Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. Pastor Wolfmuller. Pastor Packer. And look at this. Pastor Stephen Wedgeworth of Christ Anglican Church in South Bend, Indiana. True. Is that where you are, Stephen?
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. South Bend, Indiana, which is actually on the north side of the state, home of the Fighting Irish.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: We're going to settle all the disputes between the Lutherans and the Anglicans on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Pastor Packer, this conversation started because you found Pastor Wedgeworth respond in one of our videos.
[00:00:30] Speaker C: Yes. He wrote an article poking some holes in the Lutheran view of real presence. I've actually been reading Pastor Wedgeworth's stuff for many, I don't know, many years. You've been writing for worlds and for Advantas and where else have you been writing for God?
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Council Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and anywhere else that'll have me.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: Yes, he's been writing for a long time. And we actually, we have a connection that goes back even further than you and I, Pastor Wolfmidder, because we used to debate and discuss things on Zanga.com which many of the watchers of this YouTube channel probably have never heard of.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: I've never heard of it.
[00:01:11] Speaker C: There was pre Facebook days. Okay. So goes way back.
So we've kind of had a little bit of a connection and we're friends on Facebook. So I reached out and said, hey, you want to come discuss this? Since he talked about our video and thought it'd be at least interesting.
But maybe a question to start for Pastor Wedgeworth. Well, first of all, tell us about yourself and then, then I'll ask some other questions. You want to tell us where here I mentioned what church you're at, but how long have you been there and maybe how long have you been Anglican? Because I know you haven't always been Anglican. So.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah, so I am at Christ Church, which is an Anglican parish and the big tent is acna. But it helps to also know the diocese because we have sort of different flavors even within our big tent. So I'm in the Diocese of the Living Word.
Our church is probably characterized by a historic interest. We want to follow the 39 articles. We use the old, older Book of Common Prayer.
So we're maybe unusual compared to American Anglican churches in that way.
But we would be associated with the global Anglican movement. Sometimes you hear that called gafcon, Global Confessing Anglicans.
And we're very interested in promoting a sort of historic reformation based Anglicanism.
I've been here about four years and you're right, I have not Always been Anglican. I was Presbyterian for most of my adult life.
This is actually my first Anglican church.
But hopefully without being too cliche and too corny, I can say that it really does feel like where I ought to be.
I feel like I can actually do the sort of churchmanship, theology, and liturgy that I had an interest in previously, but it kind of fell outside of the more natural Presbyterian boundaries.
And so being in a classic Anglican world has been a really great fit.
[00:03:18] Speaker C: Okay, great. I think the first question that maybe we'll ask is, what do you see as maybe a few of the biggest similarities between you and, like, we'll just say the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and maybe some of the biggest differences, and then I'll throw that to Pastor Wolfmler and see if he agrees or disagrees with your assessment from his perspective.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: Yeah, no. Well, you and I were talking before we did the episode. There's this meme on the Internet, and I don't know where the picture originally comes from, but you know, this woman, and she's talking to these two guys and says, are you two friends?
And the first guy says yes. The second guy says no.
And it's simultaneous answer.
And I joke that that's kind of us. Right, right.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Well, the Lutherans just answer no to any question. So it's. It's accidental that we say no.
[00:04:15] Speaker C: We don't like to have friends.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: That's right. We don't even like ourselves.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: That's true.
So, I mean, how are we alike? I mean, look at us. We're all wearing clerical collars. Pastor Wolf Mueller even has the proper clerical collar. So good job.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Oh, don't.
[00:04:34] Speaker C: You're not help here.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: You know, our traditions retained a lot more of the early church and even certain medieval features of Christendom. So we're part of the Reformation, but our traditions wanted to keep as much as possible rather than being a more radical version of Reformation.
I imagine we're all wearing some sort of robe or clerical attire in our liturgies.
We probably have services that look very similar.
Confession of sin, reading of scripture, sermon offering, pastoral prayer, ending with the sacrament of communion and a benediction.
And I imagine our liturgies are pretty consistent, you know, week to week. It's not a spontaneous changing thing.
So I think that's similar.
We both hold to sola scriptura.
We both hold to sola fide. We're justified by faith in Christ, and it's his work, ultimately, that saves us.
So in my mind, those are really some of the most essential features.
And it goes without saying that we share in common the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the person of Christ. And so, yeah, we have lots in common.
