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Ask NT Wright Anything
S2E2 Denominational Differences: Anglicans, Catholics, Works, Faith and The Holy Spirit
00:35:54
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Dr. Mike Bird
Podcast welcome back to another ed of the Ask nt Write AnyThings podcast. I'm Dr. Mike Bird from Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia.
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Tom Wright
And I'm Tom Wright, sitting here in my study in Oxford in England.
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Dr. Mike Bird
So today, on the Ask nt Write Anything podcast, part of the premier unbelievable podcast, we're going to tackle some denominational questions. What do different parts of the church believe? What do they practice, and does it really make a difference? Now I've got to ask you, Tom, have you been anything other than an Anglican?
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Tom Wright
No. I was born and bred as a member of the Church of England, part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and lots of my family were ordained clergy or lay workers, church wardens and so on. So I grew up very much in an Anglican world in the northeast of England, and there have been two or three times when I've thought, you know, is this actually the right place to be? I remember when I was a student, several of my friends were becoming very zealous Baptists, and I remember them trying to persuade me that I should abandon this corrupt structure called Anglicanism and join them in one of the new free church movements that was starting up. I don't actually now remember why I didn't do that, because it was quite attractive at the time and a lot of people that I knew and respected were going that route. But there was something anchoring me to the Anglican world, and I think it's particularly because the rhythm of worship and the centrality of the reading of scripture and the praying, which is itself scriptural around those readings. And I'm talking about Anglican morning and evening prayer here. They seem such a solid place to stand day by day, year by year, that I've never seen the need to jump this way or that, even though I've done a lot of ecumenical work with Methodists, with Roman Catholics, some with Eastern Orthodox. And a lot of my family have gone in different directions, whether, whether it's some to Pentecostal movements and so on. And one of the great things about being an Anglican is that there is a lot of freedom to move this way and that. And I've often thought about this, because if you grow up as a German Lutheran, for instance, and you start to think that maybe the Lutheran world wasn't quite right and that maybe the Roman Catholic world was the right one because so much of Germany was either or Lutheran or Catholic, then that's a huge jump to make. Whereas for an Anglican, if you start to sense that what you're reading in the Bible and so on doesn't quite fit with the church where you are, the particular Anglican church where you are. Well, actually the Anglican movement is all about saying that the Bible is what matters as the key to who Jesus was and who God is. And so if you're reading the Bible and finding different things in it, well, that's fine. That's what we all ought to be doing. And so I've found freedom to move this way and that while remaining absolutely anchored to that central structure of worship and prayer which is the very heart of Anglican Anglicanism. So I, I could say more about that, but that's probably enough for the moment.
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Dr. Mike Bird
Well, my denominational journey has been a lot more colorful. You know, I didn't grow up in a Christian family. I never got taken to church as a child. And, you know, I came to faith through a Baptist church in Sydney while I was in the army. And I went to a Baptist theological college. Great place, Malian college. And yes, I became Baptist for a while. Then I moved to Scotland, which basically meant I had to choose between about six different types of Presbyterian. And I mean, that was fun. And that kind of brought me a little bit, you know, harder into the, or deeper into the Reformed world. And while I was in Scotland, someone told me that F.F. bruce, the great biblical scholar, kept two books on his desk. One was a Greek New Testament and the other one was a book of Common Prayer. Now, FF Bruce was, you know, lifelong brethren, so as low church as you can possibly go, but even he liked a little bit of, you know, reading from the, the daily office and the, and the, the daily collects we get in the Anglican Church. So I thought I'd give try and I fell in love with it. And that was kind of, you know, my way of getting into the Anglican tradition. And, you know, eventually was received and then ordained into holy orders. So, yeah, I mean, and I find today people do tend to be a little bit more fluid in their own journeys in denominations. People, you know, can sort of, you know, flit and flutter between different denominations. And we have a question here for someone who's going through a bit of a. Well, not an identity crisis, but a. About what denomination they should belong to. So we have a question here from Andrew. Andrew says hello, Tom. I am loving the podcast. I'm 45, have become