It is hard to believe it has been over one year since I announced I was leaving the SBC and converting to Anglicanism. To this day I receive an email or phone call once or twice a week from a pastor saying, “I want to become Anglican, but I am stuck. How do I get out?” Although each story is different, at some point every one of them give the same reason for why they want to leave their pastorate and become Anglican.

I went to a ____ [Baptist or evangelical] seminary, and I have been pastoring for ____ years. But I’ve been reading the Fathers, Fathers I never read in seminary, and it has become obvious that my ____ [Baptist or non-denominational] polity is not catholic. The church of the Fathers was one that believed bishops and their apostolic succession was essential to catholicity. I now realize that catholicity for the Fathers was not just about the doctrine of God and Christ. To make matters worse, after ____ years as a pastor I have accepted the fact that worship will never center on the sacrament of holy Eucharist and the real presence of Christ as it did for the Fathers. I want out, but this is my job and my family is dependent on my salary. I want to become Anglican, but I am middle age and I cannot see how without losing it all. There’s not an obvious onramp for someone like me either. I’m stuck. Can you help?

You are not alone. I know what it is like to live in that dark cave wondering if there is something beyond the shadows on the wall. I have lived to find out there is a bright sun waiting on the other side. But you may need help feeling your way there.

First, you are right, catholicity is not less than the Trinity and Christ, but it is so much more. As I have pointed out before, we do not receive the creeds of the councils apart from bishops. Even before the creeds the indispensability of bishops was apparent. As evident in the writings of Fathers like St. Ignatius and St. Irenaeus, catholicity depends on episcopacy. They are adamant that the apostolic succession of bishops is essential to the unity of the church under an apostolic authority. Hence St. Ignatius (c.50-c.110), bishop of Syrian Antioch, praises the Ephesians for obeying their Bishop. He describes their obedience to the bishop as if it were music that brings them into harmony with Christ himself. “For your council of presbyters…is attuned to the bishop as strings to a lyre. Therefore in your unanimity and harmonious love Jesus Christ is sung. You must join this chorus, every one of you, so that by being harmonious in unanimity and taking your pitch from God you may sing in unison with one voice through Jesus Christ to the Father…” Later he changes metaphors to a house: “For everyone whom the Master of the house sends to manage his own house we must welcome as we would the one who sent him. It is obvious, therefore, that we must regard the bishop as the Lord himself.”

Therefore, as a first step, follow the wisdom of St. Ignatius who commands you to be in “fellowship with your bishop…united with him.” Find the nearest diocese and ask for a conversation with the bishop. Sit down with him if possible. He may bring along his canon theologian or even one of his priests. Be honest with him about your predicament and ask him what Holy Orders looks like for someone in your situation who needs to start all over. Unlike some denominations where ordination exams are sufficient, your bishop will likely explain why you must take time to unlearn the worship you’ve known in order to discover worship anew according to the prayer book’s sacramental understanding of reality. (More on this in a minute.) Bishops are often quite experienced as shepherds over shepherds, and, knowing the priests and churches in their diocese well, the bishop will likely have a bird’s eye view of the landscape, knowing where to plant you and your family in the soil of Anglicanism. He may even consult with other bishops to see what they advise. If all this seems intimidating, start with the best Anglican church near you, and begin the conversation with the priest.

Second, do not starve yourself waiting for this sacramental reality, but find the best Anglican church near you (even if it means driving some ways) and begin partaking of the Eucharist. If available, go to morning (or evening) prayer as well. Some may even partake of the Eucharist during the week. Remember, you are looking for a church that understands how critical it is for the priest to consecrate the bread and wine to be, as the prayer book says, “the Body and Blood of your Son Jesus Christ” (BCP, 2019). You will not find a solution to your predicament in the study but in the sanctuary—in worship.

Many assume that the difference between Anglicanism and other traditions is merely a matter of more liturgy. As if the issue at hand is one of “worship style.” You must put this mentality to death; it is an evangelical way of thinking about worship, and it will forever keep you from understanding the Anglican way. Anglicanism is not about a style (bells and smells) but a sacramental rule of life, one in which you submit yourself to a new reality in which time is consecrated around the mystery of the paschal lamb.

Third, if you are serious about converting you must die to your modern ecclesial instincts, trained as they are by your past experiences, especially in the American church. Anglicanism is where celebrity pastors and personalities go to die. If you want to have a “platform” and a “following,” do not become Anglican. Worship in an Anglican church does not rise and fall with preaching and the charisma of the pastor in the pulpit. Preach it and they will come, is what many a seminarian has been taught. Critical as it is for the Word to be preached, even if the priest should deliver a poor homily, the rest of the Eucharist liturgy feeds the sheep. When you walk into many an Anglican church you may not see a pulpit or a big screen at the center but an altar. The first time you see the “pastor” you probably will struggle to pick him out since clergy in the processional are vested in such a way to bring attention to Christ rather than to themselves. What they do wear (e.g., cassock-alb, stole, and possibly a chasuble or cope) speak to their office.

Related to this, you need to know that your decision to become Anglican will come at a cost. You will be faced with uncertainty. You will lose friends. You will be “cancelled.” I have talked to pastors who wake up in the middle of the night gasping for breath at the uncertainty of what is behind this door. You and your spouse must be on board and together you must be fortified (a virtue, by the way) for the challenge at hand. But as someone who has walked through that door, I can now say to you looking back, it has been so worth it. The grass is greener on the other side.

Fourth, dying to your modern ecclesial instincts also means discovering a whole new understanding—a whole new world—of Holy Orders, one in which the priesthood is not so much about pastoral activity as it is about sacramental function. This last point is, in part, what makes the grass so much greener.

In his book, Corpus Christi, E.L. Mascall opens with a chapter called, “The One Church,” in which he says, “I have noticed that in discussions between Free Churchmen and Anglicans about the ministry there has been a strong tendency upon the part of the Free Churchmen to look upon the ministry entirely in terms of pastoral activity, while the Anglicans (or at any rate many of them) have laid the primary stress on its sacramental and liturgical functions.” Mascall shares why this difference makes all the difference: “In consequence, the Anglican clergy have seemed to the Free Churchmen to be almost entirely preoccupied with devising and conducting church services and to be lacking in concern for people’s souls. … But it needs to be emphasized that, when we say that the primary function of the Christian minister is sacramental and liturgical, we are thinking of him neither as a machine for saying masses and pronouncing absolutions, nor as a professional organizer of inspiring ecclesiastical functions. It is indeed true that his priesthood is most fully and publicly exercised when he is standing at the altar as the celebrant of the liturgy. But what is the liturgy itself? It is the perpetuation in the Church’s midst of the redemptive act of Christ, the means whereby the people of God are made one and the sins and needs of the world are brought before the throne of the Father. And this, so far from excluding the pastoral character from the priesthood, necessitates it.”

Read Mascall’s words again. Here is the hard part for many to understand until they take the risky step into the dark unknown and convert their whole being to the Anglican way: if Mascall is right about the difference between Anglicanism and Free Church, then the convert who was once a pastor will have to start over, and the place to begin is under the altar. Only then will you be ready to talk to your priest about Holy Orders because only then will you understand the primary purpose of the priest. That is humbling, but unlike denominations where you personally decide to plant a church by starting a website, you must spend time relearning what it means to be a church at the foot of the altar, then as a deacon preparing the altar, and only then, after due consideration by your bishop, priest, and church, at the altar as a priest yourself.

