Lessons from an English Cathedral
I am visiting in the United Kingdom for a couple of weeks, getting some quality “grandfather time” with two lovely granddaughters. In the process, we are dragging them around to all sorts of historical sites. They appear to tolerate it reasonably well, though I am sure they would rather do something else.
One thing we do when in the UK is visit old churches. There is no shortage of old church buildings in Britain. Of course, most of those we visit are Anglican churches and cathedrals. Portions of the buildings we are visiting go back to the 12th century (i.e. the 1100s). We are amazed at the thought of walking in places where notable names of the past walked.
The most impressive church we visited during this trip is the Hereford Cathedral. The notable attraction here is the Mappa Mundi, a “map” of the history of the world, describing creation, the Fall, coming of Christ and his work on the cross, and much more. The Hereford Cathedral souvenir booklet describes it as “one of the world’s most remarkable and important medieval works of art. It summarises [sic] the contemporary world view and is a delightful and fascinating combination of biblical and classical learning, enlivened with illustrations of strange creatures, and all presided over by an image of Christ the King.” (p. 23) Along with the Mappa Mundi, the Cathedral houses a “chained library,” i.e. a library of rare volumes including a copy of one of Wycliffe’s Bibles and the Complutensian Polyglot. The term “chained library” refers to the chains that bind the books to their benches to prevent thieves. In 1611, people were as light-fingered as they are today.
A placard outside the Cathedral lists a few names among those who lived within the “Close” of the Cathedral in years past. Of interest to me was Nicholas of Hereford, a contributor to the Wycliffe Bible translation and Bishop Miles Smith, one of the translators of the King James Version.
For anyone with an historical or scholarly bent, buildings like this hold a lot of interest. One could spend a good deal of time here. There is more to the history of the building than I can sketch in these few paragraphs. The church continues as a church, with regular services including beautiful choral music and a powerful pipe organ. Of course, the services are quite foreign to Baptists – this is an Anglican church, probably on the “High Anglican” side of that body. There is a shrine to a former bishop, Thomas Cantilupe, (pre-Reformation). In 1287, “miracles” occurred among those who visited his tomb. This qualified him for sainthood, his canonization occurring in 1320. Though Anglican, this shrine to a Catholic saint remains to this day.
Even more disturbing from a Biblical point of view is the doctrine the church teaches. I noticed a leaflet in the chapel to “Saint” Thomas with the title, “An Introduction to Christianity.” A portion of it follows. It includes some ideas derived from the Bible, but then states them in such a way as to distort what the Bible actually says.
As Jesus travelled around Judea proclaiming this new ‘way’, he gathered a group of disciples and other followers, bringing healing and wholeness to many people. He attracted enthusiastic followers, but he also made enemies. He was arrested and put to death. His followers dispersed, confused and frightened. Then, very quickly, they became convinced that God had raised Jesus from the dead. This conviction led them to worship Jesus and they called him ‘Son of God’.
They then experienced a surge of divine power that gave them the courage to start telling people about their new conviction, and about what they had seen God do in Jesus. This power they called the Holy Spirit — God at work in them.
Over the next two or three hundred years these convictions were gradually turned into agreed teachings about the nature of God. The early church wanted to hold on to the Jewish conviction that there is only one God, but they also wanted to do justice to their Christian experience.
They held these beliefs together in what is called the doctrine of the Holy Trinity — the teaching that one God is experienced in three distinct ways — as Creator and Father, as Jesus his Son, and as the Holy Spirit. These three persons are yet One God.
A practicing, church-going Christian sees his or her religion involving belief about God’s showing of himself in the crucified and risen Jesus, belonging to the community of other Christians, and an attempt to live according to the values of the Kingdom of God. Jesus summarized those values as:
Love of God
Love (meaning care and concern) for others.
As I read this pamphlet, I groan over the weakness of its statements. A lost person reading these words might grasp some of its Biblical sourcing — but what confusion would it produce! Would a lost person really get the Trinity from its description? God is “experienced in three different ways” — does that communicate “three persons, one God”? Would a lost person know what it means to become a Christian? It sounds like all that is needed is some kind of belief about “the crucified and risen Jesus” and a life attempting to live by Kingdom values.
My purpose isn’t to criticize Anglicanism, nor am I particularly worried that some of our readers are likely to be converted to their way of thinking. What I want to point out is that our Baptist forefathers were the product of Dissent from this kind of thinking. Baptists took the Bible as the very Word of God and were unwilling to remain in a system dominated by dead tradition and saint worship.
In some ways, the history, beauty, music, traditions and trappings of the Anglican cathedral have an appeal. There is real beauty here. There is much history, and these churches really built the community of the towns and villages where they dominated the social and intellectual life. However, spiritual life isn’t built on beauty or tradition, it is founded on repentant saving faith in Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour from sin. We aren’t converted by joining a community. We are converted by falling on our knees and crying out to Christ for salvation.
May we, in our own assemblies, keep out soul-deadening tradition and cling to the spirit of revival that calls men to faith and repentance. May we maintain a real community of saints, separated from the world, serving God faithfully according to the Scriptures.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
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