Vanhoozer on Sola Scriptura and Protestant Catholicity

We might worry that the Protestant principle of sola Scriptura (Scripture alone as supreme authority) might lead to an endless variety of interpretations (hermeneutical anarchy) with little ability to adjudicate between them and temptation to endless schism. Witness all the protestant denominations and fights.

 

Vanhoozer (Hearers and Doers) argues that a truly Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura will be catholic (Greek kata + holos = “with respect to the whole”) in the sense that it will attend to the doctrine of the whole church over time (p166). “Protestant pastors should be making catholic disciples”. (p198)

 

Calvin for example argues that we cannot have God as our Father without having the church as our Mother. “Our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school until we have been pupils all our lives” (Institutes 4.1.4). We must not separate what God has joined together, and Calvin says that the authority of the church is not “outside God’s Word; but we insist that it is attached to the Word, and do not allow it to be separated from it.” (4.8.13) We must have canonicity and catholicity. The Protestant formal principle of sola Scriptura is in harmony with the catholic material substance, the Nicene consensus on doctrine. (p200f)

 

Protestants do not teach the priesthood (or indeed popehood) of each and every individual believer for himself in isolation with his Bible, but the priesthood of all believers together. Sola Scriptura is not alone and it is one among a number of principles of community interpretation of the Bible. Bible reading is a communal project because God is addressing and forming his chosen people by his Word. As Luther said, “God’s word cannot be without God’s people and, conversely, God’s people cannot be without God’s word.” (On the Councils and the Church (1559) in Basic Theological Writings, ed. Lull, Fortress, 1989, 547).

 

Sola Scriptura should not lead to everyone being his own prideful chief priest interpreting the Bible on his own and for himself, reading as is right in his own eyes, but to us (the catholic church) reading the Bible together humbly because we know that only Scripture alone is infallible supreme. My reading may err. The Bible can reform us.  

 

The Bible is the primary and supreme authority, but that does not exclude the secondary authorities of tradition and the teaching office of the church. Sola Scripture means to rule out rivals not ministers. Tradition and the church serve the reading and living of Scripture.

 

Sola Scriptura is not solo Scriptura.

 

We should also affirm a notion of sola ecclesia (the church alone) as the ordered Royal people of the book: the reading of the communion of the saints.

 

Luther and Calvin thought that the catholic church was not catholic enough in the sense that it absolutized the authority of Rome and the Pope to the neglect of other voices in the church. The Reformed claimed to be more catholic than Rome. The Reformation is a call to “a deeper and wider catholicity” (p200) Calvin said in his Letter to Cardinal Sadoleto (1539): “Our agreement with antiquity is far closer than yours… all we have attempted has been to renew the ancient form of the Church.”

 

The gospel should be determined more by Romans than by Rome (p200).  

 

Sola Scriptura calls upon us to be attentive to all those who down through the ages have been attentive to the Scriptures. Tradition is the fruit of the Spirit’s work as the church has read the Bible faithfully.

 

Reflecting on God’s use of Philip to teach the Ethiopian eunuch, Vanhoozer argues that God gives us teachers and tradition to help us interpret the Bible. God has authorised tradition and when he saw it he said, “This at last is norm of my norm and light of my light; she shall be called postapostolic testimony, because she has been taken out of apostolic testimony.” (p181)

 

The church is “the pillar and ground of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). Calvin says, “By these words Paul means that the church is the faithful keeper of God’s truth that it may not perish from the world.” (Institutes 4.1.10)

 

God is Light and he has authorised lesser lights. “Tradition is the lesser light: the moon to Scripture’s sun…. Tradition has a derivative, secondary, ministerial authority insofar as its creeds and confessions reflect the light that shines forth from the biblical text.” (p184)

 

Vahoozer says: “In sum: Sola Scriptura is not a blank check individuals can cash in to fund their own idiosyncratic interpretations of the Bible, but a call to attend to the broader pattern on Protestant authority and to listen to the Spirit speaking in the history of the church’s interpretation of Scripture.” (p183)

 

“To catechize a disciple, to teach them the basic tenets of the faith, is therefore to catholicize them: to integrate them into the faith of the whole church…. Remember: catechizing = catholicizing.” (p190)

 

“The kind of Protestantism that needs to live on is not the tragic caricature that encourages individual autonomy or corporate pride but the catholic original that encourages the church to hold fast to the gospel, and to one another, in Christ.” (p201) “The only good Protestant is a catholic Protestant – one who learns from, and bears fruit for, the whole church.” (p201f)

 

The church is “glocal”, global and local (p194).