Before I sign off, a word for fellow Anglicans. We cannot underestimate how incredibly difficult it is for someone midlife to walk away from a job that supports their family to enter a tradition in which no job is guaranteed to them in the church for several years. How they are to support their family in the meantime is the great unknown, and a fearful one. If a convert is young, they set off to seminary and begin discerning Holy Orders in the context of a diocese, bishop, and church that can guide them. But as my weekly conversations reveal, the pastor leaving his church at midlife has none of this at all. Best case scenario, there happens to be a diocese, bishop, and church in his backyard. But in many cases, there is none to be found. With no blinking onramp into the ACNA for someone in this unique predicament, something needs to be done, whether informally or formally I leave to the experts. If the ACNA is to grow, this is one way it can happen. As important as it is to support the young couple headed off to seminary, we must be conscientious of the many pastors in midlife looking to change traditions altogether. One thing keeps coming out in my conversations: many of them have something younger folks do not, namely, they know from experience the modern approach to ecclesial catholicity is a dead end. They now merely need a door to open, an entryway to those vast lands where catholicity flourishes. It is worth discussing how we can make more doors or at least make the doors that do exist more visible, so that these pastors looking to convert do not give up and assume there is no key to unlock the door they do not know is right in front of them.

Afterword—

The last question (though it is usually the first question) I am always asked in these emails and phone conversations is, “What should I be reading?” I try not to answer this question until the person is immersed in an Anglican church because the non-Anglican (often Reformed) instinct to keep everything at bay until “I, the decider” make a paper evaluation of an entire tradition based on a confessional statement is corrosive, even abortive. Anglicanism does have a theology, but that theology is not really understood until one is at the altar. But if sacramental participation is taking place, then I usually advise reading these works in the following order: Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (to root out the biblicism of Puritanism prevalent in ecclesiology today); St. Ignatius’s Letters and St. Irenaeus’s Against Heresies to see apostolic succession firsthand; E.L. Mascall’s Corpus Christi because most converts know they need the real presence of Christ but are not sure what that means. Last, I recommend A History of the Church in England by J.R.H. Moorman, to help them move past the myth that Anglicanism is the product of Henry VIII (Moorman’s early patristic and medieval chapters are enlightening, demonstrating there were bishops in England long before pope Gregory sends in Augustine of Canterbury). Moorman also keeps them from reducing Anglicanism to the English Reformation, and opens the reader’s eyes to a beautiful broadness that is seen in his later chapters on the Caroline divines and the Oxford movement.

Photo credit: Original image by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P.

Theologian Greg Peters recently said to me in a conversation, “If the prayer of humble access does not make you an Anglican, I don’t know what will.” I found this to be so true in my life. Maybe you have, too. To kneel to receive Jesus’ body and blood. Have you thought about this? To kneel before our Lord, to stretch out your hands, to receive his means of grace. This is the posture of a sinner.

I remember when my children first started to ask questions: “Dad, we’re going forward now. How does this work?” Dad failed to inform them and when they knelt down they didn’t know what to do with their hands. Patient, our rector said to them, “Give me your hands. Turn them this way. Receive God’s grace.” Does this not embody what we pray? “We do not presume to come to this your table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your abundant and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table; but you are the same Lord whose character is always to have mercy” (Book of Common Prayer).

On our knees, with outstretched hands, we are but beggars.

There is no place for power and pomp, but only weakness. To receive the sacrament of our Lord, the sacrament of holy Eucharist that preserves us unto everlasting life, you must know this one thing: I am a sinner. Then you will be ready to be nourished by the once for all sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood. Then you will be ready to participate in the real presence of our Lord.

I was privileged to deliver the Eucharist homily at Trinity Anglican Seminary. You can watch the whole service, but you can also jump to my homily at 22 minutes. Here I contemplate Jesus calling Matthew, the tax collector, to be his disciple, and the presumption of the Pharisees who look on with judgmental eyes. I believe this passage prepares us to kneel and stretch out our hands “to eat the flesh” of Jesus Christ and “to drink his blood…” (BCP).

Did you know I preach at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church in Kansas City at least once a month as well? We just started Exodus and I was handed the colossal task of chapters 3-4. In these two chapters Moses encounters that bush which burns with the holy presence of divinity but without being consumed, which Gregory of Nyssa thinks prefigures the womb of the virgin Mary (see his Life of Moses). I then turned to I AM WHO I AM, and considered how this name fortifies Moses with that central truth: God is his existence. I put forward the real distinction in us, the creature, between essence and existence, much in contrast to our God who is simple. On this bedrock Moses can be confident the Creator of the cosmos who spoke reality into being ex nihilo can do those signs and wonders required to liberate God’s people. But then, in a plot twist, the story ends with God seeking to strike Moses down. Bitter Moses, who was clear he did not want to be Israel’s deliverer, refused to circumcise his son (!), only for his wife to intercede with the sacrament of the covenant. I consider how monumental this moment is if God is to demand Pharaoh release his firstborn son, Israel.

If you would like to listen to other homilies I have delivered, you might be curious about my ascension Sunday homily where I explain what the ascension has to do with ordination to the priesthood from 1 Peter 5.

But if I had to pick one homily recently where I was moved within the depths of my own being, it would have to be the Easter homily. On that early morning, I took the church to the tomb, except we experienced its emptiness through the eyes of Mary Magdalene who is weeping. To which her Lord responds, Whom are you seeking, Mary? We went back in time to explore Mary’s past as a sinner and why she, perhaps more than others, cherished the grace of her Lord in her heart.

I love preaching. I sense I am closest to the Holy Spirit when I proclaim Christ and him crucified. But I also love a good lecture. On October 17th I will be speaking at Aquinas KC with Dominic Legge, O.P., who is president of Dominican House of Studies. I am Anglican. He is Catholic. But together we will gather around Aquinas right here in Kansas City at Donnelly College, asking how Aquinas can help us answer the pressing questions of our culture, such as: how can I flourish as a human being and what does my happiness have to do with my search for God? Register asap as seating is limited.

Come back to substack on July 24th. Will I have an essay for you.

One reason I became Anglican had everything to do with time. I was weary of telling time in the church like we do in the culture. I discovered in Anglicanism a reverence towards time as that which is sacred, consecrated by God to distribute the gospel of his only begotten Son. Time in the Anglican communion is circular, every year the liturgical cycle beginning anew with Advent and the revelation of our Lord during Epiphany, only for the Spirit to drive us into the wilderness for Lent. As we fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ during the Passion, we then burst with jubilee to be raised with Christ in Eastertide. We then ascend with our King into the heavenlies where our humanity is exalted as he now makes priestly intercession for us as our living sacrifice at the right hand of the Father.

Last Sunday was the Day of Pentecost—Whitsunday—which has a way of instilling within us the sacramental nature of time. Our great High Priest came through on his promise to send the Spirit to dwell in his body, the church. That same Spirit descended on Christ’s apostles, marking them off as little priests to mediate his Word and Sacrament for the sake of perfecting his body, the church, until it is made complete. How fitting then for the priest to administer the sacrament of baptism not only on Easter but Pentecost, and not only to new converts but to the children of Christian parents. As Peter told those families inquiring about the Spirit on that first Pentecost, the promise is not only for you but for your children (Acts 2:39).