In the biggest picture, you know, we're very similar. And even when compared to other versions of Protestants, I would guess that, you know, my church and your churches would be pretty close.
Even. Even, like, if you could relate me my church to, like, just a gospel coalition Evangelical. Right.
We. I'd probably be more like your churches in that sense.
Differences.
They're the famous doctrinal differences, one of which is the presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, which I'm sure we'll say more about.
Maybe some of the ways we talk about predestination could be different, though maybe not.
That depends on the personalities, I think, as much as anything.
And then I think the Lutherans are much still today. They're still more tightly connected with an ethnic heritage.
Certainly, you know, if you come to the ACNA churches these days, there'll be people that are generically English, sort of, but they're really just American.
And there'll be plenty of folks who would not have been from a traditional English background. They just find us because they're kind of in this broad mix of American, Protestant, Christianity.
So we don't have that same kind of tight connection. I don't think that when I visit Lutheran churches, you know, most of the names are still German names, maybe Scandinavian, and people seem to be very, you know, from a shared heritage, much more.
[00:07:42] Speaker C: All right, Pastor Wolf Mueller, how about you? What do you. I don't.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: I'm offended because Wolf Mueller is a Japanese name, obviously.
[00:07:52] Speaker C: Yeah, obviously.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: I. I'm so. I. So first of all, I appreciate that you were taking apart our doctrine of the Lord's Supper, the confession, and I think you were mostly going after the rhetoric. But there's a real difference. And this is one of the reasons why I appreciate it so much, is because most of the time when I'm talking to Anglicans, I'm trying to convince them that they don't believe in the body and blood like we do.
And I'm like, I'm reading the 39 articles. I'm like, look at what I'm reading the rubric in the liturgy that says, you know, that explains the. That they are rejecting the mandukatio indignorum, this question that came out of the Reformation about what does the unbeliever get in the Lord's Supper? And they're like, no, no, no, no. In fact, I was talking to a guy. He became Lutheran. He was a He was an Episcopalian priest. And I said, was it hard to go from not having the body and blood to having. Like, was that a big change? He's like, no, I always believed it anyways. And so can. I mean, I kind of want you to argue from the Anglican perspective about why the Lutherans are wrong. This will be a huge help for me.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Very good. Yeah. Yeah.
It's funny, like, even the way you talk about it, some of that I want to agree with you. Yeah. And sometimes. Well, I wouldn't say it the way you just said it about us either, so it can be a little bit tricky.
But I think it is fair to say that many Anglicans have not really sought to continue the doctrine of the 39 articles and the doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer in a very careful way.
But rather, today, many Anglicans kind of come into Anglicanism because they want to be different from Baptist.
They want to be different from even Presbyterians.
So they say, well, we must basically agree with the Lutherans, or sometimes they'll even say, we agree with the Catholics.
And I think that's more just a cultural historical problem than anything in the longer tradition.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: I'm looking for the. I'm looking for the part in the. I got my Book of Common Prayer out here, but. So I'm looking for the part of the liturgy, but just in the Lord's Supper.
It's especially after the Lord's Supper is explained or confessed here.
So just in Article 28, the body of Christ is given, taken, eaten in the Supper only after, in heavenly and spiritual manner.
And the means whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith. And then article 29 is explicit. The wicked and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally invisibly press with their teeth, as St. Augustine saith, the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. Yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ, but rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the sign or sacrament of so great a thing.
So this question of what does the unbeliever get in the Lord's Supper came out of the Reformation, the Lutherans hunting down, in some ways, the crypto Calvinists. Right.
Calvin talked about how the finite is not capable of the infinite.
The body of Christ is at the right hand of the Father. It's circumscribed into a. A location. Therefore, it's not available to be in the bread and wine that the people who come to the Lord's Supper are communing with the divine nature of Christ, and that by the ascent of faith.
And you can correct this, of course, but. So all these Calvinists were basically agreeing with the Augsburg Confession, and the Lutherans had to, like, how do you sort out the difference?
So they would ask this question, the manducatio indignorum, what does the unbeliever receive in the Supper? And the Lutheran answer is, the body of Christ, the blood of Christ. And the Calvinist answer was, not the body of Christ, not the blood of Christ.
And the 39 articles answer the question that way. Right.
Is it more complicated than that, or am I right about how the 39 articles approach the question?