a follower of Jesus within the last year. Since my conversion, podcasts like yours have felt God sent and I thank you. I was not really brought up within any faith community and have never been baptized. I am now trying to find a church community to fellowship in and to be baptized, but as an introvert and habitual procrastinator, it's been a slow process. While my natural inclinations present their own, bars time on Sundays is at a premium. Since I have four young daughters and my wife of 13 years, she was raised Roman Catholic and she has seen a similar awakening to faith as mine and has started going to Mass regularly on Sundays. As I have never seen any reason to buck against my wife's father, faith and traditions, I have always accompanied her to Mass when practical. We were married in a Catholic church. Our four daughters have all been baptized by the Catholic Church, and the two older girls have been attending church classes on their path to confirmation and have even been singing in the church choir. All that is to say, while my theological understanding lands more squarely within Reformed traditions, there are strong familial reasons to consider Catholicism. However, without getting into specifics, I tend to think there are some doctrines held by the Catholic Church that may be counter to the Gospel. While I strongly believe practicing Catholics can be saved, I fear this might be despite the official doctrine. My wife tends to believe that my worries are all tangential issues. As long as I personally hold to the Gospel, it matters very little if I become a member of the Catholic Church or join in the Reformation tradition. My general issue is that older adults being baptized into the Catholic Church make a creedal statement, including something along the lines of I believe everything the Roman Catholic Church believes. I'm not sure my induction into the family of Christ should include a statement that at best would include huge mental asterisk and at worst would be a lie. Any thoughts and guidance would be much appreciated. Thank you again for the podcast. Well, that's. That's a big question, Tom. Basically, what's your opinion on the Roman Catholic Church and was the whole Reformation, a rather pointless fuss over nothing.
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Tom Wright
Thanks very much, Andrew, for the great question. And in a way, my heart goes out to you because that is a huge dilemma and I hear you've articulated it very well. You may be an introvert and habitual procrastinator, but you've drawn all this together very well. And I have a long experience of having friends within the Roman Catholic Church and also of engaging in dialogue with colleagues in Roman Catholicism. At one point I was on one of the international Anglican Roman Catholic dialogue groups discussing particular doctrines. And I was a consultant for another one later on when they were discussing all the Marian dogmas, the dogmas about the mother of Jesus, and they consulted me as to whether they were getting the formulations right or not. And there are all sorts of twists and turns. One overarching thing, which I would say is this, the Roman world, the world of Roman Catholicism, like the world of Southern Europe, of which Italy is part, does things quite differently from the world of Northern Europe, which tends to be more clinical, logical, either or, and so on. I remember going to a great conference in Rome where the very first day we were in this huge great hall and everyone was milling around getting name badges and signing on for this and organizing that, and it was absolute, total chaos, with photographers going to and fro and everything in a complete muddle. And then quite suddenly a bell rang and the Pope emerged with a procession. And suddenly everyone came to order and got into line and we all went into the main meeting. And it was like a parable for me of the way so much of the Roman world works, that they can live with this, they can do that. They don't much mind about this bit or that bit. But at a certain point they all line up and they say, yes, this is where we are, A, B, C and D. And then it goes back into delightful chaos again. And that's if you've visited Italy and spent time there. That's very much how the society tends to work. They've got certain laws, but now there's all sorts of freedom to explore this way and that. And my experience is that people who are brought up in the Roman Catholic world have that sort of instinct of, yes, we are loyal Catholics, we'll go to Mass, we'll listen to what the Pope says, we won't necessarily believe everything that's going on there, but we're not going to rock the boat, we're going to be part of that. I remember one quite senior Roman Catholic clergy person who I'd got to know Quite well. One day when we were in Rome, my wife and I were in Rome, there was a Marian festival going on. And I said to him, I said, what does that actually do for you? And he looked this way and looked that way and said, I believe in God. I'll see you later. By which I thought he meant actually there is a kind of a hierarchy of truths, and some things matter more than others. That is a point which Archbishop Rowan Williams made in a lecture in Rome some years ago when he argued very strongly, strongly that we basically all believe in the great doctrines of