Baptism has become far more meaningful since becoming Anglican. In the Anglican communion baptism is truly a sacrament. Before the priest holds the child in his arms, he consecrates the water beforehand and says, “Now, Father, sanctify this water by the power of your Holy Spirit. May all who are baptized here be cleansed from sin, be born again, and continue for ever faithful in the risen life of Jesus Christ our Savior. To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, now and for ever.” And the whole church responds, “Amen.” Before I became Anglican, it was impossible not to notice the awkwardness and defensiveness when pastors and scholars heard Peter tell his listeners to be baptized “for the remission of sins” so that they would “receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Fittingly, that tension and all its ungainliness dissipates with Anglicanism. Peter’s words sing. The Spirit will not be stripped of his sacramental right.

You may have noticed the “Amen” in bold. That is there for the whole church to say. The Jewish people knew nothing of our American individualism and would have been shocked to see such independence baptized by the church. Israel thought of Fall and Redemption alike in terms of familial solidarity. Baptism is not “my moment” now that I’ve found “my tribe.” Baptism is not the individual’s time to make “my public profession,” though only after they have proved in adolescence that they are really a Christian and will stay so. Rather, baptism is God’s doing. God rescued Noah and his whole family and brought them into the ark as they passed through the waters of judgment. God delivered father, mother, and child—the whole family as a unit—from Egypt and plunged them through the Red Sea. And when the Spirit descended at Pentecost Peter summoned whole families into the waters of baptism as children of Abraham to be washed and cleansed by that same Spirit who first hovered over the waters at creation. Put on a pre-modern lens and you will see that whole families surround the baptized in covenant solidarity, anticipating the Spirit to once more stir up the consecrated waters. Together, indwelt by that same Spirit, the church—fathers, mothers, and their children— say, “We receive you into the fellowship of the Church.”

Such an emphasis on the Spirit is timely. After Pentecost is Trinity Sunday. The Spirit sent by the Father and the Son at Pentecost to cleanse us with the waters of baptism for the forgiveness of sins now lifts us up into the life of the holy Trinity. This exitus and reditus is a participation in the Spirit’s celestial fire so that we share in the grace of the Son and the love of the Father. If you will forgive me for making the prayer book flex, my favorite liturgical prayer on Pentecost is tucked away in Holy Orders. When the bishop consecrates a priest, the ordinand lies prostrate on the ground and the priests surround him and and pray Veni, Creator Spiritus.

Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,

And lighten with celestial fire.

Thou the anointing Spirit art,

Who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart.

Thy blessed unction from above

Is comfort, life, and fire of love.

Enable with perpetual light

The dullness of our blinded sight.

Anoint and cheer our soiled face

With the abundance of thy grace.

Keep far our foes, give peace at home;

Where thou art guide, no ill can come.

Teach us to know the Father, Son,

And thee, of both, to be but One;

That, through the ages all along,

This may be our endless song:

Praise to thy eternal merit,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

As you prepare for Trinity Sunday, may you be filled with that “blessed unction from above” who is “comfort, life, and fire of love.”

While I have you, you may appreciate some updates. As the videos from the Credo conference keep releasing, I squeezed in a podcast episode with Bryan Hollon, president of Trinity Anglican Seminary. My experience now as a professor at an Anglican seminary is so different. What I mean is, seminary is sacramental through and through, both in outlook and in practice. Bryan shares why this is as it should be if we are equipping priests. Plus, you can hear Bryan’s own story, from his dissertation on Henri de Lubac to his own entrance into the Anglican communion.

Also, Aquinas KC is really happening. Protestants and Catholics are gathering for one day in October around the soundest of scholastics in order to answer some of the hardest challenges of our secular age. I will be speaking on Happiness, Human Flourishing, and our Search for God with Dominic Legge, O.P. Breakout talks are now on the website as well, and you can engage with theologians like John Meinert, Connor Shackelford, Cajetan Cuddy, O.P., Matt Pitts, and more. We only have so many seats, so register here.

I can’t believe Anselm House is almost halfway through its first year. This week we meet for evening prayer, dinner, and Socratic dialogue around the Council of Chalcedon. At the end of June, we will all go to The Nelson Atkins Museum. Each Fellow will share a piece of artwork with everyone, followed by discussion of Maximus the Confessor. By this summer I should have the 2027 curriculum prepared. I am realizing more and more that Anselm House is not only a house of studies but one monastic in spirit. What I mean may demand a future substack essay. For I am convinced this is how theological education can flourish in the century ahead.

Before signing off, please pray for me. I am teaching Moral Theology at Trinity Anglican Seminary, giving much attention to virtue and vice. I am determined to devote at least one chapter in my Systematic Theology to virtue, which is something older theologians did but has fallen out. I will report back to tell you how the course concludes and what I’ve learned.

-Matthew Barrett

Photo credit: Cullan Fritts Photography

If God is simple so that he is happiness itself, then our superlative happiness will be experienced when we see the essence of God. But how can “any created intellect see God’s essence by its own natural powers?” asks Thomas Aquinas. It is impossible. But why?

The vision of God is supernaturally revealed, which means our intellect’s natural powers cannot attain this divine height. In the Prima Parrs of his Summa Theologiae (Question 12, Article 4), Thomas puts forward a scriptural logic: St. Paul says the grace of God is nothing less than eternal life (Rom. 6:23), and St. John defines eternal life as knowing the only true God (Jn. 17:3). It follows that knowledge of the divine essence itself can only be ours by grace. “Hence to know the essence of God belongs to the created mind by grace and not by nature.”

What exactly is it about our natural powers that requires grace if we are to see the divine essence? Metaphysics can assist us with an answer should we distinguish between God and man’s way of being (existence). As one who is simple and pure actuality, God is his existence, whereas finite man is not. Man lives and moves and has his being in God (Acts 17:28). Furthermore, our existence is a corporeal one, composed as we are of soul and body, form and matter. Accordingly, we know things by the power of sensing and the power of understanding. Both are what they sound like: by our bodily parts we can sense an individual thing, only to abstract the nature of that thing through our mind. Understanding is why we can know not only particulars but universals. Mysterious as it is, our human mind can transcend matter to understand that which is abstract, even though it knows it through the concrete and corporeal thing itself (see St 1a. 12, 5 ad. 3). Here we side with Aristotle over Plato.

Whatever are we to make of God then whom scripture repeatedly describes as immaterial? If it is true that our “human mind by its nature to some extent transcends the material” already, then our human mind can “be raised by grace beyond its nature to something higher than the material” (St 1a. 12, 5 ad. 3). In other words, grace elevates our nature so that our mind can know—see—the essence of the one and only one who is his very existence (i.e., who is “unmixed subsistent being”). The Fathers often appealed to the biblical metaphor of light. For example, Psalm 36:9 says, “For with you is the fountain of life. In your light we see light.” David is describing an illumination that is God’s gracious gift to us finite beings. Commenting on this psalm, Thomas uses another illustration: air and fire.