[00:12:25] Speaker B: So you're definitely right that the 39 articles are articulating a variation of the Reformed perspective rather than a Lutheran perspective.
So definitely for that, you're right on.
And the key way to tell is exactly what you said.
What do the wicked receive?
And this is actually so controversial that Queen Elizabeth ordered that particular article to be suppressed because she had had a goal, as have had many English monarchs, by the way, of creating this kind of Protestant league, uniting all of the Protestant nations of Europe and then being able to rival the Holy Roman Empire.
So because she was hoping to be able to do that, she ordered that particular article to be suppressed.
Now, it was not a successful project. That never happened. And so by the end of her life, that article returned.
So you didn't even have to wait for her to die, like, even in her own day.
Article 29 made a comeback.
But the fact that she needed to suppress it, I think, is pretty good proof that it was a controversial point. It was a breaking point, for sure.
Other things you can tell is at the end of the communion liturgy, you'd have to have an older BCP to see this. The Americans have changed the letters a little bit, but the rubric at the very end, if you have an English BCP, a 1662 or earlier, there's a rubric explaining why we kneel at communion.
And this was colloquially referred to as the black rubric, which I love. It sounds very spooky because it was printed in black ink, whereas every other rubric was printed in red ink.
And it was just a funny little thing they had added at the last minute due to pressure. But the black rubric is a defensive kneeling communion.
But it says, we don't want you to get the wrong idea and think we're kneeling to worship the elements.
That's not what we're doing.
And in that explanation. Let me find the words here, it actually goes into this doctrine of the real presence, it says, this should not be misunderstood.
So therefore it is here declared. No adoration is intended or ought to be done to the sacramental bread or wine, nor to any corporal presence of Christ's natural flesh and blood.
For the sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natures, sorry, very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored.
For that would be idolatry to be abhorred by all faithful Christians.
And so here's the real, I think, dividing line.
The natural body and blood of our Savior Christ are in heaven, not here.
It being against the truth of Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than one.
So that rubric is, in my mind, the most definitive statement where we would have a disagreement between Reformed and Lutheran doctrines.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: How is it so? And this has to do with the nature of the Anglican confessional construct and the Lutheran confessional construct, which is hard for me to get my head around.
But how is it that there's so many Anglicans and you no doubt have kind of, like you said, interacted with them, that just.
That doesn't kind of take hold where they would say, oh, well, I think it. No, I still think it's the body and the blood. I mean, what's going on there in the theological construct?
[00:16:44] Speaker B: So some of this is sacramental language and explaining it appropriately. So we do say in the Lord's Supper liturgy that we feed upon Christ's body and blood.
So the Anglicans are not denying that we feed upon Christ's body and blood.
And earlier in your summary, Pastor Wolfmuller, you said that Calvin taught that we feed upon the divine nature, or it's the divine nature of Christ that's present.
And you do hear a lot of Calvinists say that.
And they'll say that the human nature is not present.
I think that's a mistake.
I don't think that's true to Calvin.
Some recent research that can be an easy place to see this, I would say Keith Matheson, he's got a book about Calvin's doctrine called Given for your.
He makes a defense that Calvin has more than that.
But even if we don't talk about Calvin, certainly the Anglican tradition says we feed upon Christ's body and blood.
The debate is what that means and how.
How we do it.
And so when the article says we feed upon it after a spiritual or heavenly fashion, it's not trying to say, therefore no body, no blood.
It's trying to say that the body and blood are, are located in heaven and so our feeding upon the body and blood happens in that sort of a way, which is perhaps mysterious to explain, supernatural, spiritual.
But we do affirm a feeding on the body and blood.
And in our shorthand, if I handed someone the bread at the Lord's Supper, I say the body of Christ.
So there's no trying to avoid that.
That might cause the confusion, though, because if you only do that and you don't talk about some of this background theology, then someone could very easily just slide into a different understanding.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: Now, you can correct me if I'm wrong. On this. In your article, it sound like your issue with the Lutheran view is that we're quick to say, hey, we just take the words of Jesus as is, and yet we too, add all kinds of things to say, hey, Christ is mysteriously present. We're not actually. You mentioned that. I mentioned the Kaepernitic eating, the cyclopic eating. Like, we wouldn't say, it's like eating Christ's flesh and blood, just like it is with eating a cheeseburger or something. Like Lutherans often make that point. And so we say the Sacramento Union is miraculous, and we say it is mysterious.
