One Faith

An address given by the Revd Dr David L Moyer at the FCC / Festival of Faith on September 18, 2004. The theme was: "One Church, One Faith, One Lord". If you were a parishioner at Good Shepherd, Rosemont, you would suffer repeated references in my sermons to the late Dr. Julian Victor Langmead Casserley, my seminary professor of philosophical theology. Some of you here may have known Father Casserley through his many books and teaching days at both General and Seabury-Western. He was a man of the renaissance who revered a potpourri of theologians that included William of Ockham, Duns Scotus, Augustine, Bonaventure, Bonhoeffer, F.D. Maurice, and Teilhard de Chardin.

Casserley was an eccentric who paced back and forth non-stop while lecturing. He was a card-carrying Anglo-Catholic, extremely witty, a lover of fine wines and cheeses, a socialist of sorts, and a prophet in terms of what he saw coming down the pike in church and culture. He traveled extensively in the 50’s and 60’s lecturing and debating the likes of John A.T. Robinson of Honest to God fame. Dr. Casserley loved to tell the story of how he walked into a British Cathedral during the Sunday Evensong sermon and found John Robinson in the pulpit. As he quietly walked down the aisle to enter a pew, Robinson abruptly stopped in the tracks of his sermon, looked at Casserley, and asked, "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy".;

When once challenged by a Methodist seminarian from Garrett, just across Sheridan Road from Seabury-Western, about the Real Presence and more so about Benediction, Casserley replied, "If we say that Jesus is everywhere, He certainly can be somewhere".

Enough of this fascinating man, the type of which is rare in Anglican circles today.

In the 1950, Fr. Casserley wrote a small book entitled, No Faith Of My Own. The title obviously states the premise and conviction of the writer; but within its pages he states,
"I neither have nor desire to have a faith of my own. A real religion is not something which a man can make for himself, by piecing together his own experiences and opinions with what he can learn from those of other people. It is something which makes him rather than something which he makes. It is of the essence of religion to demand human solidarity and fellowship. Of all the activities of the human spirit it is the one in which most of all mere subjectivity and undisciplined ‘private opinion’ are out of place. If I had a private religion of my own I hope I should have also the good sense to keep it private, for such things cannot be spoken of successfully. But Christianity is a religion which can and must be communicated. It is because it was communicated to me that I dare to hope that I may be able to communicate it to others in my turn. It is precisely because I have no faith of my own that I dare to pray that my faith may become, even through me, the faith of other men."

I have used Casserley as springboard for this presentation, not because I want you to accept the fact that we have no Faith of our own, because I assume you already know that, and are glad that that’s the way it is. I cite his book and a smidgeon of its contents as a reminder - a reminder to lower any anxiety level that we need to figure out a way to make it better and stronger. There’s no need for that because it’s dynamic in its essence, and because it has proven itself as converting, transforming, sanctifying, and enduring when responsibly taught and celebrated. It has produced saints and martyrs, and it keeps people like you and me going as we drink deep of its draughts.

I easily assume that you as people who have come to be part of and support this event are committed to the Faith and Order of the Church Catholic, Biblical, Apostolic, and Evangelical – unless you have come to see what crazy people like me and others who have spoken and will speak are all about and what we’re up to.

What we have before us in the merciful Providence of God in this place is a coming together of Anglican oriented Catholic Christians who know very well that we need each other, and need to learn from each other. Not one of us or any grouping of us has the sole market on things ecclesial and spiritual. We all have our passions, prejudices, ideologies, and fears that need to be placed at the foot of the Cross, and then see how God uses such offerings in a transformative and unitive process.

We well know that historic Anglicanism has suffered for many decades because we’ve had to face the music about at least three things. First is that what was once claimed as our magisterium is no longer the magisterium for all sorts and conditions of Anglican claiming Christians – the Book of Common Prayer. Within it until the 1960’s were the doctrine, discipline, and worship that both Evangelicals and Catholics could basically agree to be foundational We now have multiple Books of Common Prayer which Dr. Peter Toon rightly asserts are not Books of Common Prayer, but a potpourri of preferences of liturgical, doctrinal, and disciplinary positions. Second, we within the spectrum of people who cling to the Anglican heritage no longer have mutually acceptable and respected ministries. The ordination of women to all three orders of ministry has altered that. And I have stated along with other Anglo-Catholic leaders that it is a salvation issue. The Eucharist is the highest action of the Church, because equivalently with Baptism, it constitutes the Church. To introduce doubt in any way that impinges upon the authenticity of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood affects the ability of the Church to mediate through the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper the salvation won by our Lord Jesus Christ. Third, we have no effective or identifiable method of discipline and correction for the false teaching that confuses, contradicts, and confounds the agreed upon and affirmed core deposit of Faith and Order.

