I’m grateful to Andrew Towner for citing this “Marc Lloyd’s blogspot, fount of Reformed Orthodoxy and gags” in his meditation in chapel.
(Stu Dean also kindly cited my blog entry of Sad Statistics on the Family in his Evangelical Public Theology handout the other day – which I thought was very generous as he’d held the book I cited in his own hands, and was therefore entitled to cite it directly, cutting out the rather unacademic looking middle man, in my view.)
Despite the meditation paradigm suggested on my previous blog entry, Mr T’s meditation (on Psalm 68:19) was far from sloppy. It appeared finely crafted. There were some nice distinctions, but Towner managed to avoid the vital but now tiresome Oak Hill mantra, “we must distinguish! In what sense….”
Though the gaps (pauses for personal application) were still present it was great to use Mr T’s text as an acclamation of praise after each time for reflection.
Mr T was insightfully psychological, pastoral and applied, without being toooo sickly heart-on-sleeve autobiographical, I thought.
Its pleasant how often one feels after an Oak Hill student has preached in chapel, “well, I’d be happy to have him as my vicar”.
And, on another related subject, did I notice some unauthorised changes to the BCP order for Morning Prayer in chapel today? “… accompany me with an impure heart…” seemed a particularly bizarre militant exhortation which didn't take the rest of the words of the context into account. Cranmer obviously knew that in a sense our hearts remain impure and we come as we are with all our guilt and baggage, but also that in Christ we are already clean. We might as well tell people to come with a haughty unbelieving heart. I am clean before I confess. Its not works.
And wasnt the absolution played about with so that we didnt pray for repentant hearts but thanked God for them or something?
On whose authority were these unhelpful and illegal changes made?
Yeah, okay, maybe that's a bit strong, and there are other legitimate points of view, and where can we experiment if not in a theological college chapel, but you know what I mean...
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2 comments:
Why should the absolution be a further prayer? Shouldn't it be a forthright declaration, on Christ's authority that "your sins are forgiven"?
Yes, I agree with you, Matthew: ministers should say to people on the authority of Christ that God frgives all who repent and believe in Him, all who prayed that prayer and meant it.
I think the traditional prayer from the BCP for the Elder to use does a pretty good job:
A priest says
Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who desireth not the death of a sinner,
but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live;
and hath given power, and commandment, to his ministers
to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent,
the absolution and remission of their sins:
he pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent
and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel.
Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true repentance,
and his Holy Spirit,
that those things may please him which we do at this present;
and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy;
so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy;
through Jesus Christ
I think the prayer for true repentance and the help of the Spirit etc. is helpful. The prayer makes it clear that repentance is a gift of God, not a meritorious done-by-our-effort human work.
Arguably the prayer for true repentance might best come before the act of confession.
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