And I, I think the point of your article was we don't escape what you're doing right now, which is trying to explain how we understand those words, that it isn't, it isn't as easy. We can, we can say rhetorically, hey, we just take Jesus as words. But your point is you're doing the same thing we're doing. You're just doing it in a slightly different way. Would that be. That'd be fair. Summary.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I don't want to, you know, dismiss, you know, your view and say, hey, therefore, you're wrong, we're right. But what I want to say is you have to do the same sorts of rhetorical things that we have to do, which is you start with one statement, but then when you hit a certain dilemma, you say, well, let me, let me explain that statement better. Don't take it too far, because when I first encountered that word that you used, Andrews, Kaepernatic, you know, I was like, what in the world? What does this mean?
And then you go look at the reference and you're, oh, John six.
But wait a minute. In all of my debates, people go to John 6 and they say, see, it's a real literal eating. It's John six. Right.
But we're saying it's not the John six misunderstanding.
So, yes, there's some caveats, there's some clarifications.
There are rhetorical statements being made that are very strong that then get followed up by some arguments that might actually weaken them a little bit out of necessity.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: What is the Anglican take on John? So the classical Lutheran take, and most modern Lutherans miss the importance, importance of this, the classical Lutheran take is that John six is not in fact a discussion of the Lord's Supper, but rather Jesus is grabbing the picture of manna in the Old Testament and translating it as a type of the Incarnation.
And so the eating of the bread there is the confession of the Incarnation. And this has been like the early Lutherans, the Bronze Age Lutheran, they all understood the importance of this. Modern Lutherans have just said, hey, it looks like the Lord's Supper.
[00:22:04] Speaker B: So we're going to go with the
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Lord's Supper and have been really lazy about it. And it's, it's sort of undercut in my opinion, our sacramental theology. So the like classic Lutheran is no, Jesus is not talking about the supper in John 6. How would that, what's the Anglican approach there?
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think we're probably exactly the same. I think the older view, it probably says exactly what you just said about the older Lutheran view. This is not really about the Lord's Supper. This is a typological explanation of the Incarnation, how Christ taking on flesh is then going to give us eternal life.
But yes, modern people, it's just too good to pass up. Right here he's saying this statement that certainly seems like, you know, it sounds like what we want to say, so let's use it.
And again, so many Anglicans join Anglicanism out of a reaction against modern evangelicalism that they want the big guns, they want the heavy hitting passages.
And so this one seems like it's really helpful.
But I don't think you see that in the older Anglican discussion now.
I mean you could say John six is talking about the Lord's Supper in a figurative fashion. You know, like we're looking backwards.
We can kind of take the doctrine of John 6 and then apply it to our doctrine of the Lord's Supper. That's fine.
But yeah, at the time that Jesus is giving that discourse, I don't think the Lord's Supper is really the thing that's being focused on.
So I would agree with the way that you put it.
[00:23:50] Speaker C: Marcus, Calendars, everyone, the Lutherans and Anglicans are agreeing on something important.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
And actually don't we, I mean I think that we're both getting this ultimately from St. Augustine. You know, when you read St. Augustine he will talk a lot about the Lord's Supper, but in John 6, he does the same thing. He says, well, but, you know, this is really a much bigger idea here.
So I think that we're just. We're meditating on a common heritage, and many people are unaware of that.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Yeah, could I, could I ask you to lean in a little bit? So there's. You hit on it and. But then I think I distracted you, and I'm sorry about that. But just like the, the, the way that an Anglican is confessional is different than the way that a Lutheran is confessional. And, And Kitty, can you help, can you help with that or do you agree with that?
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I certainly know what you mean. I know why you're asking that question.
This is precisely one of the issues that I and my ministry and some of my associates are trying to correct.
There has been a long assumption that Anglicans are not really confessional, or maybe they were confessional at one time and stopped being confessional.
And in the worst cases, people actually have a whole theology of this where they say, no, we get our confession from the prayer book.
The liturgy is our confession, not these articles.
I think that's just wrong.
I think that is a bit of propaganda that certain schools of Anglicanism came up with to justify the fact that they were out of line with the Confessions.
They just simply don't like the 39 articles at certain points.
And so they come up with this, this argument.
And because the Anglican Church was very broad and it hadn't had to defend itself on a real rigorous basis, it was unfortunately vulnerable to a lot of people kind of saying, yeah, let's just do that.