“Whatever is raised beyond its own nature must be made apt to this by a disposition beyond its own nature—as air, if it is to receive the form of fire, needs to be predisposed to it. When however a created intellect sees the essence of God, that very divine essence becomes the form through which the intellect understands. Hence there must be some disposition given to the understanding beyond its own nature so that it can be raised to such sublimity. Since…the natural power of the intellect is not sufficient to see the essence of God, this power of understanding must come to it by divine grace” (1a. 12, 5).

Divine illumination or created light is so gracious of God because it elevates us to a supernatural reality we cannot possibly fathom by our own natural powers. By means of his illuminating power, God strengthens our understanding so that our mind’s eye can see that which our corporeal sight could never see, namely, the essence of God. Imagine this: one day we will gather with the saints and in this heavenly city there will be no sun or moon because the glory of God will illuminate it as we behold the splendor of divinity (Rev. 21:23).

If anything I have said intrigues you and you would like to press further up and further in, did you know that I spoke on this very topic at the Credo conference? In fact, I discussed far more, asking questions like, What does divine simplicity have to do with our happiness? When Jesus was among us, did he see the divine essence? Why must we be pure in heart to see God? Why did Jesus intend for the sacrament of the Eucharist to prepare us for beatific sight? At Credo, we just released the video!

As you can tell, the Credo conference was a special two days, hearing from six different theologians, all contemplating this blessed hope of seeing God. The conference is so unique: I have been to few conferences where classical theology is front and center. Not only that, but breakouts are not just another lecture or talk. Each of our speakers gathers with a small group for Socratic dialogue over a classical text. Yet I would say my favorite part is hearing from so many of you as you share with me how God is restoring orthodoxy in your churches.

But that is not all I have been up to. One of the things I love so much about Anglicanism is the way it teaches our family to tell time. We are now concluding Eastertide, yesterday being the sixth Sunday of Easter, as we anticipate the ascension. What an honor to deliver the homily on Easter. Taking my text from the lectionary, John 20 put Mary Magdalene before me.

I might share more in a future substack because I was so moved by Mary Magdalene. Why did Jesus choose to appear to her before anyone else, a woman once possessed by seven demons? And why did Jesus tell her not to cling to him? These are but a few of the questions I answered. I found myself standing with Mary Magdalene in awe of our Lord. Her mother Eve was sent out of the garden in grief, but now the Gardener himself is sending Mary out with nothing but grace. Until I can write more, give my homily a listen:

Before I sign off, can I tell you one more thing I am writing about? Right now, I am preparing a talk on The Happy Life: Human Flourishing and the Search for God. I will deliver this talk at Aquinas KC, a brand-new project right here in Kansas City. Of course, I will not be the only one speaking.

Dominic Legge, OP, president of Dominican House of Studies, will also deliver a talk, and afterwards we will sit down for Q&A, all of which will be followed by breakout sessions by a host of different Protestants and Catholics. Donnelly College only has so much seating, so REGISTER soon.

This is a fresh opportunity to participate in genuine dialogue across traditions even while maintaining our convictions. I do not see this happening right now and with all the challenges we are facing in our secular age I am convinced it is overdue.

I love nothing more than visiting a city and wasting a day in an old, used bookstore. If I ever disappear and you cannot find me, you can bet that is where I am. I lost myself in a dusty bookstore recently and came across an old edition of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. I asked myself, Why has this book proved so enduring? He breaks every rule of publishing. For instance, he opens with abstract concepts, even utilizing natural theology to establish natural law across all religions. In the middle of his book, he spends a whole chapter on eternal generation, contemplating one of the most difficult mysteries of the faith.

Here is what a lot of people do not realize: to put forward sound doctrine and in a way that will ring true for ages to come, Lewis knows he must presuppose those First Principles that can make sense of reality, metaphysical principles that convey what is so true it is common sense.

I am not confident that the theological books hyped today will be around in seventy-five years. In fact, I am certain they will not. Among other reasons, one stands out: we do not care enough about the First Principles of metaphysics. Even when show interest, all too often the wrong reasons pollute all that is pure. For example, we have shown time and time again that we cannot resist the temptation to force these First principles to fit with modern philosophy and theology—somehow, someway.

What makes matters worse is that we are now living in a secular age, and we do not know how to give an answer to a culture that will no longer listen to someone throwing a Bible verse at them. I’ve said it before and it deserves repeating: we are not living in the first half of Acts 17 (the Bereans) but in the second half of Acts 17 (Athens).

In that light, the First Principles of Thomas Aquinas are more relevant than ever. Protestants and Catholics do not have to compromise their convictions to realize we need Aquinas’ First Principles to answer our secular age. The telos is not actually about looking at Aquinas (he would be the first to say, he is not the final cause!). Rather, it is about looking with Aquinas at reality to know that which is true.

To that end, I am excited to share some news: we are launching Aquinas KC! Once a year Aquinas KC will gather in Kansas City around Aquinas as our common doctor to answer the most difficult challenges we are facing. Our inaugural conference is on October 17th, 2026, at Donnelly College. The topic: The Happy Life—Human Flourishing and the Search for God. I will deliver a message and so will Dominic Legge, OP., one of today’s great theologians.

There are lots of people excited about this fresh endeavor. Endorsements include Michael Bird, Thomas Joseph White, Chris Holmes, Rowan Williams, Graham Tomlin, Gerald McDermott, Anna Halpine, Sr. Teresa Obolevitch, Nicky Gumbel, and more.

Not only can you join us this October, but did you know that you can also present a paper? Students and scholars are welcome to submit a proposal to present at a breakout.

You can follow Aquinas KC on X and on Instagram as well.

Come to Kansas City and join us.

In my Systematic Theology, I have made a point to address a problem I see with seminary education today and with it, theology itself. I won’t share that here (I must retain some suspense in you readers). But I will say this, I have lamented how modern seminary education can be. I could mean any number of things by that lament—there is no shortage of ways seminaries have capitulated, even if unwittingly. But I am thinking of how severed an average student’s seminary experience is from daily liturgical life, including its sacramental participation in the reality of the incarnation. To be blunt, in most seminaries little of this is present. (How hard it is to foster the contemplative life in our digital age of distraction and hype.) Rarely will you find a seminary in which each day is measured by the student’s participation in a historic liturgy.

Truly, this participation in the liturgical life has been one of my most meaningful experiences at Trinity Anglican Seminary as well as Anselm House. At Trinity, we begin the day, faculty and students alike, with morning prayer in the chapel. For those unaware, by morning prayer I am referring to the whole school coming together to pray the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer. Every day, therefore, begins with telling time as a Christian, meaning we begin with scripture that matches our place in the church calendar (Epiphany, Lent, etc.), which is followed by: confession of sin, absolution, the Invitatory (with its gloria patri), the Apostles’ Creed, our Father, the Venite, scriptural Lessons, collects (including John Chrysostom’s), and more.

Afterwords, students walk from morning prayer to the classroom where we open up primary sources. In my class on The English Reformation, for example, we have cracked open English divines from William Tyndale to Thomas Cranmer, from John Jewel to Richard Hooker. Hooker has been prophetic as we have studied his appeal to natural theology (even his reliance on Aquinas, among others) to refute the biblicism of his day. In this class, rather than me lecturing the whole time, we have engaged in Socratic dialogue over the great texts.