the faith. And Cardinal Walter Casper, who was one of my regular conversation partners a few years ago, who was the head of the Roman Catholic unit for ecumenical work, after decades of working with Christians from every other possible background, he wrote a book called Harvesting the Fruits, in which he went right through all the different dialogues with Methodists and Baptists and Orthodox and Anglicans, everybody. And he showed that again and again and again across the board. We all were believing in the Trinity, we all believed in the Incarnation of Jesus, we all believed in Jesus saving death and resurrection, we all believed in God's ultimate new world, even though we might describe it a bit differently. And the point of that book was, so what's the problem here, guys? And of course, part of the problem is that, well, within the Roman Catholic world, which is one part of Western Christianity, over against Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodox world, there have been some dogmas developed which, to be honest, have stuck in the throats of many in the Protestant tradition. But there are many Roman Catholics who, when they look back at the 16th century, the time of the Reformation, they say actually the people against whom Luther and the others were reacting were indeed right out of line. And had we been around then, I think we might well have agreed with Luther's critique, even though for all sorts of other reasons. The split that happened was as much of a tragedy as anything, because one of the great imperatives of the New Testament is the unity of all Jesus followers across the lines of ethnicity, family, culture, class, et cetera, et cetera. Neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, no male and female, all one in Messiah Jesus. Sadly, though the Reformers were so keen to emphasize the authority of Scripture, that great New Testament theme of unity seems to have often been pushed to one side. Or at least the way they could say they were being loyal to it was by saying that the Roman Catholic Church is no longer a church. And of course, then, as Mike said, you've got in Scotland, my beloved Scotland, where my wife and I are hoping to spend a fair bit of my retirement. There are indeed several different varieties of Presbyterianism all being rather suspicious of. Of one another. I find that very sad. So it's no surprise that then you have these questions coming up, that if the family has all its roots in the Catholic tradition, what should you do? And my sense for somebody in that position is that you should join in as far as your conscience allows. Now, of course, the Roman Catholic Church officially recognizes the baptism of other Christian denominations. Anyone who has been baptized with water in the name of the Trinity has been baptized. Some Roman Catholics will re baptize people to make sure it was kind of all legit. But actually official Roman Catholic teaching is that if, you know, I've been baptized as an Anglican, other people have been baptized as Baptists or Pentecostals or Methodists or whatever, the Roman Catholic official line is that baptism and the Bible are things we have in common and we can build on that. And so it seems to me that the way forward ought to be to get baptized, but to get baptized somewhere which isn't straining your conscience. Now, I know there are many, many Roman Catholic teachers today who would say, actually, if you're following Jesus, if you believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, if you believe that Jesus died and rose again and is the Lord of the world and will come again to judge the living and the dead and put all things right, then you're one of us. And yet there are other things which the church has taught, but not so central as those things. Now, this would be then a matter for a conversation between yourself and the parish clergy where you are. And that might be a matter of discussion, but I wouldn't push it too far. I wouldn't try to get too angular. I would say if they're happy with you as a trinitarian believer being baptized, fine. If not, there may be ways of getting baptized elsewhere. And then it's a question of whether the Roman Catholic Church will admit you to Mass or not. And some will and some might not. I know there are many who will. And this is then a matter of your own relationship with the parish clergy where you are. So that would be my sense of a way forward and particularly for you and your wife to read the Bible together. Because the Bible is the great, should be the great unifier. It hasn't always been so. But if you're reading the Gospels together day by day, then what you're hearing from Jesus and what you're seeing in each other, seeing Jesus is going to be far more important than whatever dogmas may come down from on high. And so then that would be the sheet anchor that would hold you and the family together and enable you, God willing, to be able to worship together on Sundays and at other times as well. So I'm not giving you the definite either or answer, but those are the practical steps you should take. Granted the extraordinary hinterland which is out there, and granted the enormous strides that we have made in mutual understanding and recognition over the last hundred years, for which I thank God much more than I could say. But that's where I'd start.