We don't want to be too stuffy anyway. That sounds good.
And so it's really a middle of the 19th century, early 20th century phenomena.
But sadly, it was widely successful.
That move really did work on a lot of people.
And I would argue that that sets up the collapse of the main line because they've embraced that view, so they no longer have a confessional commitment.
If you look at the most recent statements from the Global Anglican Communion, which previously was called gafcon Global Anglican Fellowship, they all maintain that we are confessing body and that the 39 articles are right there. And our confession, they're to be read in concert with the prayer book, but understood as being consistent and mutually reinforcing.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Do you have the. Do you guys have the same thing like that the Reformed have, where you can publish scruples for ordination and things like this? In other words, you can Kind of register places where you stand.
Your conscience isn't bound to the 39 articles.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: So that's a great question.
No, we really don't.
Now, I'm sure people do. I'm sure those are conversations that happen, and then the bishop has to decide what he wants to do with this person.
But, no, that's not a option.
You can subscribe to everything except for this article.
We're actually asked to affirm the 39 articles.
[00:27:58] Speaker C: I want to follow up on something we were talking about earlier because I just, I just thought about, I was wanting to get your opinion on it because we were talking about your critique of kind of the way we discuss the Lord's Supper. Do you, in your mind, like, I know what Lutherans think about this, but in your mind, do you think the Anglican view and the Lutheran view are closer than Lutherans on the Lord's Supper are actually closer than Lutherans, than what we would say or think?
Or do you think, from your perspective, are they pretty, pretty far apart?
How would you bridge that gap? Do you think it's pretty far apart, or do you think we're closer than we think because of the things when we back off our rhetoric a little bit that we say,
[00:28:46] Speaker B: yeah, that's a really good question. I want to say for the person in the pew, the layperson who's sitting through our services and comes for communion, my gut says those two people are going to have an extremely similar experience.
And on the supposition that these are true believers that have active and lively faith, that they are both going to receive the same reality in the sacraments.
So that's what I would say on the front end.
Now, I do still think we have important differences because as we get into the way we present these cases and as we get into some of how we resolve challenges, I do think we take pretty different answers to those resolutions, to such a case that it might make ministerial cooperation, you know, basically impossible, even while we still love each other as Christians.
So.
So I don't want to say, hey, we believe the same thing. No problem. It's all been a big misunderstanding. I think, you know, when we write our answers out, we work it out on paper. I think we do have some pretty important differences.
But how does that affect a normal believer who's faithfully participating in a service?
I. I don't think that they're having much difference.
So much so that, you know, I've had friends who do join a Lutheran church, and it's never occurred to me to say, like, oh, that's that's really dangerous. You know, you're putting yourself in a problematic position and you really shouldn't go there.
Usually I say that, hey, that's probably good, you know, that's probably a good place for you. I'm happy. God bless you.
Go for it.
[00:30:39] Speaker C: Maybe, maybe a follow up to that. Do you think so if a Lutheran?
Because I, I hear this from guys, Lutheran pastors all the time. Like, they often recommend to people, if you're in an area where there's like, there's no Lutheran church, they often say something like, well, if you find a good Anglican church, that's probably the closest to us that you're going to find. I hear that all the time from guys. So if you had an LCMS Lutheran who moves to your, your area, although I know there's churches in South Bend, but let's just say hypothetically, there wasn't else in this church in your area,
[00:31:07] Speaker B: they might be listening.
[00:31:12] Speaker C: They come to your church and they join and they're holding to their view of their Lutheran view of the Lord's Supper. Let's say they're pretty knowledgeable and they have a better understanding than most, the average person in the pew or whatever.
And they go to your church and they say, yeah, I want to join your church, but I still have the Lutheran view of the Lord's Supper.
But with that,
[00:31:39] Speaker A: You, you are muted to me. Pastor Packer, can you hear him, Stephen, or is it just me?
[00:31:48] Speaker B: He just went out. I heard him and then it stopped.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: You're. So you're asking if you had a visitor and he came and he says, I'm still Lutheran, what would you do? No, that's okay.
[00:32:00] Speaker C: It just went out and came back in. Okay, so would you. And they said, I'm a Lutheran, I still hold a Lutheran view. Is that something like they could still join your church or that be. You'd be like, no, that's outside the, outside the bounds of membership here.
[00:32:16] Speaker B: So they could definitely join our church. And I do think this gets into some of the different requirements that we might have.