All classes break for lunch, at which time students and faculty walk over to the cafeteria to eat together. I have esteemed this time because although some academic conversations continue, many desire to hear what is happening in each other’s lives, churches, and dioceses. After lunch, students and faculty walk back to their classes. By late afternoon, it is time to conclude, but instead of everyone going their separate ways, we all walk back for evening prayer, concluding our time together by once more kneeling before our Lord.

Yet why stop at evening prayer? The pubs are open and you can usually spot a professor talking theology. I went to pay one evening and learned that many pub owners are used to seeing priests and professors walk through their doors. It is not uncommon to see a clerical collar with a stack of books in hand.

Wednesdays are slightly different. Morning prayer is accompanied by The Holy Eucharist in the beautiful Trophimus Center. Classes start later on Wednesdays to make room for the Eucharist liturgy, everything from The Kyrie and Trisagion to the Gloria in Excelsis, from a homily to the Nicene Creed (!), from the Sursum Corda to the Sanctus, from the Prayer of Humble Access to the Agnus Dei, and more. Together we hold out our hands on humble knees, marking the week by our total dependence on the grace of Jesus Christ. The line that echoes in my ear occurs when the priest prays,

“Sanctify us also, that we may worthily receive this holy Sacrament, and be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him.”

The way Anglicanism addresses the whole self—body and soul—could not be more relevant in a secular age quite Gnostic about the body. When class begins afterwards, teaching theology has a whole different meaning now that we have all participated in Christ, both in body and soul. Rather than “chapel” once or twice a week, the whole community is defined by a sacramental outlook, one that defines each student’s understanding of scripture, theology, and missions regardless the class.

I have carried this sacramental outlook into Anselm House where I am theologian-in-residence. Committed themselves to the liturgical life during their one-year residency, Anselm Fellows rise early for morning prayer and Holy Eucharist at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church. When we gather at Anselm House, we begin with evening prayer, followed by a meal for virtue formation, and then Socratic dialogue over classical texts. In February Fellows read Plato’s dialogues as well as Augustine’s Confessions. Now that it is March they are reading City of God—pray for them; some are reading the whole thing! Completing research in the Great Tradition, they are writing a paper that models Lectio Divina and soon enough the clergy will visit to participate and field questions about the liturgical life.

What does all this mean for my Systematic Theology writing and research? Scripture’s emphasis on participation and specifically the sacramental life of God’s people is not merely a chapter at the end (on the church) but a theology that infuses God’s work of redemption from start to finish. And of course, the mere mention of participation requires a classical doctrine of God (one that presupposes the right metaphysical principles) that can explain why in him, the one who is a se, we live and move and have our being.

Before I sign off, what else is on my radar?

The Credo conference is coming soon…end of April in fact! Please join us. I don’t know of any conference that helps the Christian understand why the Beatific Vision provides such hope to the Christian life.

Two new videos (and podcast episodes) are out: Dr. Cuddy, O.P., professor at Dominican House of Studies, and I discuss why theology is not an art but a science, as well as a follow up conversation on one of the giants of the last century: Garrigou-Lagrange.

Until next time, I leave you with this collect for Lent (one that begins with Augustine’s famous words): “Heavenly Father, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you: Look with compassion upon the heartfelt desires of your servants, and purify our disordered affections, that we may behold your eternal glory in the face of Christ Jesus; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

In my Systematic Theology I open with the beatific vision, beginning at the end so that the reader knows from the start the prospect and promise of theology, as far as it is practical. I also had the chance to preach on the beatific vision recently because one of the texts in the lectionary was Matthew 5 and the Beatitudes. I focused on Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” We are participating in Epiphany right now, but what Jesus describes will be the ultimate Epiphany: we will see the divine essence.

A strange thing happened when I was preparing this homily: something in my background kept pulling me back from listening to Jesus. As if I could not really preach Jesus’ words because an emphasis on being pure in heart now for the sake of the beatific vision later might sound too works oriented. My hunch is that this nervousness comes from a background where every single text in the Bible, no matter where it is at in the story line, must be preached as a summary of the gospel (which often translates as, conversion). Ironically, this confinement fails to consider all the fruit that can be plucked from the gospel tree planted in God’s kingdom.

I even saw this awkwardness in my commentary reading. As much as I have learned from Luther, he turns Matthew 5:8 into one, long sermon on the Word. I sense an impatience with Jesus putting forward a philosophy of the good life, a way of consecrated living in his kingdom by which his citizens may flourish. This too is a type of grace. However, I had a different experience reading the Fathers. I did not sense this same uneasiness when they encountered Jesus’ emphasis on virtue and the blessed life. For example, Augustine, the doctor of grace, spends time explaining why the renewal of our mind’s eye in this life is instrumental to seeing God in the next life. Here is a striking passage:

Why would you, while your eyes are bleary, desire to see a sunrise? Let the eyes be sound, and the light will be full of joy. If your eyes are blind, that light itself will be a torment. Unless your heart is pure you will not be permitted to see what cannot be seen unless the heart be pure. (Sermon 53.6).

In the Great Tradition, knowing the beatific vision is to come galvanizes us to be holy as our heavenly Father is holy. Some refuse to sing in this key because of a nagging confinement to matters of conversion, resulting in very little focus on sanctification for the sake of our future glorification. However, the apostle John does not share this same anxiety. In his Gospel narrative he is not light on the gospel of grace, and yet he can emphatically say in his first epistle, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:2–3). With Lent around the corner, it would serve us well to listen to Jesus’ beloved apostle.

We can be confident that we shall be like God precisely because we shall see God, and that definitive promise is meant to put us to work in the meantime. We purify ourselves here and now by the cleansing power of the Spirit so that when we see the divine essence it is not a torment, blinded by the light, but a pure delight. “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8). This life, therefore, is not a waste but is our training for the hope of glory.

You might be eagerly asking by this point, “Who are the pure in heart?” They are those whose innermost being is undivided, whose spiritual disposition is consecrated to a singular passion above all others: gazing at the beauty of the Lord (Ps. 27:4). Like Mary, they sit at the feet of Jesus lost in wonder. Here is where you will find their heart, for the vision of God is where their treasure lies. The pure in heart are those wholly devoted, unwilling to take their eyes off of Jesus. They are stubborn, refusing to be distracted from this “simple gaze,” as Aquinas calls it.

I am delivering the homily at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church once a month now. Listen to my homily on the beatitude of the vision of God.

Speaking of the beatific vision, we will devote the entire Credo conference to this doctrine. I would enjoy meeting you and discussing how the beatific vision has shaped your life. Have you bought your ticket? Register right away. April 24-25 in Washington D.C. Bring a group from your church for a discount too. I will be speaking alongside Gavin Ortlund, Louis Markos, Michael Allen, and Todd Billings. Plus, you have the rare opportunity to sit down with these theologians in breakout sessions and ask whatever questions you want.

Register for Credo Conference

In the future, I have several substacks stacking up on everything from teaching students the English Reformation at Trinity Anglican Seminary to the launch of Anselm House (!) to further metaphysical adventures in Thomism at Dominican House of Studies. Plus, I would like to share with you some lessons from my systematic on why we need to underline theology as a science as opposed to an art. In the meantime, I’ve started two Credo podcast series: (1) Why I became Anglican, and (2) Classical theology in John. Listen to Gerald Bray, Gerald McDermott, Thomas Weinandy, and many more. Join the great conversation with me.

