Via Media Podcast, Episode 29 Anglican Basics: The Church Sacraments Myles Hixson January 9, 2020 https://www.beesondivinity.com/the-institute-of-anglican-studies/podcast/2020/Anglican-Basics-The-Church-Sacraments Announcer: The Institute of Anglican Studies at Beeson Divinity School welcomes you to Via Media, a podcast exploring the religious and theological worlds from an Anglican perspective. Here is your host Gerald McDermott. McDermott: We want to tell our listening audience today about a great deal that they can get. Crossway Publishers is bringing out our book that I’ve edited called the future of orthodox Anglicanism at the end of February. This is a book that comes out of the Anglican theology Conference that we held here several years ago at Beeson Divinity School. Fourteen Anglicans from around the world talk about the future of Orthodox Anglicanism—-what they believe the essence of Anglicanism is and how the see the future playing out. It’s a rich book full of much insight I believe on the Anglican communion and the future of the Anglican communion. And you can get 50% off. Go to crossway.org/plus and once there become a member of Crossway Plus, and that’s free and then when you checkout with the book The Future of Orthodox Anglicanism, that’s edited by Gerald McDermott, enter the code VMEDIA, not Via Media but VMEDIA in caps V M E D I A at checkout, and they will give you 50% off the price of the book. So you want to look for the Future of Orthodox Anglicanism that’s edited by Gerald McDermott and go to crossway.org/plus, become a member of Crossway Plus, it’s free, and then when you checkout the book enter the code vmedia, v m e d i a. And you will get 50% off the price of the book. But you have to do this by January 31st the book comes out in February. So this is a pre-order. You have to do this by the end of January sometime before January 31st. Welcome to Via Media. This is another episode in our series, Anglican Basics, in which we interview Anglican priests on the ground who are involved in the thick of Anglican ministry. And today I’m excited we’ve got a Beeson graduate – Myles Hixson. Married to Liz, they have one son named Milo. And some of our listeners might already be familiar with Myles Hixson because he cohosts an Anglican podcast called The Sacramentalists, plural. There’s an “s” on the end there. Now Myles was raised in a Baptist home. He attended Bryan College, got a degree in Biblical Studies. Then he went to Beeson Divinity School, got his certificate in Anglican Studies here. And for the last four years or so, he worked at … he ministered, I should say, at St. John Lutheran Church in Roanoke, Virginia as Associate Pastor. I have to say he sort of took my place. I was a teaching pastor there. I was not full-time as Myles was. And now Myles serves as rector of Holy Cross Anglican in Knoxville, Tennessee. It's an APA church by the way. Welcome to Via Media, Myles. Hixson: Well thank you. It is an honor and a delight to be here. It’s always good to be able to talk with you, Dr. McDermott. And our conversations in the past have always been rich and filling to my soul, and I know today will be no different. McDermott: Well you’re very kind. Father Myles, let me ask you today about the five sacramentals or what are called by the 2019 Anglican Prayer Book, or I’m sorry, Anglican Catechism – the sacraments of the church as opposed to the dominical sacraments, which we’ll talk about in another podcast. But the five sacraments of the church. The first at least in order in life is confirmation. So Father Myles, what is confirmation and how does it relate to baptism? Hixson: Right, so just speaking kind of generically, confirmation is normally when a child who’s been raised in a church that baptizes infants in the Anglican church, they come of age so to speak – 13, 14, 15. And the bishop comes and visits and he will anoint them, lay hands on them, and pray for a gifting of the Holy Spirit. So we see it as in a lot of ways a coming of age ceremony. In some ways, it then corresponds to what many people see in the Jewish tradition of a Bar Mitzvah or a Bat Mitzvah. Now how it relates to baptism, that is what I would say is the million-dollar question. Jean Daniélou, the great Catholic Jesuit scholar of the past century who did great work with the church fathers, and his seminal work, The Bible and the Liturgy, he discusses at length the patristic answer to that very question. And what he comes down to is this – it’s a mystery. It’s very hard to define the relationship between baptism and confirmation. The traditional answer is that confirmation completes baptism. That is in confirmation, that which the baptism of an infant points toward happens in confirmation - coming of age, owning your faith as your own. It’s the profession of faith that many of our baptist or credobaptist brethren would look for. But in my mind, I’ll be honest, this seems less than satisfactory to say that confirmation completes baptism. I think it makes one baptismal theology weak, perhaps. And it doesn’t reflect the strong and complete nature of baptism present in the New Testament. In a passage like Romans chapter six where Paul says you’ve been baptized with Christ, therefore you have died and been raised with him. And there isn’t really a mention of confirmation. Though in the New Testament church, they probably were done together. So what I would say, if I can use the words of C.S. Lewis at the end of “The Last Battle,” where they are in eternity, Aslan and the children, and they go further up and further into the mystery of God. I would say that what is given in baptism then comes in