Tag: Sacraments

Word, Sacrament & Spirit: a book review

Gordon Smith’s Evangelical, Sacramental & Pentecostal begins with a couple of anecdotes. Smith tells about being on a bus heading to a theological conference in Lima, Peru, where he was to speak. He struck up a conversation with Chilean Anglicans and asked them what was distinctive about the Anglican church in their context. They responded,”The Anglican church in Chile is evangelical but not sacramental.” Smith silently mused, “but why do you have to choose.”(1) Later that year he was visiting a Baptist theological college in Romania before heading to a Pentecostal college. His Baptist host made clear the difference, “we are evangelical, they are pentecostal” (1-2).
5160Smith asserts that the Christian faith shouldn’t be forced into false dichotomies which place Word against sacrament or Word against Spirit. The fullness of Christian experience includes all three dimensions—it is evangelical, sacramental AND pentecostal.  Smith helps enlarge our vision and deepen our ecclesial and spiritual lives. If we are to know the grace of God fully, we need Word, sacrament, and Spirit.

Smith begins by exploring how evangelicals, sacramentalists, and pentecostals each have different approaches to Scripture.  In chapter 1, he examines John 15:4, “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.” Smith points out, evangelicals  understand the abiding life as involving time in the Word—reading, studying, preaching and meditating on it (14), sacramentalists describe how abiding in Christ involves participating in the Eucharist with a community of the baptized (14-18), pentecostals emphasize the connection between God and humanity which comes through the outpouring of the Spirit’s presence (19-20).  Smith observes, “All three, taken together are the means by which the benefits of the cross are known and experienced. The three—the Spirit, along with Word and sacrament—are then the means by which the intent of the cross is fulfilled in the life of the church, the means by which we abide in Christ, as Christ abides in us” (21).

In chapter two, Smith walks through Luke-Acts, highlighting the immediacy of the Spirit, the devotion to the Word and the sacramental fellowship. Chapter three fleshes out how these three components belong together in a full-orbed Christian spirituality. The remaining three chapters consider in turn the evangelical, sacramental and pentecostal streams. Smith explores the insights, contributions, and practices of each stream and the ways in which they augment and inform one another.

Capital “P” Pentecostals will not be happy with everything Smith says here. He does emphasize dynamic spiritual experience—immediacy, and intimacy with God(98) and root this in Pentecost (the Spirit sent in Acts 2, and earlier in John 20:22); however, he looks to the insights of the broader Christian tradition and history in expounding on the pneumatological character of the Christian life, citing John of the Cross and Ignatius of Loyola, but no Pentecostals like Charles Parham, William Seymour, and Azuza street, or other contemporary Pentecostal voices. Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement are spoken of by Smith in broad, general terms. What Smith is attempting to do is hold up the charismatic/pentecostal nature of the Christian life, for Christians of all stripes and theological persuasions. Without the giving of the Spirit, there is no conversion, no Word of God, no sacramental efficacy and no intimacy with God. But if you expect to hear a commendation to charismatic revivalism, tongues speaking, and the ongoing place of prophetic utterance, you won’t find it here.

Smith doesn’t just dislike hard theological/denominational categories, he himself defies such categorization. He is ordained in the Christian Missionary Alliance and is president and professor of one of their institutions (Ambrose University, Calgary), but his Ph.D. is from Loyola. He is an Evangelical in the holiness tradition who upholds the sacraments. He is a spiritual director and lover of Jesuit spirituality committed to the evangelical mission, ecumenism, and global theological education for the church. This book draws together the various strands.

I was lucky enough to audit a couple of classes with Smith while I attended Regent College. I took a course on Conversion and Transformation and a class on the sacraments, highlighting, in turn, the evangelical and sacramental streams (though in both instances he expounded the pneumatological character of each).  He has become one of my favorite authors of Christian Spirituality and he never fails to make me see things in new ways. I recommend Evangelical, Sacramental, and Pentecostal for anyone who feels like their faith has become one dimensional and wants to deepen their understanding of the Christian life. —★★★★½.

Notice of material connection: I received a copy of this book from IVP Academic in exchange for my honest review.

Good News Lent: Baptism

 

It began with a baptism. Before Jesus’ forty-day fast—his wandering in the desert to be tempted by the devil—before he took the road to the Calvary, before even his earthly ministry, Jesus came from Galilee to be baptized by John in the Jordan river (Mark 1:9). Baptisms are always good news. They are a celebration of something new: a new birth, a new sense of belonging, a new work of God in the baptized. Jesus’ baptism is no exception. It inaugurated a new phase for the Incarnate Son. He no longer was biding his time until the preordained hour. With his baptism, something new began: Jesus came preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God.

Continue reading Good News Lent: Baptism

My Confirmation Book: a book review.

The church I grew up in did not practice confirmation.  The sacraments that we celebrated were two: Communion and Baptism and not everyone called these sacraments. The way we practiced Baptism was that when people were old enough to follow Christ in obedience, they signified this by getting Baptized. We called it ‘Believers’ Baptism.’ Thus when some of my Catholic friends were getting confirmed, I got dunked.  As an adult I attend a denomination which does practice infant Baptism and Confirmation (as well as ‘Believers’ Baptism’) but still the rite of confirmation is something I never experienced personally. Yet I appreciate how this rite helps young people deepen their Baptismal vows.

When I sat down to read Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle’s My Confirmation Book, in a very real way, I read this book as an outsider. O’Boyle is a popular Catholic author and a television host on EWTN. I am a low-church protestant.  She wrote this book to help young Catholics to grow in their faith.  While I share a love for helping others mature in their faith and deepen their life commitment to God, her experience is different from my own, and her religious idiom is also different.

But then we aren’t that different.  I did go through ‘confirmation.’ For ‘believers’ baptists’ and adult converts, confirmation and baptism are all one rite.  I have experienced liturgically the moment when I had solidified my commitment to Christ and celebrated the gift of the Spirit in my life. While those who practice infant Baptism experience confirmation as a deepening of our baptismal identity, I confirmed the truth of Christ’s work in my life by entering baptismal waters.

I  appreciated the advice that O’Boyle dispenses to young Catholics. In my own religious heritage, we would emphasize growing in Biblical understanding through daily Bible reading. We would also talk about being involved in God’s mission (acts of service and evangelism). In nine pithy chapters, O’Boyle encourages the newly confirmed to enter deeper into what it means to be Catholic. By affirming their baptismal identity through Confirmation, young Catholics understand that they are ‘members of the Church.’ Through the gift of the Spirit they grow in wisdom and understanding, experience God’s counsel, grow in fortitude and piety,  have reverence for God and are empowered for mission.  The sacrament of confirmation underscores the reality that the Christian life is a Spirit led, Spirit empowered life.

But O’Boyle also lays emphasis on the prayer. Each of the short chapters closes with a small challenge and a prayer to enter deeper into union with God. These are brief and aimed at those who are young in their faith. They are not the prayers of the great mystics of the Church, but they commend an attentiveness to God in all things.   The reflections are designed for young people (I would guess 12-15). Depending on the age or maturity of the confirmand, some of these reflections are a little too youthful. But for the most part I think that high-school-age-Catholics will benefit from this book.

I am and remain a protestant Christian, but I appreciate the depth and thoughtfulness of this book and what confirmation wroughts in young Catholic believers. I heartily commend this resource as a gift book if you know a young person who is getting confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church. Much of what is said here is applicable to other ecclesial communities but it is written directly for a Catholic context, so will be most appreciated by fellow Catholics.

Thank you to Paraclete Press for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for this review.