A few years ago, I was on the phone with Paul Helm when he told me that he was losing his ability to communicate his thoughts. To make matters worse, he also told me his memory was starting to fade at the same time. When I hung up the phone a deep sense of sadness entered the room. It seemed unfair. Here was a great mind, one capable of swimming in some of the deepest philosophical waters, only to see his intellect slip from his grasp by no choice of his own.

Around a year or so ago, I learned from Angela, Paul’s wife, that his state was now worse. Even still, Paul was still trying to write an endorsement for a book of mine. A book endorsement seemed so unnecessary under the circumstances, but Paul’s determination to help only served to increase my affection for him. Such an accomplished scholar, now at the end, and yet selfless as ever.

If you have not heard, Paul is now with his Lord, and our Lord, at last seeing face-to-face the one he spent his life contemplating. May he now rest in the everlasting peace of his Savior, contemplating the eternity of his Lord. Yet in his heavenly joy, others who knew him and loved him now grieve on earth. We should remember his family as they suffer this loss most of all.

I met Paul at a pivotal time in my life: seminary. Paul came to teach a course in philosophy, which gave the two of us the opportunity to spend time together in person. I’ve never forgotten how he patiently entertained what must have seemed to him like elementary questions about philosophical theology from someone just beginning. Paul had taught with the best at King’s College London back in the day and then at other schools like Regent. And yet, he took no little time to sit down and help a pilgrim barely on his way. Few know that Paul was one of the first to help me launch Credo. Many know him for his intellectual prowess, but I knew him for his generosity and humility as well.

I don’t know that many new students today have read Paul’s books, but he is a major reason why theologians like me came to a fork in the road—with revisionist evangelicalism to the left and classical theism to the right—and chose the road less travelled by. Back then evangelicals were flirting with open theism, yet even many of those who reacted against open theism were not retreating to classical theism but inventing some new modification of it. Paul saw through it all. He was one of those few voices standing up for pure classical theism in a day when few evangelicals understood it well. To this day, I’m still unsure those who appreciate him fully understand that Paul’s defense of classical theism was metaphysical at heart. I hope that becomes more apparent as others consider Paul’s legacy.

Paul’s stance took no little courage. For example, in 2008 a book hit the press called Perspectives on the Doctrine of God, in which Paul took on Bruce Ware, Roger Olson, and John Sanders all at once. By the time I finished the book it became clear that everyone but Paul was either trying to revise classical theism or discard it altogether. In a move with striking perspicuity, Paul introduced the A-Team as he affectionately called it—Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas—and drew a line in the sand, essentially telling his opponents, You either stand with the A-Team or you don’t. (Paul spent much of his future exploring the ways classical theism influenced the Reformed Scholastics.) That took some valor in a day when so many were enamored with tinkering classical theism.

Yet Paul’s fortitude was already well-known. Previously, at the turn of the century, Paul had jousted with William Lane Craig and Nicholas Wolterstorff, once against defending God’s timeless eternity against those who entertained a God who is temporal in one respect or another (see Paul’s chapters here). But there Paul stood, once again, waiving the banner of classical theism, even if it meant standing alone.

Looking back, it is now clear that Paul was ahead of his time—dare I say, even prophetic. He was defending the credibility of classical theism long before some evangelicals grew disenchanted by the revisionist project. However, Paul was not staying the course for social media likes or a YouTube following, nor was he trying to create a brand or achieve the respect of his peers. In fact, not a few disliked Paul for his stubborn defense of classical theism against innovation. But if you knew Paul, then you understood that he was standing by classical theism because he knew it was true to reality, which explains why he had such an affinity for the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas.

When I first started teaching classical theism to seminary students, first overseas and eventually back in the States, Paul Helm’s Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time (Oxford University Press) became a staple for my students. I wanted them to see that classical theism is not only to be defended on biblical grounds but has an ancient philosophical pedigree that has endured every modern assault. Plus, I wanted them to feel like they were not alone; an intellect as significant as Paul Helm’s stands with them. But what I did not tell my students is that I was trying my best to follow Paul’s example, however poor my attempt was by comparison to Paul himself.

Fortitude and magnanimity—two virtues not often held together—stand out as I reflect on my time with Paul Helm. What conversations he blessed us with he now enjoys on a level we cannot imagine. With the Great Tradition he is now contemplating the Eternal God.

Until we meet again, Paul.

-Matthew Barrett

For those readers unfamiliar with Paul Helm, you may enjoy the following conversations on Credo:

What good is philosophy for theology? Credo podcast

God without weakness: Paul Helm defends divine impassibility—written interview.

Who is afraid of Thomas Aquinas? Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Review.

What is the reformed view of free will? Credo podcast

What is philosophical theology, and why is it important for the church today? Written interview

I am so pleased to share some news: the Dominican House of Studies and the Thomistic Institute in Washington, D.C. has appointed me their McDonald Agape visiting scholar. I cannot begin to express why this is such a unique privilege and honor.

This temporary appointment, which is reserved for a Protestant, involves lecturing to the brothers and students at DHS (for example, I am lecturing on Aquinas, Calvin, Protestant Scholastics, and Barth), leading soirées with guest scholars and Dominican friars and brothers, participating in Thomistic Institute conferences, and writing my own projects on Aquinas, etc. I am especially grateful for the conversations this opportunity has opened up to me, conversations with scholars from all over the world who come to DHS to present their scholarship.

What makes this appointment all the more special is that it was made by Dominic Legge who has now become the next president of DHS. He is not only a Thomistic theologian in his own right (see his volume on Christology with Oxford), but as president he is putting forward a vision for the institution as it moves into the heart of the twenty-first century.

In the future, I will follow up with some reflection articles on my experience and all that I’ve learned. Allow me to just say, it has been truly eye-opening so far. In my estimation, the Dominicans produce some of the best theologians of our day, including Thomas Joseph White, Andrew Hofer, Serge-Thomas Bonino, Cajetan Cuddy (who is leading the way publishing Thomists of yesteryear), and countless others. (And I have not even mentioned those who are not in the Order of Preachers but are Thomists at various academies, such as Matthew Minerd, Matthew Levering, etc.) If you do not know these names, then you are not reading some of the most insightful theologians of our day.

If I can be honest, there is a world of Thomistic scholarship that is producing many of today’s best books on metaphysics and theology, but sadly many Protestants scholars are ignorant of this world or they self-consciously disconnect themselves from this world. This is not healthy. We have created an echo chamber in which we limit ourselves to our own publishers, institutions, and conferences where we can pat each other on the back. As I will explain in a future article, we cannot afford to do this. If we are to answer the metaphysical challenges of our secular age, we cannot cut ourselves off in this way. This has not always been the case, as plain with Anglican Thomists like E.L. Mascall in the last century, among others.

I am no prophet, but I am convinced a new chapter in ecumenism is on the horizon. Here is why: Liberalism is not prejudice; it has pervaded every tradition, Catholic and Protestant alike. Unfortunately, Protestants have at times built bonds with the Liberal corners of Catholicism. However, it’s time to build bridges with conservative Catholics, especially those committed to Thomism. Why? The old ecumenism can be grossly summarized as Catholics and Protestants sitting down at the table and staring at each other, only to recognize their differences bring them to an impasse. I believe those days may be behind us.