confirmation as you go further up and further into the mystery of salvation. So confirmation is a furthering, a strengthening. And in this way, a counterpart to holy baptism. McDermott: Now Father Myles, some people have a problem with confirmation for another reason, not the ones that you’ve mentioned. Although I have to say, I’ve never had a problem with the sacrament of confirmation. To me, it makes entire sense that when we baptize an infant and say the Holy Spirit is imparted and the natural question, especially for evangelicals is, “Well what about faith? How can the baby have faith?” Hixson: That’s right. McDermott: Well I mean as Luther asked, how do we know the baby doesn’t have faith in ways that we don’t see or understand? But even apart from that, every human being needs to come to a kind of professed faith. And confirmation seems to me is a beautiful opportunity to not just profess before mom and dad, but profess before the church that the faith I was baptized into, I now speak with my own lips, profess with my own lips. So I never had a problem with that. But an additional problem that people often have is - well the Anglican church says, rightly, that the Holy Spirit is imparted at baptism. So how can it say the Holy Spirit is imparted again? Has this child lost the Holy Spirit? Which the imparting of the Holy Spirit again might suggest to some say enlightenment minds? Hixson: Right. And I think this then touches back on the million-dollar question – the relationship between baptism and confirmation. So yes, the spirit, the Holy Spirit is given for regeneration at our baptism. This is what Paul clearly teaches in multiple places, especially Titus 3:5 – you were washed in the washing of regeneration through the Holy Spirit. And so traditionally then, confirmation is understood as conveying the seven full gifts of the Holy Spirit, which are found in Isaiah. The spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, and piety and knowledge and fear of the Lord. And so the way it is most often described today is that confirmation is a powerful and sacramental strengthening with the Holy Spirit. So again, further up, further into what was given in baptism. And so this way, we might actually live out our baptismal vows. And I think this is why in the Anglican tradition, we don’t see confirmation as necessary to salvation. The spirit is necessary for salvation. He’s given in baptism. But confirmation is a deepening into the life of the Holy Spirit for the sake of living out the Christian faith. McDermott: And don’t you think, Father Myles, it’s a matter of degree of relationship? I mean that’s a very Jewish way of understanding things – degrees of experience, degrees of relationship. And if life is finally about relationship – relationship with God and relationship with others in the body of Christ, it seems to me that confirmation is a deeper relationship with my heavenly father. At baptism, I had a baby relationship. But now as a 10 year-old, as a 12 year-old, as a 14 year-old, I’m beginning to have, you might say, a teen relationship with my heavenly father. Hixson: And I would even say that first off, you’re absolutely right. It is the deepening of relationship. But we have adults that get confirmed. If you’ve not been confirmed in a tradition of apostolic succession and you join the Anglican church, you might … it doesn’t matter if you’re 14 or 40. You’re going to be confirmed. And it’s not just for teenagers. But there’s a deepening of your relationship then. Now I know some adults push back and say you know, “I’ve walked with the Lord for all these years. What do you mean I have to be confirmed?” Well the deepening of your relationship with the Lord then comes through the Church. You have entered into a deeper, more intimate relationship with the Church Christ established, and that’s through the bishop laying hands on you and you receiving a special gift mysteriously through that anointing for the sake of your Christian life. McDermott: Sure and I mean to continue this analogy of a deepening of relationship, and it’s not just analogy. I think it’s literal. I think of my relationship with my father. Now he’s been dead for 20 years, but every year of my relationship with my adult father when I was an adult meant a deepening of relationship with him because we went, as you put it, further up and further in in our relationship as father and son. Well we need to move on. So let’s move to the sacrament of absolution or penance as the Church once called it. Now evangelicals ask why do I have to confess my sins to a priest when I can go straight to God? I’m sure you’ve dealt with that, Father Myles. How do you answer it? Hixson: Yeah. The way that I go is that I normally say to this person, because I do get this question often, is how do you know that your sins are forgiven? And generally the response is, “Well I just believe that I am because the Bible says so.” And I would say great! Wonderful! How do you really, really know? And that’s where the sacrament of absolution comes in. Jesus gave it to his church, not as a heavy burden or a law – you must go confess to a priest. But it’s a grace. And the grace of it is an assurance of his love. So can we go to God directly and pray in our closets and our bedrooms? Sure. But we’re people made of flesh and blood. We have voices; we have ears; we need to hear those precious words, I think. “I absolve thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” And so I’d also generally point out to these people that you’re not technically confessing to the priest, but to God in front of the priest who’s the representative. And so the priest is