 

“The local church, a people with canon sense and catholic sensibility, is the true end of the Protestant Reformation.” (p202)

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Hearers and Doers: A Pastor's Guide to Making Disciples through Scripture and Doctrine (Lexham Press, 2019)

Vanhoozer on Pastors and Their Work

 Dr Kevin J. Vanhoozer proposes two models for PASTORS AND THEIR WORK:

(1) Pastors are [junior] eye-doctors or GPs. The prescribe sound or healthy doctrine, reading Scripture with and for the people of God that they might live in the light of the gospel. They are focused on the eye / imagination / heart / mind / will / action of the body of Christ.

The word for soundness, as in sound doctrine, Greek hygiainw, can mean healthy or well.

And the word for doctrine is related to the word doctor, a teacher, hence "Doctors of the church" who are not just medical doctors, which we probably more naturally think of in our contemporary usage.

(2) Pastors are assistant directors in God’s global production of the church as the theatre of his glory. They encourage every member of the gospel company to improvise in faithful response to the Script (the Scriptures God has prescribed – see (1)) so that everyone speaks and acts their part in the great story-drama of redemption in Jesus. The pastor calls, “Action!”. Everyone knows the shape of the drama (which Act we are in: creation, fall, redemption, new creation) and how the performance will conclude. We don’t just make it up / ad lib any old how but act out our assigned roles in God’s story of which he is the prime Producer, Writer, Director, Actor.

The pastor is not a solo performer or the star of the show.

Church is not for entertainment nor for play-acting hypocrisy but for a live local performance of the gospel. We are not pretending but really taking part in God’s drama.

Hearers and Doers: A Pastor's Guide to Making Disciples through Scripture and Doctrine (Lexham Press, 2019)

On sermon preparation: the benefits of starting early and finishing well

 

I can’t claim to be super organised and disciplined about my sermon preparation. I don’t like Stephen Kneale normally prepare my sermons about three months in advance. In fact it’s not even that I always do my exegesis on a Tuesday morning, work out the structure and points of my sermon on a Wednesday afternoon and finish my prep on Saturday.

But I do have two thoughts that might be helpful:

(1) Plan and read the text as early as you can.

You could do your sermon entirely on Friday and Saturday. But probably serval people in the church will want to know the text earlier, perhaps for the notice sheet, service materials, musicians and readers. And even if no one is bugging you for these things on a Tuesday, I think there is great benefit in knowing what you are going to preach and some of the relevant issues as soon as you can. That way the power of mulling over the text and themes can take place as you walk the dog and drive around the parish. You may even have the chance to chat with others about something related to the sermon. And you can keep an eye out for relevant illustrations and application.

So, at a minimum, I would always suggest reading the text on a Monday morning and beginning to think about it.

(2) Know where you’re going a couple of days ahead.

I’m pleased to say that my regular sermon preparation isn’t always like the weekly student essay crisis. It is a long time since I have done an all-nighter. Though sometimes there are adjustments on a Sunday morning! I like to think of this as keeping things fresh and interesting.

Anyway, what would be an ideal healthy pattern?

I normally have my day off on a Friday. And often Saturdays can be pretty full with events and meetings – as well as family stuff. I’ve found it very beneficial, if possible, to try to know where I’m going with the sermon by the end of work on a Thursday. And of course it is lovely if you don’t always have to work until 11pm the night before you’re day off.

Ideally, one might have some idea of:

Introduction – way in

Main points / structure

Illustrations?

Applications

Conclusion / ending.

If my sermon preparation isn’t where I would like to it to be, I can find that I ruminate about it on my day off or in bed, which you don’t want to do too often.

There are great benefits, I think, to knowing that you have something in hand before a last minute panic, though some people may depend on a deadline to focus them on some decisions!

One can never really say that a sermon is ideally perfected and “finished”, but if you’ve got a plan, you can be freed up to think carefully about your hearers, how you might communicate and so on. I reckon many of us are tempted to neglect this last 20% of sermon preparation which goes beyond an aim sentence and some points.

We would do well to start early, but if we can, we should also try to leave some space to finish well, to re-visit and improve what we have. And, of course, also to pray.

Maybe the preparation of ourselves is even more neglected than the preparation of our sermons.  