So the Anglican tradition does have confessional subscription, as I was articulating, but that's enforced on the clergy.
Yeah, the lay people. And it's as good that you asked this because I would not have even thought to make this distinction.
The lay people really just have a very basic Christianity requirement, essentially the Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed, with the understanding that if there is a disagreement, you know, they conduct themselves in a humble manner. They're not creating schism in the body.
You know, some people might say that's a fudge on the rules here. But if you disagree, it's okay. If you cause a problem, then that's different. Right.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Do you guys practice closed communion?
[00:33:18] Speaker B: Historically, yes.
Again, that's my answer to some of these questions. The Anglican tradition was closed communion, even from parish to parish. Like, you'd have to meet with the clergy of that particular parish.
That is no longer typical at all.
And so most Anglicans today do a more open communion.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: What do you think?
[00:33:46] Speaker B: What do you think about the congregation?
Yeah. So what we do is my attempt is to sort of, sort of go down the. Between the issue, between the extremes.
We are semi open, semi closed.
So every service that we do, communion, I have an exhortation which gives the requirements for proper communion, and that is to be repenting of your sins, to have a true and lively faith, to be reconciled as much as possible with your neighbor, to have a good and true intention to follow the teachings of Christ, then you can come.
So it's not closed denominationally, but it's closed based on one's spiritual disposition.
So if you are willing to follow the teachings of Christ, you're willing to reconcile with your neighbor, if you're at odds, if you're repentant, then you may come.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: This is, this is helpful for my previous question, too. Just thinking about the different places that the Confessions play in the, in the life of the church and the life of the Christian. And so, you know, our, Our communion fellowship is based on theological fellowship. So there's. There's admission for worthy communion or unworthy. That's that question of pastoral care and Christian conviction, Christian faith, the existence of repentance and faith. But then there's also the theological, you know, union. So the things that would, that would separate churches from being in confession to one another, separates Christians from being in confession with one another. So that's a. Yeah, I think that's a difference too.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: And in that sense, on the doctrinal kind of standard for admission, we're probably closer to what you would consider open communion.
But. But it is just a historical fact that you would have to literally meet with the clergy. You know, they'd have to talk with you and they would make a decision. So in that sense, you know, it's closed.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Interesting. I know you. So you articulated a little bit earlier, but I, I didn't. I felt like you. We're holding back a little bit, the full rhetorical punch that you delivered in your article, but I think You, I think we should give you just like a couple open shots at us because there was one thing that you said, and I'm sorry that I read the article so long ago. I don't remember that you called me out for specifically that I should repent of. I think it was my equivalence of the, of the Lord turning the Nile into blood.
And, and, and that I, that I brought that in as a rhetorical piece for the supper. And I think you were 100 right to criticize for me, so you should, you should tell me how wrong I am so then I can repent of that.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: Great.
Well, maybe recant rather than repent. I wouldn't say both.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: I'll do both.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: Yes, there was back and forth you guys were talking about, like, why can't people bring themselves, you know, just to believe this? It's a miracle when they can believe other things.
And I think there was an argument that if he can turn the Nile to blood, he can turn water into, you know, turn wine. So he can turn his wine into his blood.
And I thought that was a slip up because. Right, that would be the Catholic view. That would be a transubstantiation.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think actually it would be a trans everything. So, you know, the transubstantiation means that the essence has changed, but the accidents are not. But in the Nile, the Lord changed everything, so he changed the accidents.
But you're right, it's a change. And we do believe that the, the Lord joins his blood to the wine. He joins his body to the bread in such a way that it remains both bread and wine. And yet it, we speak of it as it is the body and the blood. And so that was, that was a great point. And I was, and I think I was sloppy about that. So I appreciate that.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
And I, I've encountered that. I mean, I was, you know, it's one of those moments like, aha, I can pounce, I have my chance. But, but I do think it happens.
I do think it happens a lot. You know, I have a friend here in South Bend. He's a smart guy, you know, has a master's degree.
He knows, he knows his stuff generally in life. And he goes to an LCMS church and he and I were having a conversation about the practice of intinction.
And I'm against it. I don't, I don't like intinction.
And one of my arguments was, you know, I had all my high, high minded, doctrinal, symbolic arguments, but one of my arguments was it gets kind of gross. You know, at the end of the day when you're the last one holding the cup and you got all the, all the floaters in there, it's really, really distasteful.