Moving forward, Catholics and Protestants must come together around Aquinas but rather than stare at each other they must stand side by side with Aquinas as they face outward, together giving an answer to the metaphysical challenges of our secular age. Few are so equipped for this task as the Dominican Order, in large part due to their nearly millennia old ability to rest confidently in the First Principles of Thomism, a confidence that then galvanizes them to engage a secular culture. We have much to learn from them, and we will be much stronger to stand with them on these First Truths as the culture becomes more secular still.

For example, how can we ignore the innumerable ways the Thomistic Institute is making inroads into hundreds of universities around the country and the world, sending out Thomists to speak to student-led chapters? Confident in truth, these Thomists are bringing their First Principles into dialogue with the most difficult questions university students are asking. I find this remarkable and know of nothing comparable, at least not on this level.

For these reasons and more, I count it a real privilege to participate in DHS. Here is a picture of an event I led called, “What does Aquinas have to do with Darwin?” I invited my co-editor Craig Carter out from Canada. (Dr. Carter and I are editing a five volume series on Aquinas with Crossway.) For two hours we all enjoyed dialogue and debate as to whether evolution is compatible with Thomism’s First Principles.

This opportunity is also opening my eyes to a quality of education that I did not think existed anymore, one where students in theology courses are responding on the spot in Latin, reading through Aquinas’s Summa before they graduate, laboring to understand Thomistic metaphysics as part of their bachelor’s and master’s degree, and coming together for liturgy four times a day.

In a day when so many are taught to be clever, inventing some new view on a doctrine in an effort to make a name for themselves, DHS puts forward a model in which their priority is the fidelity of the mind to those universal truths that define reality. They are characterized by a quiet confidence in the stability of Thomistic First Principles, which has a way of making them glow in the wake of so much of Christianity that has capitulated to modernity and post-modernity.

Witnessing this robust form of theological education will no doubt make me a better professor at Trinity Anglican Seminary in the end.

I will have many other experiences to share on my substack, but for now, let me just say, I am grateful to Dominican House and the Thomistic Institute for selecting me. I did not expect this honor and I believe it will make me a far better Anglican Thomist in the end.

On October 30^th Matthew Barrett delivered the John Rodgers Lecture series at Trinity Anglican Seminary. Dr. Barrett is Research Professor of Theology at Trinity Anglican Seminary. He is Theologian-in-Residence for Anselm House at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church. He is the author of award winning books, such as Simply Trinity (Baker) and On Classical Trinitarianism (IVP Academic). He is currently writing a Systematic Theology (Baker Academic).

The following is his message.

Some of you may know that earlier this year I became Anglican and shared some of my story as to why. Even before I did so, some warned me against Anglicanism, saying, “Look at what a mess it is! How can you seriously be considering this?” Those voices continue even now that I am Anglican. Your story may be different from mine, but I don’t doubt that some of you are feeling the weight of a watching world after events over the last several weeks, whether it be potential scandal in the ACNA or schism in the wider Anglican communion. Perhaps you feel discouraged, even a little sheepish about wearing the Anglican badge. You might even feel like if there was ever a time not to hear a lecture on Anglicanism, this is it.

Several years ago, I was a pastor at a Baptist church. One Sunday after church, my wife Elizabeth pulled me aside and said, “I love you, but you need to know that spiritually speaking I’m not making it. I am dying on the inside.” I feared asking her why because I had the suspicion that she might give the same reasons that were deep down in my soul as well. And sure enough, I was right. She said, “I know you’ve tried to make a difference, but we’ve been at this a long time and there’s no objective ground under us.” She then went on to point things out that I knew all too well. We might call it the great absence. The absence of ancient liturgy, communion that’s sacramental, weekly profession of the Nicene Creed, and external ecclesiastical accountability and discipline when sin enters the leadership of a church that otherwise thinks it is autonomous. And yet, my wife’s cry was not so much about this or that issue as it was a cry for something timeless, something enduring, something…true to reality. She knew that should a storm come, and it would, we would not have an anchor to ground us. I knew she was right.

But what about those skeptics—“Look, it’s a mess!” they said. My wife caught me up in the middle of the night reading article after article. “Another article is not going to take away the turmoil within you,” she said. When I thought I could take no more, our Lord had mercy on my soul. I was speaking to a friend and he said, “Matthew, if you are to become Anglican, you must do so for the right reason.” “What is that?” I asked. “Because it’s true.” I was embarrassed. Here I was, a theologian, but I needed him to state the obvious: truth. “If the ideal is true, then you’re home,” he said. “And then, roll up your sleeves, and get to work.” He was right. I was a lot like Peter. I was caught somewhere between the boat behind me and Jesus in front of me, and then I started looking around. The wind was blowing, the waves were high, and the sky was dark. When all I really needed was to look ahead and keep my eyes on my Lord.

You may also feel that way with everything happening in Anglicanism, but I am so glad the Lord led me to Anglicanism. However imperfect things may be, we actually have a threefold office shaped by a historic episcopacy, one that has supported the church through the worst storms of heresy, apostacy, and immorality. That ecclesiastical structure is so counter-cultural because at the end of the day it is built for justice in a world that only cares about image. When done right, it’s commitment to justice protects its members from being sacrificed on the altar of image, and that is not something you can say about every tradition. As Bryan Hollon said recently, as Anglicans we have a canonical way to administer disciple, and discipline, as painful as it may be, is an indicator of good health.

This year, 2025, marks the 1700^th anniversary of Nicaea, and so we celebrate! Yet did you know that it took decade upon decade for the bishops to move the church into the peaceful waters of doctrinal purity?. Imagine living in a world where you go to church on Sunday only to discover that your priest has you singing songs where worship of the Son is excluded? Let’s not forget, heresy by definition comes from within the church. In the 4^th century the winds of Arianism were blowing hard against the walls of the church and from the inside. To give you an idea of the tumultuous nature of this storm, Basil once wrote to Athanasius afraid the church might not survive, calling on him in that hour to guide the church back to harbor.

…the whole church is undone. And you [Athanasius] see everything in all directions in your mind’s eye like a man looking from some tall watch tower, as when at sea many ships sailing together are all dashed one against the other by the violence of the waves, and shipwreck arises in some cases from the sea being furiously agitated from without, in others from the disorder of the sailors hindering and crowding one another. …What capable pilot can be found in such a storm? Who is worthy to rouse the Lord to rebuke the wind and the sea?^[i]

Did you know that Athanasius would not live to see this sea calm? He died before he could see bishops gather in Constantinople in 381, almost sixty years after Nicaea, to confess what we now call the Nicene Creed. Can you imagine how encouraged Basil might have been if the Lord had given him a vision of the future? If only he could see a day like ours when Anglican churches all over the world gather to trinitarian Christianity, which Basil worried would not survive.

I did not plan the timing of this lecture to coincide around the current crisis, and my aim is not to address it. However, perhaps this is an opportunity to acquire a renewed perspective on all that is good, true, and beautiful about his church. I believe that Anglicanism, whatever its challenges from year to year, is best equipped to carry the torch of Nicene Christianity forward.

That is a bold claim, but if I didn’t believe it, I wouldn’t have become Anglican in the first place. So let me share with you why.