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Dr. Mike Bird
Now, I think that is a good place to start, Tom. I mean that there is part of me that wants to say, you know, long live the Reformation. You know, Luther and Calvin, they, they were onto something. And, you know, I could talk about, you know, Anglicanism at its best is what the Roman Catholic Church would look like if it embraced the Reformation. But you know, in my many journeys and I've worked in some ecumenical environments like yourself, Tom, you know, working with Catholic chaplains in the army, in theological education. I've met so some lovely golf gifted biblical scholars, you know, from the Catholic tradition, and they're great. Actually, just recently I had the pleasure of baptizing my brother who became temporarily Anglican, but that was so he could then be received into the Catholic Church. Long story, I won't explain it to everyone, but for a short while, in the eyes of God, he was Anglican publican, but then he was going to be, he was then received into the, into the Catholic Church. So, you know, I, I, I do see signs of life in the Catholic Church. It's not the same church as it is of 1517. And you can find, I mean, there are some Bible commentaries, like Romans commentaries, Tom, some of them written by Catholics. They sound more Protestant than some Protestants.
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Tom Wright
Absolutely, absolutely.
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Dr. Mike Bird
I think particularly of the one by Joseph Fitzmayers. And yeah, I think the most important thing is if you find a good congregation where there's a good, you know, either good priest or a good deacon or head team, they love God, they love God's people, and the word of God is read and preached. That's probably the, the number one thing to find in any denomination, irrespective of what the flavor is. Oh, well, I hope we've been able to help out our dear friend Andrew on that score. But it's now time, I think that we head off to a break. But don't go anywhere because we'll have another question for you very soon. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for Career Day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laugh at me to this day.
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Dr. Mike Bird
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Dr. Mike Bird
Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to be to Be welcome back. This is the Ask nt Write Anything podcast with me, Michael Byrd and Tom Wright. Another question for today is about justification and the way we live our lives. David is an avid listener of the podcast and he asked this. He says I must say that it was very inspiring and thought provoking to listen to Professor Wright. I was left with one major question at the end, though Mr. Wright was asked at the end to clarify what he means by his recurring theme of the the life lived in regards to the final salvation of a believer. I listened to his response twice to assure me that I hadn't missed what might be the pivotal answer regarding his understanding of the term justification. My question is, did Mr. Right actually answer the question of what we can depend on, if anything, when we stand before a holy God? Well, there you go, Tom. I think this is getting back into that language you've used sometimes talking about justification on the basis of a life lived. And I've heard more than one person ask a few questions about what you mean by that exact phrase. Tom, what do you have to say today?
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Tom Wright
Right, thanks Mike, and thank you to David for that question. The heart of the doctrine of justification, ever since it became the flavor of the month, as it were, in the Reformation period, is the letter to the Roman, Paul's letter to the Romans, where he spells out what we have come traditionally to call justification by faith, and so on. And in Romans Chapter two there is a very clear passage which has often been skipped over by those who are anxious about us trying to pin our flag on God's map, as well as God choosing and calling and leading us to faith. And it's that that sense of do I have to do something? Or is God doing it all? Which actually there's all sorts of philosophical and cultural assumptions behind that as well. Because in the Bible God creates humans in his own image so that he can work through humans in his world. So humans are supposed to be caught up within God's project, within God's world. And that doesn't mean that humans become puppets or automatons. It means that they are to be set free to be God reflectors to the image bearers in God's world. And that that stands behind Paul's theology of justification in a way which I think hasn't always been appreciated. But in Romans chapter two, Paul is very clear that there will be a final judgment, and that in that final judgment all those who have done good will be justified and all those who have done evil will not be justified. And that's very clear in Romans 2:1 11. And then Paul discusses a little bit more of the detail in verses 12 to 16. And that sort of hangs there in the air as a question, how can this be granted, as he says throughout chapters 118 through to 320, that all humans have sinned. And so in 321 following Paul says that in Jesus, God has brought the verdict of the future forward into the present. We were talking in a different episode about how the resurrection is about something which God has promised in the future coming into the present in the person of Jesus. And so here