simply there to pronounce what has been declared in heaven, which is your forgiveness. So it doesn’t replace God. It doesn’t replace the role of Jesus Christ as the one and only mediator. But the church is the extension of God and of Jesus’ ministry in this world. McDermott: Now Myles, historic Anglicanism, not all Anglicans, but those who are more sacramental have taught that the priest at his ordination receives an indelible mark that confers upon him Christ’s authority to retain and to remit sin. Hixson: That’s right. McDermott: What’s the Biblical basis for the Church, capital C, teaching that the priest has an indelible mark on his soul that marks him forever ontologically as a priest? Hixson: Yeah. I would point towards what Paul says in Second Timothy 1:6. He’s writing to Timothy and he tells him to fan into flame the gift that was given to you at the laying on of my hands. And in First Timothy, he mentions the hands of the elders. So it’s a group of people, but Paul was there. And so there is something inside of Timothy. It is a mark inside of Timothy at his ordination that Paul is saying, “Go deeper into that. Fan into flame the gift,” which flame would point us towards the Holy Spirit. So it’s not just do the work better, but be what was given to you at your ordination. Live into that reality. And so it’s what you said, it’s an indelible mark given on the priest. There’s an ontological change. And this is what differentiates historic Anglicanism from our more Protestant brethren – that we don’t see the ministry as just a functional reality. You’ve stepped into something that is beyond yourself. McDermott: Now Father Myles, you grew up as a Baptist. Hixson: That’s correct. McDermott: And now you’re a priest and you’re absolving sins or retaining sins perhaps sometimes as I have been forced to do sometimes in my ministry as a priest when I sensed there was no repentance. How has this sacrament of absolution made a difference for you, either individually or as a priest? Hixson: Yeah well I would say every time I’ve walked away from confession myself, me being the penitent, I just feel overwhelmed with gratitude for God’s goodness. There’s that firmness, that assurance that my sins, even those ones that I utterly despise … I think of Paul in Romans 7, “Oh wicked man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death?” That’s often how you feel before you go in the confessional. But then you come out saying thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The sins are done. They’re erased. God has spoken through his priest, “I absolve thee.” And it’s a powerful feeling. And so that’s me personally. As a priest in my ministry, I think confession, absolution – it is the means par excellence that a priest ministers with his people one-on-one. I encourage all my people to avail themself of this special ministry as often as possible, as often as they will come. Now not everyone will. We don’t force confession and absolution on people like some churches like the Roman church or even the Eastern church. But I have personally witnessed that those Christians that dive deep into confession have a deeper sense of holiness and a deeper understanding of the gospel of forgiveness. McDermott: So we talked about the authority that God gives priests in his Church to absolve sins. This authority that was given at ordination, a third sacrament of the church. And you’ve mentioned it briefly. But I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about how the sacrament of ordination, first, how you understand it and second, how it’s changed your view of ministry. Hixson: Right. So in ordination, there is a unique gifting of the Holy Spirit given to the ordinand so that he might perform the work of the order - either deacon, priest, bishop. And it’s as he enters into a deeper, maybe we’ll go back to that phrase – further up, further in, of the priesthood of Christ. We believe all Christians exist in the priesthood of all believers, which belongs to Christ. It’s his priesthood. But there are those ones that are called out to go further in for the sake of the general priesthood, for the sake of the Church. And so yes, at ordination, the bishop lays hands on you and actually the words that are spoken are from John 20:23, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven. Whose sins you remit are remit.” So there’s the Biblical basis for absolution and it’s directly tied with priesthood. And so how has it affected my view of ministry? I would say that for me, it’s helped me see that the ministry is not about accomplishing certain tasks, though that is definitely important. You have to do things. You can’t just sit around all day. But being a priest is about living into that gift given in ordination. Which means the ministry is primarily sacramental in nature. So at ordination, the sacrament of ordination, you are commissioned by the bishop and the Holy Spirit for word and sacrament. And so the ministry is not primarily a functional task – “Do all these things.” But it is to live into the sacraments. And so as my own understanding as a priest, it’s just being a priest. How can I be a priest the best way? And so sometimes the presence, the ministry of being is just being present with someone who’s sick or suffering; just being in a room with people and leading by example; just being at the altar on Sunday and then all the tasks that I do throughout the week flow from this ontological reality of being a priest. McDermott: Then there’s the sacrament of marriage, which today perhaps is contested from several different directions. When I think of the two greatest heresies in the church