And he responded that by saying, well, yeah, but I just believe that that's. That's not bread anymore.
I said, I don't think that's. I don't think you're supposed to believe that. You know, And I had to go double check. And yeah, and so I think I use that anecdote to say I think a lot of people kind of casually fall into more of a transition idea because of the simple rhetoric. Right. It just kind of takes you there.
[00:39:20] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. But then you. But you want. So. And there's more too. So I want you to articulate that too. Like the, the fullness of the argument or how. Or maybe if you would just want to like summarize, like, what is the is, the is. Do you think that the danger is that the Lutherans are kind of.
The Lutheran argument is, hey, we just have the words. We're just going with the words. That, that's very appealing, but it's just over simplistic.
Is that your concern?
[00:39:49] Speaker B: It's a big part of it. And what will often happen, not here amongst you friendly gentlemen, but what will often happen is that the Lutheran rhetoric will then say, and you reform people, or you Anglicans, you don't even have like the body of Christ. You don't get it.
And so we're put in a position where we are like, we're not actually feeding upon Christ's body and blood because of the difference in how we articulate it.
And so that would be part of my argument, is that, well, if some of these arguments that are used to get to such a substantial conclusion are actually rather, rather flimsy or rather easily misused, then that might give us reason to slow down on that, whether we are, whether we're justified in making such kind of powerful arguments against one another in that way.
And then I might also add, if I do want to get punchy, if I want to go overboard, it's not clear to me that.
It's not clear to me that the Lutheran argument, once it makes all of its qualifications, is actually coherent.
Like, I thought I was tracking with you, I was understanding. And then I'm not so sure anymore.
And that's often what you would say about us. You know, you don't think our argument is coherent. So once we are forced to use so many qualifications, I do Fear that we, we lose a lot of our initial claim that, you know, we have the body and blood. It's here. This is the body. We get it.
You don't, because you don't believe it this way.
I think at the end of the day, we both end up using a lot of qualifications. Our arguments do get weakened, and that could be reason. Even though we don't. We don't have to say, we end up ultimately agreeing. I think it might be good reason to say, well, we can both maybe lower the intensity of the disagreement or we can lower the degree that we think this disagreement is really imperiling our Christian fellowship.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: I do think that. So the Lutheran Confessions, and I'm sorry, I'm just flipping through and I don't, I can't put my finger right on it, but they, I think the formula itself will quote Luther against that. These words are, this is my body, remain true against the sacramentarians to the effect that the sacramentarians and the Confessions would include in that the Reformed do not have the body and blood. So it's. I, I don't think it's rhetorical. I think it's, it's. This is part of our confessional stance that the, that, that mandukatio, the eating of the indignant, that that's a dividing line. And, and it, in some ways, the question then is not what do you have in the Supper? Because in some ways, everybody has what they think they have. The problem is, what does Jesus give?
So the purely symbolic view actually just has a symbol of the Supper. It's just not what Jesus gives. And in some ways.
So I do not know if the Anglican view, if you would just say, well, we're just basically Reformed and we just have like a deeper liturgical tradition around the distribution of the Supper than most Reformed do, but the theology is basically Reformed, or that there would be even a difference that would exclude the Anglican Church from that assessment of the Lutheran Confessions, that the Reformed, the crypto Calvinists don't have the Supper.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I doubt that I could get us off the hook from the perspective of a Lutheran Confession. I think at the end of the day, once I did my best job of presenting the case, my guess is that the Lutheran Confession would still say the same thing to us.
I would argue that when you say the Reformed view, you have to keep in mind that that is itself sort of a spectrum or constellation.
You know, you have Zwingli who starts it all off, but pretty pretty soon thereafter, everyone's saying, well, hey, we're not all the way with Zwingli, you know, he maybe went a little further than he needed to out of the urgency of the battle.
So you get Martin Bucer, who always claims to be a bridge, and Luther did not appreciate that any more than Zwingli appreciated that. Both of those guys ended up getting very angry with Bucer.
But Bucer thought he could reconcile the parties, and I think a lot of Anglicans were sympathetic to that. They thought they could reconcile.
I don't know that they could, but they thought they could. You know, they were trying to.
What would they affirm, though? They would say, yes, Christ gives his body and blood.
He really does like his actual body and blood. He does give that to us in the sacrament.