As God has paved the way for greater unity and shared work among us for the sake of the Gospel and the Catholic religion, it would be an understatement to say that a major task is facing us to come to a common mind about the essentials and non-essentials (and there’s a major debate in itself) for the highest degree of unity possible – while having before us the positions of the two larger branches of the Catholic Church – Rome and Orthodoxy.

We’re not going to tackle that here in our short time together. And, besides that, the forum for such an enterprise would be a united college of bishops with theologians of repute at their sides, who would spend as long as possible in prayer, study, and humble listening to each other as a first step towards the place of having a common mind, and thus having something clear to offer beyond ourselves.

What I would ask that we consider and then claim as the foundation of the One Faith of the Church Catholic and Apostolic as the living organism of many parts and limbs with Jesus as its Head is Holiness. Pure and simple, but demanding in discipline and intent to be and manifest. Christians who have been buried with Christ in baptism, and been made partakers of His Resurrection, are to be holy – alive and aflame in and of the spiritual world; and because of that state of being, are ambassadors of Christ, God making His appeal through us.

I responded to the call of God to be a priest because of the holiness of God to which God Himself opened my eyes and cast a wonderful spell upon me to desire. When I have been weary, heavy laden, downcast, and discouraged, it was the holiness of God in those He put before me that pulled me up and out of the pit. When I have had to make difficult and costly decisions for myself, my family, and my people, it was the holiness of God through those who always kept their eyes on Him that gave me the right words and guidance to make my decisions.

I will never forget, and there are those here who were there when it happened, the night when during Frank Griswold’s politically contrived and orchestrated "Come and See" invitation four holy bishops stepped into the library at Good Shepherd to meet with the FIF clergy to hear us out. When Maurice Sinclair, Harry Goodhew, Peter Njenga, and John Ruchyana stepped into the parish library, there was a tangible wave of holiness that swept over the assembled priests. We knew in the immediacy of the moment that we were in God’s hands, and that all was well.

I in hindsight came to realize that this is what it’s all about in fighting the good fight, and having confidence in fighting the good fight, and in possessing the confidence of the people for whom I had been given the serious spiritual and pastoral charge.

Pope John Paul II in his book Gift and Mystery written on the occasion of his fiftieth anniversary of priestly ordination writes: "Constantly in contact with the holiness of God, the priest must himself become holy. His very ministry commits him to a way of life inspired by the radicalism of the Gospel. We…see the particular need for prayer in his life; prayer finds its source in God’s holiness. I once wrote: ‘Prayer makes the priest and through prayer the priest becomes himself.’ Before all else the priest must indeed be a man of prayer, convinced that time devoted to personal encounter with God is always spent in the best way possible. This not benefits him; it also benefits his apostolic work."

"While the Second Vatican Council speaks of the universal call to holiness, in the case of the priest we must speak of a special call to holiness. Christ needs holy priests! Today’s world demands holy priests! Only a holy priest can become, in an increasingly secularized world, a resounding witness to Christ and his Gospel. And only thus can a priest become a guide for men and women and a teacher of holiness. People, especially the young, are looking for such guides. A priest can be a guide and teacher only to the extent that he becomes an authentic witness."

Please understand my concentration on priests. I in no way diminish the universal call to holiness for all people of God in Christ. But I know that men who have been set apart for the ministry of Word and Sacrament, and who have had an ontological change to themselves through the Sacrament of Ordination, do hold some pretty big keys for the fullness of the Church’s Faith to be commended and embraced. We can be men who draw souls to God, or men who are stumbling blocks.

I know that if God uses any one of us for the purpose of His greater glory through a Church that is pleasing to Him, it will be because we strive to be holy. It will not be because of concordats, intercommunion, and rapprochement (as critical and healing as they be), but by the holiness of those who seek to be like the Son of Man and like those holy men and women of His flock who found their lives by losing their lives in Him- those the Church holds as saints, and through whose intercession we find strength.

Let us fully engage in the opportunity we have here for common worship, serious conversations, the giving and receiving of insights, and with hope for something very different than we have known; but above and beyond that, let us be holy – and know that things unforeseen and refreshingly new will of consequence be ours from our Holy God poised to grant such things.