today, I think of the heresy about marriage and the heresy about redemption, namely universalism. Hixson: That’s right. McDermott: For Christians, marriage is different from marriage for pagans, for Muslims, for Buddhists. Can you tell us how it’s different? Hixson: Right. So as Thomas Cranmer who crafted the prayer book for us, he put beautifully in his opening address one that many people are familiar with, the words that start, “Dearly beloved.” These are the words that begin the rite for marriage. He lists out in there all that marriage means and one of the things he hits on is straight from Ephesians where Paul says that it’s a mystical union between Christ and his Church. That’s what the husband and wife are entering into. And so that’s the sacramental character. The two become one and they participate even deeper into what it means to be Christ in the Church. And then from that, Cranmer says flows three main things that marriage was established for. From your foundation of being like Christ and the Church, you then … there’s the gift of procreation of children. So marriage was for this. It’s a remedy against sin and he specifically says against fornication. So husband and wife’s are meant to help each other pursue holiness. And then partnership in what he calls society, which is comfort between the man and woman and then for the betterment of society at large. And those things you might find in secular marriage or in a Muslim marriage or in a Buddhist marriage. But they don’t have that foundation of Christ and his Church, which gives meaning to all that takes place in the marriage relationship between man and woman. McDermott: Now in this culture where fewer are getting married and progressives say that marriage is not necessary in order to get what the Church has typically, well what you just mentioned, are the benefits of marriage – companionship, children, sex. Why is the Christian view of marriage significant and important? Hixson: Well part of the Christian view of marriage is that it’s indissoluble, and that’s the technical word to mean that once a man and a woman come together and they are free, consenting adults and there are no hindrances, no one’s being forced into this or they’re not lying about their desire to be married, that the marriage really can’t end. Whereas what you see on the secular side is that marriage is really just a tax benefit. There’s really no benefit to it as you just said because you can get all these things outside of marriage in our free, progressive culture. And I put free in air quotes. And so just look around our world and see what a culture that hates marriage has produced. There are so many single parents raising children. Children are suffering from not having mom and dad present. They’re suffering from having rotations of boyfriends or rotations of girlfriends for their parents. You see a rise in loneliness even among married couples. Why? Because they don’t see their spouse as their God-given instrument for comfort, society, sex, holiness. McDermott: Yeah. Now what should Christians believe about or think about or say about gay marriage? Hixson: Yeah. That is the kind of cultural question that’s going on in our world right now. I would say that when you hold marriage in the sacramental realm, meaning it’s not just a human institution. It’s not just an ordinance. But it is truly a mean of God participating in this world or better yet, us participating in God’s grace. When you see that and then the foundation of that is Christ and his Church, I think that it protects you against going into this route of homosexual marriage. If marriage is meant to be an image of Christ and his Church, then that’s male and female. You can’t have male/male, female/female. And when marriage is set up for procreation, for holiness, for society, you see that those things don’t fall in line with homosexual marriage. And I think time will show that our culture will manifest that reality – that homosexual marriage does not bring about the flourishing of society or holiness or the betterment of children. McDermott: Now when you say society, when Thomas Cranmer said society, I don’t know if you’re quoting him or paraphrasing him. Don’t you think he meant children? And are not children, in the Bible, the primary purpose of marriage? I think in Malachi. Hixson: Yeah. Oh I absolutely do. The first command of marriage is, you know, the man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife to become one flesh. Be fruitful and multiply. And so there is a very strong push for procreation in marriage. I think when Cranmer says society, I think it’s his wonderful 16th century way of saying companionship between the man and the woman. But we do see the blessing beyond society. How does a married couple bless society at large? You raise godly, Christ-believing children. McDermott: Mm Hmm (affirmative). And Myles, you know, it has always struck me that the reason why gay marriage is not marriage from a Christian sense, from a Biblical sense, is because Biblical marriage is all about the union of profound difference. Christ is married to the Church. Christ is radically different from the Church, even though the Church is his own body. Christ is holy; the Church in one sense is very unholy, the Church militant at least. Christ is infinite; the Church is finite. The militant Church, the Church here on earth. So the head of the body and the body itself are in some sense, at least before the militant Church becomes the Church triumphant, are radically different. So just as man and woman are radically different. And I tell students, and maybe you heard me say this one time, that