 

The Lovely Shepherd

It’s easy for a townie like me to begin to think of everything to do with sheep and lambs as all rather lovely and cuddly. It’s not hard to conjure up a pastoral idle, is it? We just have to think of lambs frolicking in the spring sunshine to let out an aaaah! What could be more delightful and adorable?

 

But the picture in John 10 is rather more realistic and hard-headed. There’s something of an edge.   Jesus would say to us that it’s not all sweetness and light out there. In fact, in some ways it’s a jungle. There are thieves and robbers, wolves and hired hands who will leg it at the first sign of real danger.

 

Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and perhaps that implies that there are bad shepherds.

 

In Old Testament times, the people of God were basically shepherd types. Think of the flocks of Abraham and his children, of Moses and David.

 

The Bible frequently uses the metaphor of shepherds for the leaders of the people, for the king, prophets and priests and so on. We get the word “pastor” of course from the idea of a shepherd who leads his animals to pasture.

 

Often in the history of Israel, the shepherds of the people had been unfaithful. And in Jesus’ own day, it was the leaders who most opposed him, who stirred up the people to call for his crucifixion.

 

We could turn to a number of Old Testament texts but Ezekiel 34 is the fullest denunciation of the shepherds of Israel who take care of themselves but not their people. The shepherd-leaders live it up while the people-sheep are neglected. The weak, injured, lost and straying suffer. The shepherds are harsh and brutal, and the flock is scattered and preyed upon. These are shepherds who are only in leadership for themselves. They want to get, not give. (And church history and the present day sadly contain many other examples of under-shepherds who fail to even approximate the example of the Chief Shepherd).

 

So God promises to judge and remove those wicked shepherds. He himself will come and shepherd his people. And he promises them one Shepherd, whom he calls “David”, who will lead the people.

 

And so Jesus calls himself the good shepherd. Jesus is God himself come to shepherd the people, in fulfilment of God’s promise. Jesus is the descendant of King David, the Davidic Messiah, who will lead and save them.

 

We need the Good Shepherd who cares for us and will die for us (v11).

 

Of course sheep need a shepherd. Without someone to lead and provide for them, they might go hungry or get eaten. But its just worth pausing for a moment to step outside the metaphor to realise that the New Testament thinks of us as in serious danger. Think of perhaps the most famous verse in John’s Gospel, John 3:16. It says that unless we believe in Jesus, we will perish. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Without Jesus we would be ruined, utterly lost, we would die or perish everlastingly.

 

We face not wolves or lions or food shortages, but sin and its consequences: death and hell.  Jesus came to rescue us from the judgement we all deserve.  Jesus wasn’t messing about. He means to do more than give us a comforting image. His death and resurrection were absolutely necessary. The incarnation and the cross surely show us our need. The resurrection confirms to us that our need is perfectly met. Jesus must lay down his life and take it up again. That is the Father’s plan and the Son’s willing mission. Nothing else can save us and keep us safe eternally.  

 

So this perhaps apparently delightful passage about sheep and shepherds turns out to be serious and urgent.

 

In Jesus’ image / proto-parable, the hired hand actually behaves sensibly!  (vv12-13) Of course if it gets too dangerous, the minimum wage employee would leg it. I would. Wouldn’t you? In fact, any shepherd in his right mind would too! Shepherds don’t die for their sheep. In fact, sheep die for their shepherds! (In Jesus’ day apparently it wasn’t so much a matter of roast lamb, as it is for us today: they kept the sheep longer for their meat, wool and milk, so arguably shepherds typically knew their flocks better and would bond with them more. The Shepherd might walk ahead of his sheep, rather than look at them from a Land Rover, but in the end the sheep always ends up in the Shepherd’s pie or at market.)

 

I’ve discovered this week that “how much is a sheep worth” is actually a pretty difficult question to answer. It seems to be a bit more like asking how much a footballer or a car are worth, rather than the price of a pint of milk. Google suggested between £5 and £8 a KG. I’m told that prices are good at the moment and that you might get £160 for a lamb, if you’re lucky.

 

Anyway, no sheep, however valuable is really worth dying for, is it? Not at any price!

 

In 2020, the BBC reported that the World's most expensive sheep was sold for £368,000.

The six-month-old Texel ram was sold in Lanark by breeder Charlie Boden to a consortium of sheep farmers. Even so, it would be crazy to die even for a prize sheep.

