have a new application in the Christ of the New Testament
Personal revelation
This is the fourth type of revelation.
In addition to the work of the Holy Spirit in revealing God in nature or through Scripture – an objective event – ‘ the Holy Spirit enlightens our eyes so we can now see what He has revealed. Both processes are indispensable if we are ever to know God.’
Jesus himself used this kind of language. On one occasion He thanked his Father that He had hidden his truths from the intellectually arrogant and had revealed them to little children' (Matt. 11:25), that is, the humble. On another occasion, when Peter first identified Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus responded: Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven' (Matt 16:I7). What was true of Peter was equally true of Paul. His experience of conversion and commissioning on the Damascus road was so evidently due to the initiative of God's grace that He could write: 'God ... was pleased to reveal hisSon in me' (Gal. 1: 15-16). And having experienced this heavenly illumination himself, He naturally desired it for others. He prayed for the Ephesians that 'the Spirit of wisdom and revelation; wouldenlighten the eyes of their heart to know the fullness of God's purpose for them (Eph. 1:17ff)
The Inspiration of the Bible
With regard to the inspiration of scripture it is God’s words through human words it has a double authorship (divine and human). God spoke through human authors in such a way as to what He intended to say, yet not in such a way as to violate, let alone smother, the personality of the human authors.
‘This double authorship demands a double approach’ The first is that of reverent submission but the second is to develop a ‘critical’ approach to scripture where criticism means investigation and evaluation. It is in this area that some fundamentalists would struggle to agree. So Textual criticism, which aims to establish the authentic text; historical criticism which studies the bible in the historical context; literary criticism which examines ‘both the sources which the author had at his disposal and the form in which the oral material was preserved’ and finally redaction criticism which recognises that the biblical authors and editors (redactors) had a theological motivation behind their writing have a place in the study of the bible.
This double approach requires the critic to approach the text with presuppositions that are Christian rather than sub-Christian or non Christian
As the bible both reveals the Word of God (Jesus Christ) and is the word of God then inevitably it is our authority in matters of belief and behaviour.
Tradition is important as it has formulated the words which describe Christian belief found in the text.
Also reason is important as we are rational creatures but the ‘ proper place for reason is not to stand in judgement upon scripture but to sit in humility under it, seeking to elucidate and apply it.’
Experience too is important as the ‘experience of the burning heart is a major way by which the Holy Spirit attests the truth of his Word”
So because of its origin the bible is true in all that it affirms, sufficient on it’s own for salvation and completely trustworthy
I am a Charismatic Evangelical so the second part of this section explores the Charismatic side of this description.
Some thoughts on religious experience
Encountering God
The key goal to all our endeavours and experiences in the Christian faith is to fulfil the two greatest commandments.
To love God with all our heart, mind, strength and soul
and to love our neighbours as ourselves.
So whatever experiences we may have from whatever background, these are the key markers of authenticity.
The key element to all charismatic experiences is a sense of encountering the living God. When asked at a theological college what renewal was about Michael Harper an early exponent of charismatic movement replied ‘It’s about an experience of God’. Similarly John Stott records a conversation with the then Bishop of Singapore when he asked what the essence of ‘renewal’ was to which the Bishop replied ‘It’s a new experience of God’
Can there be anything more important than when a man by God’s grace is enabled to meet with He who is the creator - He who is love - He who revealed himself in the Son - He who holds our lives and destinies in his hands. It is not surprising that such an encounter changes us – to be exposed to the reality of God’s love, to be exposed to his holiness to be exposed to Him – it cannot but transform our view of God, our selves and his world.
The encounters do not prove God exists, nor do they reveal anything which has not already been revealed in the bible but they are transformative experiences for that person. They expose something of who God is – it is an illumination of what is already known through scripture in such a way that the truths and realities of God become alive – the reality of believing that God is love is rooted and amplified by experiencing the love of God shed abroad in our hearts.
Truth but not new Truth
The biblical and theological framework validate the experiences rather than the other way around. It is not simply a matter of feelings although they are involved but a matter of a different perception which changes the way that you perceive God. It is not a matter of new knowledge about God which changes the belief system but it is seeing God in a new light which is initiated by the Holy Spirit so that we comprehend God in a deeper way. William James in his classic work ‘ Varieties of religious experience’ reflects similar thinking when writing about mystical experiences They (mystical states) ‘are excitements like the emotions of love or ambition, gifts to our spirit by means of which facts already before us fall into a new expressiveness and make a new connection with our active life. They do not contradict these facts as such or deny anything our senses have immediately seized.’ This illumination is a primary work of the Holy Spirit. He peels back the limitations of the words that we use to describe the Father. It is by Him that we cry ‘Abba, father’. He delights to witness to the Son (John 16: 14 – 15) and enables us to come to an understanding such that we come into relationship with the Father .