if you don’t think men and women are profoundly different, then you’ve never lived with the opposite sex. Hixson: (Laughs) McDermott: And you probably aren’t married. And also marriage is meant, as you just said, its primary purpose in scripture, not its only purpose, but its primary purpose in scripture is to produce children. And I would say in this day and age, if not biological children, then spiritual children. Hixson: Right. McDermott: And gay marriage does not do that. Gay marriage is a union of sameness. It’s not a union of difference. And it biologically cannot produce children. It’s impossible to produce children. Every child, you and I know, is always a product of a man and a woman, even if the child is a child of gay parents. Hixson: That’s right. That’s right. And so I would say that unfortunately, gay marriage speaks a lie to the world about Christ and his Church, which is the distinction you just said. A gay marriage cannot participate as Paul says, as Cranmer says, as the Great Tradition of the Church says in the mystery of Christ and his bride. McDermott: Right. So finally we get to the fifth sacrament of the church – the anointing of the sick. What is the special grace here that is beyond a sick Christian just praying to God in the privacy of his closet, as Jesus mentions, for physical healing? Hixson: Right. Well I think it’s important to say that anointing of the sick is not intended to be seen as some sort of magical cure. It isn’t equivalent to, say, faith healing among the Pentecostal tradition. It doesn’t automatically cure you. It’s a grace, the presence of the Holy Spirit. When the priest anoints you with the oil, you have assurance that the Holy Spirit is there with you. He has taken your sickness, your suffering, your dying … we anoint those who are dying in a similar way. And he is sanctifying it for your good. McDermott: Now you know, I was a Baptist pastor at one time. I was a Baptist preacher for five years out in the cornfields of Iowa. And I loved my experience as a stuttering Baptist preacher. I was a terrible stutterer and I stuttered my way through over 200 sermons. And I prayed for the sick there and some of them got better. Some of them didn’t. And I have some Baptist friends who I think are holier than I am. So I’ll use that all as a preface to asking you a provocative question perhaps. How is the sacrament of the anointing of the sick different from a Baptist pastor praying for the sick? Hixson: Yeah. That’s a question that touches really the heart of much of the kind of small “c” catholic understanding of the sacramental system. And that has to do with ministers, priests, and apostolic succession. So for me, and I’m sure there’s ways to answer this differently, it all goes back to assurance. The whole sacramental system done by the priest in succession of the apostles is God’s ways of assuring us that he is at work in our lives. So I trust and believe in a loving and gracious God. And so when a Baptist pastor prays for the sick, I trust that God hears that. Of course he does. But anointing with oil that’s been blessed and following the rubrics of the liturgy, it gives an assurance that God’s grace and present has entered into this moment of suffering and sickness. Whether the priest prays well or not, for me that’s a huge thing. It takes the burden off of me. What if I say a prayer over someone who’s sick and I mess up? I say the wrong things. I walk away and say, “Oh! I should have prayed for this rather than this.” Well the sacrament, especially this one, protects me from putting my own personality into it. McDermott: Father Myles, let me ask this final question. These five sacramentals that are certainly not understood broadly in the evangelical world and even in parts of the Anglican world, how have they affected your view of the ministry or your life of ministry as a priest? Hixson: So I would say that these five with the other two – the dominical sacraments of the Eucharist and baptism, these are the ministry of the priest. I orient my entire life, my entire vocation around these seven means of grace. Everything else I do as priest flows in some way from these. If I’m counseling someone in my office, I see it as an extension of the sacrament of absolution, confession. We might not go through the sacrament, but it either leads to it or flows from it. If I’m doing marriage counseling, both before or after the wedding, it’s related to the sacrament of holy matrimony. If I’m visiting hospitals and nursing homes, then that of course relates to the sacrament of anointing. If I’m teaching and training in the faith, it relates to confirmation or perhaps preparation for holy baptism. And then when I’m preparing sermons, I’m studying, I’m reading, it all relates to the celebration of the Eucharist when that sermon will be presented and given to the people. And so all that I do as a priest in some way or another touches one of these seven. To be a priest is to be, to use the older language, a dispenser of the sacraments undergirded by God’s holy word. McDermott: Well Father Myles, thank you so much for being with us today on Via Media. And we thank all of you in the listening audience for tuning in. Hixson: Thank you so much. It was a delight to be here. Announcer: You've been listening to Via Media with host Gerald McDermott, the director of The Institute of Anglican Study Studies at Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. The Institute of Anglican Studies trains men and women for Anglican ministry, and seeks to educate the public in the riches of the Anglican tradition. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Via Media.