 

But Jesus values us, his flock, our souls above his own life.

 

This shepherd has ridiculous job-loyalty! A good shepherd checks on his flock regularly and mends the fences![1] Jesus the good shepherd dies for his sheep.

 

Jesus loves and cares for us to a crazy degree. He came from heaven to save us. He was willing to give up his all for us.  

 

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. But it would be a mistake to think of him as the lovely shepherd. Jesus is gentle and lowly, yes. He is loving and kind. Of course! He is love incarnate. But there is also a toughness and a resolve to Jesus. He would fearlessly call out the religious leaders of his day and clear the temple with a whip. Jesus was no wimp.

 

Jesus was willing to face down our enemies (sin and death) for us and he overcame them. He is our hero, our champion. He willingly drank the cup of wrath which the Father gave him. He endured hell for us and came out the other side victorious. He showed the valour of David who, trusting God, knew how to fight a lion or a bear to save his sheep and who would defeat Goliath to win victory for his people.   

 

And so let us pray for grace to hear the voice of Jesus in the call of the gospel and the Scriptures and to respond to Jesus in faith and obedience. As Jesus the Good Shepherd would go ahead and call his sheep “Come on Barbara, Ewan, Lambert, Shawn, Ramsey!”, let us follow him.

 

The Good Shepherd means to call his sheep from all the nations into one flock under one shepherd. So let’s get on board with his purpose of bringing in other sheep that there might be one flock under one shepherd.

 

---

[1] These phrases are taken from Glen Scrivener on John 10 in Reading Between The Lines (10 of those) volume 2

Walking

 I tried to collect all the Bible verses that speak of "walking" here: https://www.churchsociety.org/resource/walking-together/

Kevin Vanhoozer also has some interesting comments on the Christian life as a call to movement, to walking in the Way of Jesus in Hearers and Doers: A Pastor's Guide to Making Disciples Through Scripture and Doctrine (Lexham Press, 2019) pp57-62 which also draws on John Webster, 'Discipleship and Calling', Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 23 (2005)

One thing

 

From The Rectory

 

I wonder if you sometimes feel there’s just too much to do? And the to do list never seems to get any shorter – more things get added as quickly as you can cross things off. Perhaps you feel you have too much on your mind? You’re running from one thing to the next, pulled in multiple competing directions.

 

I have been reading a business book by Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (Virgin Books / Ebury Publishing / Penguin Random House, 2014). McKeown describes two experiences that caused him to rethink how he was living. As a young man, he sat down with a blank sheet of paper and brainstormed for twenty minutes about what he might like to do with his life. He had filled the paper. But he noticed that nowhere did it say “Go to Law School.” Which he says was awkward, as he was currently pursing legal studies.

 

Second, he tells of an email which he received from his boss while his wife was pregnant. It said, “1-2pm on Friday would be really bad time to have this baby.” He sort of assumed it was a joke. But sure enough the baby was born on Friday. After being with his wife in the hospital, McKeown headed off to the supposedly crucial client meeting. His boss claimed the client admired him for being there at such a time, but McKeown wasn’t sure he did. And in fact nothing ever came of the meeting, even though McKeown had managed to upset his wife by going to it. McKeown concluded he’d got his priorities wrong. What seemed essential, really wasn’t.

 

In fact, McKeown points out that for 500 years the English word “priority” was only ever used in the singular. It meant the prior, the first, thing. But since 1900 we can speak of “priorities”. He describes working for a company which listed its ten top priorities. Of course, if we are trying to focus on ten first things, it is very hard to do any of them really well.

 

We would each do well, perhaps, to pause and ask what few things really matter to us the most.

 

Jesus was asked which was the most important commandment. He said it is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”. And the second most important commandment was like the first: to “love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31)

 

But if we wanted to get it down to just one thing, Jesus in fact once said that only one thing was needful. It’s in a story about Martha and Mary, sisters who seem to have been very different characters. Jesus and his disciples were coming to their house. Martha was conscious there was so much to do! She was busy and distracted, anxious about many things, serving, working hard, getting things ready. While her sister bustled about, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to him, in the classic position of a disciple (a learner or apprentice) attending to a Master-Teacher (a Rabbi). Jesus says only a “few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38-42)

 

Whatever else we do, the one great essential thing is to take the time and space we need to listen to Jesus, to receive his words and to put them into practice. I don’t want to give you another thing for your already lengthy to do list, but loving Jesus and living as his disciple in friendship with him really is the most important thing which would transform everything else. Taking some time consciously most days, as it were, to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn from him, to pray and read the Bible would be transformative. We may even find that a bit of peace and quiet, with casting our anxieties on to Jesus, knowing that he cares for us, might make us rather less stressed (see 1 Peter 5:6-7). We might see our way to crossing a few things off the to do list. And to facing our responsibilities knowing that Jesus only wants us to do what we can, not what we can’t. Let’s pray that we might not neglect the one essential needful thing for the sake of so many other good things (some of which we no doubt ought to do!).    

