Cranmer Scholar Weighs Bible in Light of English Reformation and American Culture

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
November 5, 2009

David W. Virtue recently interviewed Cranmer scholar, historian and theologian The Rev. Canon Dr. Ashley Null in the unlikely venue of New York City where neither lives. The occasion was a "Focus on Ministry" conference held at the American Bible Society which included outstanding Bible teacher and expositor Jonathan Juckes, Rector of Kirk Ella in East Yorkshire. He has served at major Anglican evangelical parishes in England (Sevenoaks, St. Helen's, Bishopsgate) and was on the staff of the Proclamation Trust, an organization dedicated to promoting expository preaching. The Rev. Gregory O. Brewer, rector of Calvary St. Georges co-chaired the event with the Rev. John Mason Founding Rector of Christ Church New York City. Mason taught New Testament theology and has been an Anglican minister for over thirty-five years. He is originally from Sydney, Australia.

Dr. Null is canon theologian in the Diocese of Western Kansas. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, London, and currently The Episcopal Church's Scaife-Anderson Fellow at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in New York. He is the author of "Thomas Cranmer's Doctrine of Repentance: Renewing the Power to Love" and a "The Power of Unconditional Love: Thomas Cranmer for Today", forthcoming from Holy Trinity, Brompton, in London. Since I was attending the lectures he was giving here in New York, he agreed to this interview.

VOL: Canon Null, what are you doing in New York City?

NULL: I have the privilege and pleasure of speaking at the first annual Focus on Ministry Conference in NYC which is a partnership of Christ Church Anglican, Calvary/St George (TEC) and the American Bible Society.

VOL: What is the thrust of your message?

NULL: I have specially appreciated two things about this conference. First, its wrestling with how to understand the Bible in light of the insights from the English Reformation and, secondly, how those in the Anglican tradition can effectively proclaim the Gospel to those steeped in the assumptions of American popular culture.

VOL: So who is taking part in the conference?

NULL: The Rev. Jonathan Juckes, is rector of Kirk Ella in East Yorkshire, who is giving expository preaching sessions and workshops during the day on how to exegete the Bible for preaching purposes to area pastors. My brief has been two fold - to discuss the relationship between the Bible and Cranmer's liturgical initiatives as well as the theological principles at the heart of the English Reformation.

VOL: What insights from the English Reformation do you think would be helpful for people steeped in American popular culture?

NULL: I am so glad you asked. Americans today often confuse unconditional affirmation with unconditional love. Unconditional affirmation is what your dog gives you. He simply affirms you without challenging your innate desire to be the center of your own universe. That's why it feels so good.

Unconditional love, however, is not the same as unconditional affirmation. Love creates a crisis. And the greater the love, the greater the crisis. For love reaches out for union. For implicit within the gift of love is a calling of the other into relationship. To accept the gift of love is admit into our heart a power from outside ourselves that tugs at our very self-centredness, seeking to draw us into relationship by stirring up in us a desire to love in return the one who gave us the gift of love. Yet, the price of this relationship is a dent in our self-sufficient autonomy, where our selfish ways have thrived unquestioned. And the greater the love, the greater the loss of the right to live for oneself alone. And perfect, unconditional love seeks to stir up an equally unreserved giving of all of ourselves to the other. In short, true unconditional love does not simply affirm us in our self-satisfied self-centredness. True unconditional love provokes the ultimate crisis where we are called to die completely to our desire for autonomy and wholly give ourselves to the one who has already done the same for us.

The true meaning of the Gospel of Grace is this: that God unconditionally calls each of us to seek release from our selfish ways so that we can join the self-giving fellowship of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and his love is so at work in us to transform us that one day we will enjoy fellowship with God and one another as much as God enjoys fellowship within Himself.

VOL: Did the English Reformation address this issue?