you've got the verdict of the future coming forward into the present. And the point is, when somebody believes in Jesus, then they don't have to wait for the verdict on the last day. That faith in Jesus means that God already says to them what he said to Jesus, you are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased. But when we then read on, on In Romans, Romans 5, 8 particularly we discover that the reason why people come to faith in Jesus and how they're embraced in the love of God in Christ is because of the work of the Holy Spirit. And you can't do a Pauline theology of justification without thinking about the work of the Holy Spirit, which according to various passages, is active in bringing us to faith. Paul says in first Corinthians, no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And saying Jesus is Lord is one of the two things which in Romans 10 he says are the crucial things for justification and salvation. You confess with your lips Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. But then those things themselves are the work of the Spirit. But the Spirit doesn't stop there, as it were. The Spirit comes to indwell to christify God's people, to make them, as CS Lewis said in Screwtape letters, little replicas of Jesus. That's who we're supposed to be. There is a danger here which I think is not always escaped by those who have been so struck by the Reformed doctrine of grace, that they then think that anything that I do at all is in danger of becoming a human good work, which would make me proud and me pinning my flag on God's map. As I said, not so in Romans 5. 8. It's very clear that the work of the Spirit, whose first sign is precisely somebody coming to faith. The work of the Spirit includes, must include what Paul calls the putting to death the deeds of the body. There's that very challenging passage in Romans 8. If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God, the sons and daughters of God. So if anyone says, well, that's fine, I've had this faith and I'm not going to try and do anything in terms of moral good works because that will simply compromise my justification by grace through faith alone, then Paul says, absolutely not. The same Spirit who leads you to faith must lead you to the life of holiness, the life of devotion to God, the life of giving yourself to God in that totality of love, which then is the sign that you really are God's child. So that the work of the Holy Spirit has often been bracketed out of the doctrine of justification. And so I think it's not always a terribly helpful question to say, what can we depend on when we stand before a holy God? Because if you ask that, the answer is of course, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, that the Holy God is the God who sent Jesus and who sends the Spirit. And that is who we are. We are defined as Jesus people, as Christ people, Messiah people. And we are defined that way because we have been anointed and equipped with the Holy Spirit. But if at any point it looks as though, well, the Holy Spirit doesn't seem to be having much effect in your life right now, that does perfectly fairly raise the question, are you sure that the Spirit really has been at work in you? That's why even St. Paul in First Corinthians says, I have to deal severely with my body, lest after preaching to others, I myself would be a castaway. In other words, even Paul, the great apostle of justification, is prepared to say, there is this thing called the Spirit led holiness of life which demands decisions and difficult decisions from me. And without that, then maybe I'm fooling myself. So I think that is always the line that Paul takes. One other thing here, which I've said again and again, but it really is Worth thinking through. The idea that what matters is what's it going to be like when I stand before a holy God shouldn't be the primary question. That's still putting me and me getting to God at the heart of everything. The Bible story isn't about how I get to God. It's about how God comes to me or to us, to his world. Incarnation and the gift of the Spirit are about God coming to dwell with us. The strap line at the end of the Bible isn't the dwelling of humans is with God, it's the dwelling of God is with humans. So we have to be careful lest we set up the whole drama of the Bible in terms of the law court when I'm going to stand before God. That is one image Paul uses, as I say in Romans 2. But that's the only place he uses that he doesn't use the law court image in Galatians, the other great book about justification. And I think what we often miss when we do it in the traditional way is what Paul is saying with his doctrine of justification. God has promised to put the whole world right at the end in the present time. He puts us right with him by grace through faith, so that we can be part of his putting right project for the world. And that is the call to doing justice in God's world. And justice has to include the putting right of my life and all that I'm doing not in order to earn the justification and the salvation of, but in order appropriately to express it. Now, there's a huge amount going on there. There's a thousand footnotes that Mike and I could quite easily add to what I've said and maybe little correctives here and there, but that's where I would start. Think about the real biblical narrative, which is about new creation and about us as individuals and us as the church being called to be small working models of new creation by the work of the Spirit, not in order to impress God, but because God has grasped us. And that's how it works.