The Revd Marc Lloyd

Mark's Gospel - A very brief introduction

 I wanted to write less than a page of A4 for those who perhaps have little Christian background to help with reading or listening to Mark's Gospel:

A brief introduction to reading

Mark’s Gospel

 

Mark’s gospel is one of the earliest accounts of the life of Jesus. It is traditionally thought to be based on the eye-witness evidence of Jesus’ disciple, the Apostle Simon Peter.

 

Like the rest of the bible, Mark is divided up in to chapters and verses. For example, “Mark 4:1-20” means “chapter 4 verses 1 to 20”, Jesus’ parable of the Sower. These notes might help you as you read (or listen to) Mark’s gospel for yourself.  You can find it online at https://www.biblegateway.com/ You might try “The New International Version” translation (NIV).

 

The first line of the gospel gives us a kind of heading or headline to introduce the book. This is the best news in the world ever about a real man, Jesus (which means “God saves”), the Christ or Messiah (the anointed one), the long-promised Rescuer-King the Old Testament Scriptures had predicted, the Son of God.

 

As you read the gospel, you might think about three issues:

 

·       Jesus’ identity: who is he?

·       Jesus’ purpose: why did he come?

·       And our response to him: what does it mean to be disciple (learner / apprentice) or follower of Jesus?

 

Jesus announces the kingdom of God (1:15). Because Jesus, God’s appointed king, has come, the kingdom of God is present. He calls us to repent, to change our minds, to turn away from sin and turn to him and to believe the good news. Jesus wants us to put our trust in him and follow him.  

 

The first half of the gospel especially shows us Jesus’ unique authority as God the Son. He calls his disciples, drives out evil spirits and heals many (chapter 1). He does what only God can do: he forgives sins (2:1-12). As the Creator God, he can command the storm (4:35-end). 

 

8:27-38 is the central turning point of the gospel. Jesus asks his disciples who they believe he is, and explains that he must suffer and die, and what it means to follow him.

 

Notice how much of the gospel is devoted to the last week of Jesus’ life (chapters 11-16), to his death and resurrection. Jesus came to die. Jesus’ death is necessary as part of God’s plan to save us. Jesus gives his life as a ransom for many (10:45). He dies in our place that we might be forgiven and live. He faces the holy anger of God against sin so that the way to God is open for all who trust in him (15:33-39). Jesus rose from the grave, victorious over sin and death.

Danny Kruger, Covenant

 

Covenant: The New Politics of Home, Neighbourhood and Nation

Danny Kruger

Forum / Swift Press, 2023 (ISBN: 9781800752115 hb, 149pp)

 

Danny Kruger, a Conservative MP with an Oxford DPhil in history, seeks to set out a social and political vision oriented towards The Good Life and virtuous living. He claims our culture seems to be searching for something. “We want a life that is both embodied and enchanted: rooted, tactile, sweaty, but also lit by sacred fire. We want a life of function (to be useful and fully used) and of place (to identify with a piece of land and the people of it), and for these things to be food for the body and food for the soul.” (p82)

 

We need to value not only care and fairness but recapture a sense of authority, loyalty and sanctity (p60). Kruger wants to restore and further what he calls “The Order” which is social and other people oriented with a network of relationships, obligations and commitments fostered by institutions. He contrasts this with “The Idea”, the gnostic sense that my own autonomy is all, that I should discover or define my identity according to what I feel to be my inner self, regardless of physical or external realities. Kruger thinks the word “woke” is rather trivial. “Cultural Marxism” is preferable: revolutionary tribes war over identity, self-interest and ideology rather than merely over the means of production. He prefers the term “transgressive” to describe those who in a spirit of grievance want to overthrow all that might restrain “the dominant individual will” (p39).