NULL: What is amazing about the English Reformation is that it understood that unconditional love is at the very heart of the gospel. Christianity has always understood that the only effective way to fight sin is to love God more than selfish self-centeredness. The dilemma, however, has always been how do you help people to actually love like that. The Medieval answer was to use both hope and fear: on the one hand, to give people hope that if they did what they could God would put that love in them and, on the other, to stir up fear in Christians that if they didn't do what they could, they would spend eternity apart from His love. The English reformers understood that fear, shame, and duty do not help people love God. Rather, they promote a sense of worthlessness that actually makes people more susceptible to the lure of sinful self gratification. After all when would you must want to make themselves feel good, if only for a short time? When you feel really bad about yourself. The reformers understood that the ability to love God can only come by knowing He first loved us unconditionally and unchangingly. That was the whole point of teaching Justification by faith. Salvation could not be earned. It had to be received as a free gift. After all, if love is earned, it's not love. Of course, that goes diametrically opposed to the assumptions of American culture.

VOL: In what sense is it contrary to American culture?

NULL: The American dream, more accurately the American myth, or even more accurately, the American illusion is that everyone has the opportunity and burden to create their own identity, to define their future, to be all that they can be by creating their own sense of self through what they do. In this culture, your worth is specifically determined by your performance. Your success at becoming what you think will give you meaning and purpose is all about the individual defining, shaping, governing, protecting, preserving and financing the universe in which they choose to inhabit. That's why American culture confuses unconditional love with unconditional affirmation. If you are seeking to create your own identity, you want affirmation that you are being successful. This is where religion can actually be a stumbling block in the way of people learning the true Gospel. They can look at religion as just another means of proving to themselves and to others that they are good people because they do good things and better than those who don't. You may have noticed that there are some tensions currently in the Anglican Communion?

VOL: Yes, I have. (Laughter)

NULL: What is truly ironic and a cause for weeping is that so often all sides in our current inter-Anglican debates slip so easily into competing moralisms, that is, having their own favorite list and activities which show that they are good people and why those who disagree with them are not good people. Whenever you use Christianity to prove you look like God and better than other people you have lost hold of the cross and the insights of the English Reformation.

VOL: What do you mean?

NULL: The heart of the Anglican Reformation is not what we do for God but what God has done for us. It is not about earning God's love but sharing the love he has so graciously given us. For Cranmer grace produces gratitude, gratitude produces love, love (not shame, fear or duty) produces repentance, repentance then produces good works, and good works produces a better society.

VOL: So what is the relationship between unconditional love and repentance?

NULL: That's a key point. You remember when we said that the difference between unconditional love and unconditional affirmation is that unconditional love challenges our self-centeredness. To begin to know God is to begin to know how much unlike Him we are. In the words of Cranmer, we need to remember how easily we are led astray by following "too much the devices and desires of our own hearts." A friend of mine pointed out a wonderful bumper sticker, "Don't believe everything you think." The more we spend time in God's presence by reading his Word and in His worship we begin to realize that our hearts and minds are challenged by his unconditional love to grow more like the one who has made known His love for us on the cross. You see the problem is not so much that good works are not important, the problem all too often in contemporary Anglicanism of whatever branch is that we get the cart before the horse. We emphasize the work that we should do, without recognizing whatever we do is the fruit of God working in us. (Phil 2: 12-13) That Scripture makes clear that we are to be active in following Christ and serving others and the only way that is possible is if we remember and rely on Christ to be at work in us first to will and to do what is right.

VOL: In a nutshell, what would you say the message of this conference is?

NULL: True to his Erasmian training, Thomas Cranmer said it best: the Bible is the "most holy relic that remaineth upon earth." What he meant by that was that the Bible, because it is God's Word, and God's words, it is the living mind of Christ. As we are steeped in it, or better yet, as it is indelibly written on our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit, we encounter and are united to Christ. That means He dwells in us and we in him through His word and worship. Only then can we can become effective communicators to a performance-driven culture. What is our message: that rest for the soul, hope for present wholeness, vision and energy to make a difference in society today and assurance of dwelling in God's presence in the Age to come is found only in God's unconditional love made uniquely clear in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our only Savior and Lord.

VOL: Thank you Dr. Null