But then the qualifications are it's done after a spiritual manner. So the agency of the Holy Spirit is what communicates the body and blood. It doesn't mean the body is spiritualized.
That's an easy mistake and probably is often made.
But it means the Holy Spirit is the agent that communicates the body and blood, and then the instrument that can receive it is faith.
[00:45:42] Speaker A: Right. That's the difference. I think we would say that the Holy Spirit communicates the body to the bread, and the bread communicates the body to the mouth, and faith is what receives the word of promise. So. And that's why that Mandu kantio indignorum question is so important. What. So that. What are you eating?
[00:46:03] Speaker B: Yes. So the unbeliever lacks faith.
Like that's by definition. Right. And so that's why the articles of religion are saying, then, therefore the unbeliever does not feed upon Christ because he doesn't have the instrument.
And that citation of Augustine, by the way, if anyone is suspicious, it is pretty much a quote from the 26th tractate on the Gospel of John.
He says, it is he that eats within, not without, who eats in his heart. We're losing you, not his teeth.
So.
Oh my.
[00:46:48] Speaker A: Oh, no, you're. I think you're okay. I think we'll. We'll probably capture it. I found the passage that I'm looking for in the. In the Book of Concord.
Oops. Let's see here. There we. I'll read this while we wait and see if he comes back. So this is. I'm looking at Formula seven and. And this is quoting first Luther from. Ah, I doesn't have the reference. It says, those who misinterpret the sacrament, they indeed only have bread and wine, for they do not also have the words and instituted ordinance of God, but have perverted and Changed it according to their own imagination. And then they say, Dr. Luther, above others, certainly understood the true and proper meaning of the? Oor confession, constantly remained steadfast in that confession till the end of his life, and defended it shortly before his death and repeated his faith about the article with great zeal in his last confession, where he writes, I regarded them, the sacramentarians, as being cut from the same piece of cloth as indeed they are, for they do not want to believe the Lord's bread in the supper is his true natural body, which the godless person or Judas receives orally just as well as St. Peter and the other saints.
Whoever I say does not want to believe that. Let him not trouble me with letters, writings, or words, and let him not expect to have fellowship with me. That's final.
So that's the Lutheran Confession. Although, look, Stephen's not here to hear it. Oh, alas, alas. Well, we'll see if we can get him back, but I know we got to kind of lay in the plane. Pastor Packer, thoughts from you?
[00:48:12] Speaker C: No, it's gonna. I was gonna say we're probably close to finishing anyway. If he's not able to make it back, I may point out Stephen, I believe, is on the. I think he's on their board of the Davenant. I don't know if I pronounced it right, Institute, that they just published one of Dr. Cooper's books, an Introduction to Lutheranism, which I've just read by somebody who's really liked it. So it was a very good book. So they also have this book which is.
Looks fantastic. Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, about C.S. lewis's images of gender in his writing. Oh, nice. So, hey, I was just plugging some books from the Davenant Institute, and that
[00:48:52] Speaker A: was making up from the fact that I just broke fellowship by reading.
[00:48:56] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah,
[00:49:00] Speaker B: yeah, I apologize. I was trying to click to another window to read that quote, and I guess my computer didn't want me having multiple windows open while recording too much.
[00:49:11] Speaker A: Can't handle it. Well, I know we gotta. Stephen, this is. I really appreciate this. It's been. It's been helpful for me too. I hope it's helpful for you. I. I so glad that you're interacting with our stuff as well.
Pastor Packer mentioned the stuff that you're publishing also, so thanks for doing that as. So any. Any kind of final thoughts as we. As we wind down?
[00:49:33] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I. I would echo the thanks. It's fun to have these conversations.
You know, we do have the reputation of, you know, on the Internet we fight all the time and but I find whenever I interact with Lutherans you know more in real life we always get along great. You know we have so much in common and especially conservative orthodox historic minded Lutheran and a conservative historic orthodox minded Anglican.
I imagine we're going to do most things in a very similar fashion at church so I always get along great and frankly we'd love to have you guys with Davenant you know we have had Lutherans write for us and we need more Lutherans in our mix that's part of our vision to have representatives of the whole Reformation or the the magisterial Reformation anyway so yeah so I've enjoyed it would love to have more opportunities to interact.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: Great thanks so much for the work and again thanks for interacting Pastor Packer thanks for setting up the conversation you YouTube theologians out there. Thanks for watching.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and if this is helpful as well. Thanks so much.