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Dr. Mike Bird
I think that's a great way to put it, Tom, because you're capturing the themes of what God has done for us. But it doesn't end with Christ dying for our sins or that moment of faith. There is the sort of and yet and what God does next. And just as it goes, this semester gone by, I've had my students writing an exegetical paper on Romans, chapter two, verses 13 to 16. That's got those very tricky passages in it where Paul talks about justification to the doers of the law. And my students are kind of scratching their head going, this doesn't sound like, you know, four spiritual laws or the way I was taught about the Gospel. And then we go through the present and future aspects of justification, you know, just as you've described it there. And I think what really helps is you've got to remember this is something the Reformers were aware of, of they already had all this factored in. I mean, John Calvin said we're not saved by works, but neither are we saved without them. Or we could even go back to Augustine. Augustine said, yes, we're going to be judged by our works, but God himself is going to produce those good works in us by the Spirit. So justification, like a final judgment, is where God rewards his own works in us. And this is a theme you can find in other places like John 5 and elsewhere in the New Testament. I mean, I've always been a big fan of Leon Morris, a great New Testament scholar from, from Melbourne. And I loved what he said and I quote this often. He says, good works demonstrate the integrity of the faith that we profess. And it's the Spirit as you've been been talking about, that's what produces us. The good works that are not the basis for our justification but are the demonstrable proof of it that show that God's verdict in us has been afforded or it's, it's been matched with what the Spirit has done. And you know, this, the sense of the Spirit working us to produce all this good fruit, that's not meant to detract from our sense of assurance. It's meant to provide. And that's, you know, as you alluded to with Romans 3, you know, it's the Spirit Spirit that, that works in you. I think probably the best summary of that, Tom, and I think, I think you'll agree with this is, you know, when Paul says in Philippians, you know, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, which might make you sound a little bit sort of, you know, anxious, but he says, why? Because God is at the. At work within you to. Willing to work for his own good pleasure. Now if you change that language into justification, you know, be justified by faith because God is at work with you, so your, your behavior will eventually match your identity and your status before God. That's something that gives me a great sense of assurance.
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Tom Wright
Yeah, that's great. And I think there's a real problem there pastorally because there are many young Christians in various traditions, but particularly in the reformed traditions who have been to an evangelistic meeting and have either put up their hand or said a prayer or been with a counselor and have prayed for Jesus to come into their lives. And then they've been told that, that you mustn't try and add to this in any way because then you're corrupting the purity of your faith. And there are many then Christians in their teens and twenties who are thinking, well, I've been justified by faith because that's what the person said when I said that prayer. So I will go to heaven. What am I supposed to be doing now in between whiles? And does it matter what I do now? And I hear very sad stories of people who have got to that position and thought, well, it really doesn't matter whether I behave myself this way or that, because if it did matter, that would be compromising justification by faith. That's a trap. And if there are people falling into that trap, they must be warned. No, go back and read the whole of Romans and Philippians and everything else, and you'll find a much larger, richer picture than that oversimplified truncated message would in. Would indicate.
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Dr. Mike Bird
That's right. I mean, you can't simply base your discipleship on, you know, nothing. Myself, I bring simply to the cross. I clean. You've got to go on with God. You have to prosecute your sanctification, grow in godliness, seek to be conformed to the image of Christ because God's spirit is edging you on and willing and encouraging you to do precisely those sorts of things. Yeah, that's. And when we say that's probably the big gap I think we have in our discipleship, we think, is it something that I did once for all, and then I just sort of, you know, biding time or doing the best I can on my own steam until the end of all things. Where's the energy, the drive, and the sense of, you know, really needing to, you know, seek that closer intimacy with God and a life of holiness? Not because, you know, it's contingent upon what I do. It's always about what God is doing, done, but it's going on in the grace you've received. So I think, I think that's the takeaway for day. I think that's the takeaway for today.
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Tom Wright
That's great.
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Dr. Mike Bird
Well, we need to leave it there. But have no fear, we will be back. So let us know your thoughts@askantyright.com and if you want to binge listen to Tom's back catalog, the vast archive of Ask NT Wright Anything podcasts over the years. Then head over to premierunbelievable.com shows and you can find a lot more great content to listen to. Until next time, it's goodbye from Tom.
- [34:39]
Tom Wright
Goodbye.
- [34:40]
Dr. Mike Bird
And it's goodbye from me, Mike Bird. Take care everyone. God bless you. We'll see you on the next episode of Ask NT Write Anything. You've been listening to the Ask NT Write Anything podcast. Let other people know about this show by rating and reviewing it in your podcast provider.