Carson T. Clark, who is writing the blog titled Musings of Hard-Lining Moderate. The Assorted thoughts of an evangelical Anglican, is, like me, an Evangelical turned Anglican.
He begins in the following manner his latest blog post, titled ‘N.T. Wright on Sacramental Theology‘:
In his book, Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail, the late Robbert Webber observes that he’s never met an evangelical who became Anglican and the primary reason wasn’t a yearning for sacramental theology. Webber never met me. I’ve not been opposed to it per se, but neither have I been able to sign off. The reason being that I’ve been completely unable to understand it, and not in a mysterious, spiritual sort of way where that’s actually a good thing. I’m talking more of the Calculus, “What the heck is going on?” sort of way. Yet for months I’ve been toying with a couple ideas. First, I like this idea that the “Word made flesh joined heaven to earth and earth to heaven.” Incarnational theology has me roped already. Now I’m playing with how it related to the sacraments. Second, there seems to be some important strand of truth within low church evangelicalism’s emphasis upon a “relationship with God” that might finds fullness in a sacramental lifestyle. I don’t even know what that means, but I feel like it’s important.
My story is quite different from Clark’s. My journey of faith, from Evangelicalism to Anglicanism, was mediated by an intimate encounter with Orthodox theology during my doctoral studies. During this process, I have become more liturgical and more sacramental than Evangelicalism will ever be. This being the case, the Confirmation in the Anglican Communion was almost inevitable.
If, after this, you are still asking yourself ‘why’ and ‘how is this possible’, watch again N.T. Wright’s presentation above.
And, if you want more, you may listen HERE to the audio recordings of the whole session or read HERE, HERE and HERE a summary of the lecture.
Who knows, maybe some of you will find answers to questions you were asking for a long time in the depth of your soul.
Persona 