Knowing God by immediate encounter rather than by inference or belief about God introduces features of a ‘person to person’ encounter. The cry of our hearts, as it was the cry of Paul, is ‘that I may know Him’. This cry resonates deeply within us and although He can never be fully known we do know him more as we encounter him. McQuarrie writing from a different tradition puts this well’ ‘To put it bluntly, it is idolatry to think that we have ever grasped God, that we have comprehended him either as an objective fact ‘out there’ or as an exalted ideal ‘in here.’ In all such cases we are trying to take God into our own possession. But that is impossible (as well as blasphemous) God transcends anything we can grasp or contain and when we think we have him, the truth is that He has slipped through our grasp and we are left clinging to some pitiable idol of our own making. We can never know God by seeking to grasp and manipulate him, but only by letting him grasp us. Only a person can love, so in experiencing the love of God we area experiencing a person. God as person seeks person to person relations with human beings whom He has created.
How do these experiences change us?
Internal changes
The key question is “Does it make any difference’ . If I have met with the living God that must change me. And the test of that is whether there is growth in our love for God and a growth in our love for our neighbours. Emotional responses may meet the needs of the ego, encounters with God will meet the needs of the world.
The three deepest experiences that I have had in encountering God were firstly when I became a Christian and understood in the process of coming to faith about the grace of God reaching out to me rather than my scrambling to find him. The second was an understanding that God was Abba – which released me to be filled with the Spirit for the first time and the third was God speaking to me very clearly, when He said ‘I am in control’. Nothing ground breaking to others outside of the experiences – simply what we know and believe already from the Bible but for me at those times revolutionary in my thinking and in my relationship with God. They did not change the Faith but they did change my faith.
So encounter – experience- interaction with God does not supplant the biblical narrative, nor does it supplement it, but it illuminates it so that what before may have been believed comes a reality within one in such a way that it transforms the person and is a continuing transformative influence. The root of the experience is the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the experience is the Holy Spirit’s.
The danger of course is that we not only may determine our theology on an experience or experiences but we also may determine our theology on our lack of experience either within ourselves or our worshipping community.
External changes
Paul on the Damascus road in Acts 9 was interrupted in his travels by the Lord. His immediate reaction was astonishment and puzzlement along with blindness – not a great advert for an evangelistic event – and then subsequently having been prayed for and healed He is called to be, and becomes, a missionary to the Gentiles. The meeting with Jesus is crucial – how else would He have changed – but the events clustered around this encounter surely were not crucial to his interpreting and internalising this experience whereas the subsequent events were of vital importance to the work of the church.
For Paul, his experience of the risen Christ on the Damascus road re-ordered his priorities, redirected his life’s energy and reaffirmed his faith of God’s purposes for the world. Of course it is a unique event in one sense not least in legitimising Paul’s call to be an apostle but the core of a transforming encounter with God is such that the outcome of His nature expressed in grace towards Paul remains as a core value today.
So I believe that the phenomena which sometimes surround an encounter with God are quite secondary, not entirely unimportant but not of overriding importance. This is true whether it is falling over in the Spirit or shaking in the Spirit. They are the result of a person reacting to the presence of God, not necessarily something God is doing to them. What happens often is that what occurs in a person is what that person needs – it could be said to be tailor made for them. One person laughs which brings healing, another person weeps which brings healing. How else would we expect our reaction to the revelation of the love and grace of God to operate?
The phenomena that bother people though are the more visible or audible events which can occur. These are not crucial to the significance of the event nor to its long term outworking. However it is a puzzle as to why they do occur and why some of them are so odd. Possibly because I have always believed that these things are of little importance compared with the reality of meeting with God I have very rarely been dissuaded from pursuing the reality that may be found in such an environment. Because something is strange does not make it right or wrong it is simply strange and I would feel awkward to believe and state that God and God’s people can only act and behave in certain ways. There may in fact be arrogance in the approach which limits the way in which God works. The story of Naaman who refused initially the prophet’s instruction to bathe in the Jordan is a reminder that we approach the work of God with humility even if it is not suited to our tastes.