It has been about one year since I’ve posted and much has transpired. Most profoundly, I have become Anglican!
While this may not be news to most reading this, I think it is important that I explain why I felt it necessary to change traditions and share how my family is adjusting to this change.
Catechrist began as an expression of a deep-seated desire to see all Christians–myself included–take responsibility for our spiritual and theological development. For a long time, I did not feel that I was growing in my church. To be clear, this ministry was a blessing to my family. Particularly, its small group ministry really cared for us. Yet, the Sunday morning experience was so aimed at reaching the unchurched that it quite literally wasn’t for me.
Nevertheless, I tried to find something of value every week. And I was successful! Every Sunday, there was at least one thing in the music or the message that challenged or inspired me. I conditioned myself to look outside of the local church for my primary edification. Leveraging my responsibilities as a bible teacher at a local Christian school, I fed my own soul through the study I did to prepare my lessons. Eventually, I shifted traditions because of my changing theological views, not Sunday morning discontent.
Sacramental theology
I began teaching a course on basic Christian doctrine in the fall of 2020. I was excited to begin this new subject, but concerned about the resource selected for the task. Although our institution is broadly evangelical, the text assigned was clearly and unwaveringly Calvinistic. I decided early on that I would heavily supplement this text in order to give my students the landscape of orthodox beliefs on each topic.
Baptism
When it came time to teach on the subject of baptism, my research led me to some Roman Catholic sources. I had always taken for granted that baptism was a symbol and proclamation of one’s faith in Christ. I was astonished to learn that this view was relatively new in the history of the church and that the historic position–of Catholics, Orthodox, and even many Protestants–was baptismal regeneration. But how could this be? Is not baptism a work? Are we not saved by grace?
I never rehearsed these objections, but somehow they were right at hand. However, they were easily dismissed by Catholic apologists who effectively demonstrated not every good action we do is a work. Listening to the gospel, confessing sin, and trusting Christ are all clearly good things, but are not works. Why did I view baptism differently? While I could no longer present an objective argument against baptismal regeneration, I personally experienced regeneration before baptism. Yet, I also learned that although baptism is the normative means of regeneration, God is not bound to the sacrament and can choose to save someone before or apart from it. Again, I had never heard such arguments before and I found them compelling.
The Lord’s Supper
Concerning the Lord’s supper, I knew Catholics affirm transubstantiation. When I researched this sacrament, I was surprised to learn that my memorial view was not the primary understanding of what happens at the table for most Christians throughout history. In the east and the west, Christians affirmed some understanding of real presence and the supper as a sacrifice. How could I have gone through seminary and not been confronted in a meaningful way with this history? And if the communion is a sacrifice, it makes perfect sense that the officers of the church would be priests and that the table is rightfully an altar. At this point, my theology changed dramatically, and it was starting to look like I would need to leave Protestantism. However, before making such a radical change I needed to carefully study the episcopacy.
Episcopal Governance
Most of the churches I belonged to have been autonomous, be they congregational, pastor, or elder-led. This is what I was comfortable with. As a Protestant, I was superficially familiar with the abuses of the papacy in the middle ages and, in recent times, the Roman Catholic child abuse scandal. Certainly, God would not have us belong to a church structure so prone to abuse. However, through research I learned that the early church clearly operated with an episcopal structure. It was this structure that protected the church from dangerous heresies such as gnosticism and codified the proper interpretation of the faith in binding doctrinal statements such as the Nicene creed.
Modern abuses in such churches cannot be blamed primarily on the structures themselves. Autonomous congregations, like Southern or Independent Fundamental Baptists churches, have their fair share of false doctrine, misuse of funds, and sexual abuse. No matter what structure a church has, wolves will seek to infiltrate it. However, the episcopal model was the one our forefathers in the faith used and was blessed by the Spirit to produce the great councils of Jerusalem, Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. I knew that I needed to be in a church that stood in continuity with the earliest Christians.
My move towards the Anglican Way
So would I become Catholic or Orthodox? Such a decision not only would have great implications for my future–not least being my place of employment–but also how I understood my past. Catholicism and Orthodoxy do not recognize Protestant congregations as churches. Would I, just now, be joining a church?
Well, I now know there is another option. A third way that does not require me to reject my previous churches or my Protestant heritage. As an Anglican, I am Catholic and Protestant. I belong to an episcopal church via Anglicanism’s catholic heritage: There have been bishops in England since the 6th century. Some claim a Christian presence in England earlier still. As a Protestant, I continue to believe God is at work in the churches I left as churches. I cannot deny the spiritual heritage in which I have been richly nourished. The Anglican church is the only historic, episcopal church that I could in good conscience join. So I began looking for Anglican churches in my area. But at this point, I was attending alone.
My family’s Anglican journey
Initially, my wife was hesitant to join an Anglican church, but God opened her heart. In late July, 2022, we planned our first visit the the church we now call home. She had two key encounters with women at the church who gave her a sense of comfort and answered some concerns she had. In the course of a month, she began inquiring into Anglicanism herself and utilizing the daily office. She then came to me and said that she would be willing to join this church. We officially joined the church and had our children baptized there in October 2022.
Over this past year, our family has benefited tremendously from the liturgy of the church, which is rich in scripture and theology. Each week we not only engage God with worship songs, but we confess our sins. We pray for Christians all over the world and hear of faithful Christians throughout church history. But most importantly, each week we receive Christ’s body and blood in the same manner as the early church. We have also experienced the power of the church calendar in the context of a worship community. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost: Each season allows us to enter different moments of the life of Christ with the church all over the world. In all of these ways, my faith has taken on an embodied character that is truly beautiful.
Anglican orders?
As one who has been a Christian for a number of years and felt called to lead God’s people, I find myself reimagining what ministry looks like as a new Anglican. Should I become an Anglican priest? Should I simply be Anglican in my personal devotion and worship, but continue teaching at an evangelical school? I am currently in conversations with my rector (pastor) to figure these things out. While I enjoy my work, I find the low church, evangelical, nondenominational culture to be limiting. It is hard for me not to share what I know freely. It is hard for me merely educate, and not catechize my students, in the riches of the historic Christian faith.
Additionally, I can’t help but think of my students’ parents, who consistently at Back to School nights over the years have told me “I wish I could take your class!” In my heart, I wish I could teach them! There are so many adults who have not had the privilege of attending a Christian school. Many of them came to faith later in life and are just trying to figure out what it means to be Christian. I feel compelled to help people connect with the faithful across time and space so they will see that “great cloud of many witnesses” and run the Christian race with zeal and purpose.
A new ministry
To that end, I am in the process of developing an adult catechetical school where those who desire to discern what it means to be a Christian today, in light of the past, can learn catholic doctrine and church history in an ecumenical context, with an eye towards building mutual understanding and ministry partnerships.
I believe God has been using my experiences to date to prepare me for this ministry, but I feel I have more to learn. I am excited to see what God does in my life as I continue studying, worshiping him in an Anglican context, and building this ecumenical ministry.
