RSSFinding Protestantism’s Lost Sacramental Soul
No one doubts that 20th Century Protestant literature was anemic. Sure, we can boast of C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot but they were both high church Anglican with anglo-catholic sentiments.
Why do Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics have such fertile imaginations and why are we so barren?
I wonder if the Federal Vision is an attempt to strike at the heart of the problem? Is it an attempt to restore the “magic” of a sacramental worldview into our colorless environment? If so, the attempt is noble.
A sacramental world-view understands that their is more to life than meets the eye. Like the church’s sacraments (signs and seals of grace Spiritually united to physical elements) the creation points beyond itself toward higher spiritual realities. Things mundane have meaning that transcends their earthly significance and drive us back to the Creator and His opposition party.
How can a sacramental vision be restored? Can Protestantism sustain one? Does the Protestant Orthodoxy’s rejection of the medieval “analogy of being†preclude such a vision? Thoughts?
James Jordan
September 27th, 2007 at 10:00 am
I really don’t think anyone was thinking, “let’s restore a ’sacramental vision.’” For myself, it’s a matter of obedience, what is sometimes called “regulative principle.” It’s a matter of trying to read the Bible as a total word from the total God to the total humanity, which I gather is “Biblicism.” The Bible is extremely artistic, full of repeated melodies “sung” by the Spirit/Breath of God (the 7-day sequence appears about 100 times; one exodus after another; etc.); replete with beautiful imagery that portrays successive worlds in God’s history; etc. I think over time those of us seeking to immerse ourselves in the Biblical worldview have become more artistic; or perhaps it’s our artistic temperaments that opened us up to such ways of reading.
As for sacraments, as I say, it’s a matter of obedience. If we were going for artistic feel, then some kind of walking forward and kneeling would be our instinct. But we contradict our instincts. Our religious instincts are usually wrong and always suspicious. It does not “feel pious” to sit in a pew and pass bread (daily type bread) and wine from hand to hand, eating as we go (as Jesus instituted) — but that does not matter. Our feelings must be retrained.
What’s now called “FV” is a conversation about how to be obedient to the Word, and in light of that to seek to correct some of the abuses/barnacles/infelicities/etcs. that always grow up in the Church.
I’m all for what you call a sacramental worldview, and the opening chapters of *Through New Eyes* are about “natural revelation.” But when you ask what the “FV” purpose was/is, it’s really not that at heart. At heart we believe that God knows best and that the more we can learn from the Bible, and the more we submit to it in thought and in how we live and move, the better people we shall become, better fit for service.
joshuawdsmith
September 27th, 2007 at 11:30 am
But…but…why don’t you mention the Reformed confessions here!? You’re anti-traditional! You’re modern!
W.H. Chellis
September 27th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Ah… but..
1. I do believe that there might be places in the Reformed tradition from whence a recovery could be made: Calvin, Nevin, Reformed Thomists like Vermigli and Zanchius, Bucer, ect.
2. I am willing to ask whether the whole thing is unreformed (unbiblical) and what might an alternative be to restoring the moral imagination to our midst.