Salvation History

"The history of salvation is not a small event, on a poor planet, in the immensity of the universe. It is not a minimal thing which happens by chance on a lost planet. It is the motive for everything, the motive for creation. Everything is created so that this story can exist – the encounter between God and his creature. In this sense, salvation history, the covenant, precedes creation. During the Hellenistic period, Judaism developed the idea that the Torah would have preceded the creation of the material world. This material world seems to have been created solely to make room for the Torah, for this Word of God that creates the answer and becomes the history of love. The mystery of Christ already is mysteriously revealed here.... One can say that, while material creation is the condition for the history of salvation, the history of the covenant is the true cause of the cosmos."

Thanks to Ben Myer's blog, Faith and Theology, I came across this bit of prose. Surprisingly, it is not from Karl Barth or the schools of theology that are shaped by his Dogmatics. Rather it is from Pope Benedict XVI. For all his critics, Benedict is not a casual thinker. He is a theologian and from time to time can still write and think like this.

Evangelical Anglican

Have you every written a phrase and thought it to be particularly clever only to find that that very same phrase has been penned many times before you conceived it? I had that experience today and I thought, “Of course.”

I went to Wheaton College to study theology at 18. At the time I was completely evangelical. I had the conversion experience. I read my Bible daily. I did humanitarian aid work. I even place a high emphasis on the cross - the whole nine yards.

But then something happened. I started my theological education. I found myself continually challenged by the Bible and the more I read and the more I learned, the less I felt like I was just an evangelical.

I had begun to take more seriously the sacrament of the church. I started finding myself attracted to the imagery of the ancient icons of the saints. I found that I became fascinated with rosaries and symbols of the faith. But I also found myself strictly egalitarian and appalled by the notion of the papacy.

During the same time, Robert Webber’s name kept creeping into conversations. I kept being referred to Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals Are Attracted to the Liturgical Church. But I didn’t read it then because I knew why I was being drawn to the liturgical church. I had even started attending St. Barnabas, the episcopal church Robert Webber attended for a time, without knowing it was even mentioned in his book.

I was becoming an Anglican, but not just an Anglican either.

The other piece I was wrestling with was my Korean heritage. I had just assumed that I would eventually attend and serve the PCUSA (there are some out there that still think I will). After all, I was a Korean American that was attending Wheaton College to study theology. Where else would I go?

But today, Amazon delivered Stephen Sykes’s book, Unashamed Anglicanism. And bibliophile I am, I couldn’t help but start consuming his insights. In his book, I discovered the phrase “evangelical anglicans” as he referenced Stephen Neill, G. W Bromiley, and J. I. Packer. And I thought, “Oh, of course.” No wonder I feel completely comfortable in reading Augustine, Thomas, Luther and Calvin. No wonder I treasure the words of Bernard of Clairvaux and Karl Barth. No wonder I like Brennan Manning, Henri Nouwen, Aimee Semple Mcpherson, Catherine of Sienna, Julian of Norwich, and the countless others that don’t fit into each others paradigms.

I belong to a Christian tradition that is self critical enough to value the voices of countless others and still maintain a modest, yet confident sense of self. I am an Evangelical Anglican.