 

Kruger thinks “we are born to worship: this is our essence, as primary as our existence.” (p40) He contends that “the culture war… is a religious conflict about the right gods to worship.” (p25) “You are what you worship. Your identity is a reflection of your god, the thing you venerate, which gives life meaning and explains good and evil. A culture is the act of common worship, and so a community or a civilisation might best be defined in terms of the gods the people serve.” (p29) In our post-Christian age, “we worship ourselves… more particularly the individual person, and even more particularly the person within: ‘the real me.’” (p30)

 

Kruger argues not just for contracts but for the covenant of marriage as the basis for a flourishing society, and for a covenant of place and nation. He even claims that “all politics might be said to come down to the regulation of sex and death.” (p62). The family and household are central to him. “We cannot carry on as if the purpose of life is the restless quest. The alteration we need is the one that a single person, hitherto alone and self-focused, undergoes on falling in love, getting married and starting a family. We need to move from a one-bed flat to a family home.” The general economy should make “it as easy as possible to form and sustain a household.” (p87) Though some may not choose or fit this pattern, the generalisation is for the good of the wider community, not only the oikos but the par-oikos or parish which would support others too. He wants to see parents central to education and more local socially responsible decision making with everyone politically engaged.

 

Kruger takes in not only civil society, but our relationship to the natural environment. Paganisms tended to see humanity as subject to nature but we should see ourselves as stewards of creation, intended to have dominion rather than domination, cultivation rather than exploitation.

 

As well as Edmund Burke, Roger Scruton, Jonathan Haidt, Jonathan Sumption and others, Kruger cites Carl Trueman, Colin Gunton, John Milbank, Andrew Rumsey, Alasdair MacIntyre and Tom Holland’s Dominion. He is influenced by David Godhart’s work on “Somewhere”s and argues that too many people uproot to go to university and join a precariat.  

 

We are certainly given a big vision with bold brushstrokes here. I sometimes wondered how this might be achieved. But Kruger does have specific policy proposals for example around planning and Community Land Trusts, law, education, social care and welfare insurance. He wants to see work which is local and meaningful, likely focused around creativity or care. We should value more the support families can give to their own children and their elderly relatives rather than depending entirely on the nursery or the care home. This involves a taxation system that supports the household with more people able to manage on one wage or two part-time wages. Well paid local jobs and technology would allow more time for involvement in civil society and volunteering.

 

Whilst recognising that “there is little to boast of in many aspects of modern England, and much to learn from others” (p142), Kruger hopes for a sense of Englishness that can recapture something of her discordant heroic, gentle, progressive, conservative spirit in “the great project of defence and restoration that is needed.” (p144)

 

Music as sacramental

From the extraordinarily useful and interesting looking St Andrews Encylopedia of Theology (a new free online resource). This is from Jeremy Begbie on theology and music:

https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/MusicintheWesternTheologicalTradition#section3.2

 Theological questions may well be asked about what kind of deity haunts Steiner’s allusive prose, for in this scenario God’s basic relation to humans appears to be essentially antagonistic, and God’s nature wholly undifferentiated, monadic (Horne 1995). Less stark in this respect, and relying more on the notion of music as a mediator of divine presence, are writers who speak of music in terms of sacrament or the sacramental. Albert Blackwell, for example, pulls from diverse sources (including Augustine, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Schleiermacher, Paul Tillich, and Simone Weil) to demonstrate music’s sacramental potential (Blackwell 1999). He understands ‘sacramental’ as applying to ‘any finite reality through which the divine is perceived to be disclosed and communicated, and through which our human response to the divine assumes some measure of shape, form, and structure’ (Blackwell 1999: 28; quoting McBrien 1980: 731, original emphasis). Blackwell delineates two broad traditions of sacramental encounter in Christianity as applied to music: the ‘Pythagorean’ and the ‘incarnational’ (Blackwell 1999: 37–48). According to the first (already explored above), ‘as mathematics expresses cosmic order, so music echoes cosmic harmony’ (Blackwell 1999: 43). Reflection on this can engender a sense of trust in in the world’s order which in turn can lead to ‘trust in the second Person of the Trinity’ (Blackwell 1999: 86), the world’s Logos. The ‘incarnational’ tradition privileges the sensed materiality of music: citing Schleiermacher among others, Blackwell links the immediacy of embodied musical perception to a primordial religious awareness of the ultimate givenness of our lives and the world, of being wholly dependent on and immersed in a limitless ground.