Magic Statistics

Matthew 16:19 is the traditional proof-text used by the Roman Catholic church to support private confession. Jesus, it is claimed, entrusted Peter with the keys to the kingdom of heaven and the power to bind and loose, including the authority to forgive sins. At the time of the Reformation, Protestants were faced with the question of how to re-interpret this passage and what place, if any, the church should retain for private confession.

Many Protestants challenged the traditional interpretation of the keys and rejected the priestly authority implied therein, but German Lutherans developed a distinctly evangelical form of private confession that persisted into the 18th century.

Luther himself was a strong advocate of private confession. For him, it was a source of invaluable consolation—reassurance that the gospel was truly pro me ("for me"). In some ways, Lutheran confession was meant to be an antidote to the penitential mentality of late medieval confession. Congregants need not confess all their sins, but only make a general statement of sinfulness; the pastor was to offer unconditional absolution. There was no need for further penance. Where the medieval sinner was to be kept suspended "between hope and fear," Lutheran confession was meant to instill absolute confidence in personal salvation.

During the late 1520s and early 1530s, Nürnberg magistrates and theologians developed and then promulgated a new church order reflecting these new ideas. Like Luther, civic leaders were reluctant to do away with private confession altogether. Fearing that congregants might partake of the Lord's Supper unworthily, the new church order required pastors to interview Christians privately before communion. This was no Catholic interrogation. Rather, the interview was intended primarily to gauge the individual's knowledge of the "evangelical" message, since faith for Protestants depended on the correct understanding and perception of the gospel. During the interview, the pastor proclaimed free absolution to the sinner, commending it as a defense against despair. The congregant could confess as many or as few specific sins as he saw fit.

Nürnberg’s Protestant leaders were sensitive to the charge that the Reformation doctrine of free grace potentially encouraged antinomianism. They retained a form of private confession in an attempt to strike an appropriate balance between freedom and discipline.

Read the whole thing.

via The Japery.

The thought police rule in the Anglican Church of Canada. Jim Njegovan, Bishop of Brandon, has banned distribution of The Anglican Planet "in or through the parishes in his diocese". The CBC carried a report:

The conservative-leaning Anglican Planet was born last year when some church members were discussing how the Anglican church has been around for 200 years, but only has one newspaper. The Anglican Planet is published out of Charlottetown.

Reverend David Harris, one of the founders of the new paper, finds the church's official publication, Anglican Journal, a bit liberal-leaning. He says the Toronto-based paper tends to ignore conservative voices from the rest of Canada. He says topics such as same-sex marriage need another point of view.

"We're getting letters from people saying they just feel refreshed by another voice within the Anglican Church of Canada," said Harris.

However, an Anglican bishop in Manitoba doesn't support the new paper. Bishop Jim Njegovan in Brandon says The Anglican Planet is "sowing the seeds of distrust and disdain within the Church," and that the publishers "have no respect for those in authority over them."

So much for that dialogue that Anglican liberals have been advocating so relentlessly in their campaign to get the church to accept non-celibate homosexual clergy and same-sex unions. Once they have their way, the iron fist comes out. Then anybody that holds a different view had better shut up—or else.

Well, perhaps that was Bp Njegovan’s hope. But in these days of e-mail and internet, he has only provided tons of free publicity for those he sought to suppress. American news sources and bloggers have reported here and here and here. It has also been reported by Canadian websites here and here. Anglican Essentials Canada has posted the full text of the bishop’s letter announcing the ban. The web elves at CaNN have a collection of distrustful links along with disdainful commentary and disparaging graphics.

So what’s the big deal with The Anglican Planet? It sounds enormously subversive and outrageously inflammatory. If you visit the website, you can see the front page of the October issue. It looks innocuous enough, with stories on an Episcopal church in Mississippi recovering from hurricane Katrina, the recent celebrations at World Youth Day, Muslim-Christian relations in Nigeria, and a photo of four young girls at St Michael’s Youth Conference in New Brunswick. But appearances can be deceiving. Maybe the really bad stuff is hidden inside.

Don’t tell Bp Njegovan, but I just happen to have at hand a paper copy of the newspaper that I received a few days ago from an inside source at the Anglican Planet. (Keep it under your hat, but his name is "Canada Post".) Page 3 carries an article by Ron Dart on the life and work of William Tyndale. Tyndale was exceptionally rebellious in his day: he translated the Bible into English so that his countrymen could read God’s Word without hindrance from bishops and such like. King Henry VIII thought this so insubordinate that he had Tyndale kidnapped and burned at the stake. Then, that rabble-rouser Robert Crouse, Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Saskatchewan, contributes a meditation on the Gospel and Epistle lessons for the 19th Sunday after Trinity. You can understand that this kind of seditious material can’t be allowed to pollute the minds of Bp Njegovan’s Anglicans.

Almost a full page is given to a report on restoration work being done on St Paul’s, Bloor Street, Toronto. Offhand, I don’t know why the good bishop thinks his parishioners shouldn’t see this, but I’m sure he has a reason. It’s always the article that appears completely harmless that is the most dangerous: you never know what hidden messages it may convey.

On the next page, there’s a report on the same youth conference where the front-page photo was taken. That’s very suspicious. And then, a tribute to the community work of St George’s, Halifax; that would only encourage . . . I’m not sure what exactly—but something bad, obviously.

Wait, I found the problem on the editorial page: There’s a letter from someone who lives in Brandon, Manitoba, saying how much she appreciates the Anglican Planet. The letter concludes, "God bless you". How shocking. Plus, there’s an editorial cartoon showing someone wearing a mitre shoving people out of the front door of a church and down the front steps. The caption reads, "Bishop Njegovan makes room for meaningful dialogue".

Is that subversive or what? I report, you decide.