1. Nicene trinitarianism is intrinsic to the bloodstream of the Anglican church.

For some of you who are cradle Anglicans, forgive me if it seems like I am stating the obvious, but I have a certain exhilaration over what can sometimes be taken for granted: The Nicene Creed has been baked into Anglicanism from the beginning. Yet it’s not merely the fact that Nicaea is present; it’s the way Nicaea is baked into Anglicanism that is significant. Since this is the John Rogers lecture, a lecture designed to retrieve the heritage of the English Reformation, consider the formularies with me.

The Articles of Religion that Thomas Cranmer labored over not only open with the doctrine of the Trinity, but (what we now call) Article 8 says, “The Three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius’s Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.”^[ii] Due in part to this Article, others like John Jewel could make his famous case for the catholicity of the English church, claiming its churches have not given way to heretical innovations but stand in the stream of the one holy catholic and apostolic church.

I can’t help but glow with great affection over Article 8. It is so amazing to me because I am coming from thea Southern Baptist denomination where (1) creeds are often looked at with serious suspicion due to an irrevocable, intrinsic biblicism, (2) most churches do not say the Nicene creed together each Sunday morning, (3) some of its most prominent theologians are permitted to subordinate the Son, thereby betraying the very point of the creed, and (4) its executive committee has officially rejected Nicene creed’s inclusion in the Baptist Faith and Message.

I don’t say all that to be triumphalist (I endured the pain of it all for two decades), but I mention it to give you a sense of the immense gratitude within me when I read Article 8.^[iii] Whatever challenges Anglicanism faces today, Article 8 has spared Anglican churches from subordinationist heresies not all that different from what the bishops of Nicaea encountered in the fourth century. No doubt, if we had not been spared by the foresight of the English reformers, Anglican institutions like this one would be stained and the parishes that its graduates serve would be plagued by a divisiveness that results from doctrinal infidelity.

Yet the ecclesiastical significance of Article 8 is deeper still.

When the English reformers included Article 8, they were setting in motion a catholicity for the priesthood on which the health of the church would depend. To this day, at the ordination of every priest, the bishop leads the church to confess the Nicene Creed before their future priest. In the bishop’s exhortation that follows, he implores the ordinand to remember “how great is this treasure committed to your charge.” The bishop calls on the ordinand to a paternal care for the children God has entrusted to him.

“Work diligently, with your whole heart, to bring those in your care into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of God, and to maturity in Christ, that there may be among you neither error in religion nor immorality in life.”^[iv]

The unity of the faith is not one that bends to the priest’s own liking or agenda, nor is it one in which an autonomous body of believers decide of themselves whether they will or will not abide by that faith. The unity of the faith entrusted to the priest is one handed down, a Nicene tradition to which the priest and the people alike are held to account. Its disciplinary presence certainly is meant to weigh heavy on the conscience of the priest at ordination, but its presence is also a reservoir of assurance. Should he abide by the unity of this Nicene faith, his people will participate in peace, both with God and with one another, bound together by the knowledge of God.

The presence of his bishop should not be overlooked. As the bishops submits this priest to the Nicene faith, he does so according to the catholicity of the episcopate and its canon law. His authority, in other words, is not one original to himself; he is no maverick, as apparent when he subscribes “without reservation to the Oath of Canonical Obedience.”^[v]

In this way, Anglicanism embodies an apostolic heritage. In the 2^nd century, Gnosticism seeped in, tempting Christians to think the Gnostics held the true secrets of Christianity. They claimed to hold the key that unlocks the Jesus and the scriptures the church had kept from them. Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon was alarmed to say the least. The Gnostic claim was shocking to Irenaeus because it so violated the proximity of his own episcopal lineage as a disciple of Polycarp who was himself a disciple of the apostle John.

What is so telling is Irenaeus’ default response. In Against Heresies he says, there is a

“tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and the universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops.”^[vi]

Irenaeus does not think orthodoxy is a matter of each’s church’s individual preference either.

“For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those who exist everywhere.”^[vii]

How will Irenaeus confirm that the church retains the true deposit of the faith? By means of a laborious list, chronicling the succession of bishops that have preserved the faith one for all entrusted to the saints.

“The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy. To him succeeded Anacletus; and after him, in the third place from the apostles, Clement was allotted the bishopric.”^[viii]

Irenaeus then goes on to list bishop after bishop, and then he concludes,

“In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is the most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.”^[ix]

Why mention this? The truth of the apostolic tradition, out of which the Trinity is unleashed on the world, is one preserved and perpetuated not merely by teaching but by means of an office—a bishopric—intended to safeguard that teaching.^[x] The church knew as much. By the fourth century that succession of bishops required a council at Nicaea to discipline those in the church teaching a Trinity untrue to that same apostolic tradition.

Yet there is a deeper point I am driving at.

My breaking point came when I realized that I was a walking cognitive contradiction. I was all too happy to be catholic on the doctrine of God and Christ, while defaulting to modern instincts on ecclesiology, instincts that undermined the conciliar authority on which the church relied to ensure every church’s accountability to the God and Christ of the creed. As one friend said to me, “Even if you could convince the powers that be to accept Nicaea, you do not have the polity needed to ensure that otherwise autonomous churches will confess that creed and its proper meaning in the liturgy of their churches. In fact, if you, a Baptist, had been alive in the fourth century, even if you would have found Nicaea’s doctrine agreeable, you would have had to protest Nicaea for its conciliar authority, that is, simply for being a council with bishops.”

I discovered that I did not have the right instincts—catholic instincts. The truth of Anglicanism shines bright precisely at this point. Whatever reform may be required at the present moment, we have an episcopate structure that is inherited from the one holy catholic and apostolic church, one equipped to protect us from heresy and lead us into the knowledge of God, and for that we can be immensely grateful lest we take this gift for granted.

2. If the sacraments are the church’s gateway to participation in the life of the holy Trinity, then Anglicanism is prepared to usher us into that trinitarian life by means of its sacramental liturgy.

The Nicene Creed is not only stamped onto the foreheads of the clergy, but it is the key that unlocks the Eucharist liturgy for the laity. English reformers like Cranmer infused Nicaea into the hearts of every person participating in the body and blood of our Lord, making the Nicene Creed a most practical means to communion with the Father through the Son by the Spirit.

Before I became Anglican, I thought, “If we just teach Nicene trinitarianism over and over again, that will be enough.” And so, I did. But I failed to see the obvious. True, it is critical to teach the church the Trinity (at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church we spent 14 homilies during Ordinary Time expositing through the creed).

However, the church’s most organic encounter with the Trinity is in the sacraments. I was guilty of missing the obvious: when our Lord Jesus Christ prepared to go to the cross—that crucible of Christianity—out of all things he could have said or done with his disciples, he chose to institute the sacrament of the Eucharist. On the other side of that grave, the next time he would leave his disciples again, he instituted the sacrament of baptism and in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

At Christianity’s most pivotal moment, why would the sacraments become the bookends of the Son’s mission from the Father? The sacraments ensure the church is not merely learning about the Trinity but participating in the Trinity. It is the fitting sequel to all of Jesus’s teaching whereby he revealed the way to the Father from whom he is eternally begotten.

If I am right, then a church that does not believe the sacraments are actually sacraments should not be surprised if their people are indifferent to the mystery of the holy Trinity. If the sacraments are visible signs of invisible grace, then the Thirty-nine Articles are right to say that they cannot be mere “badges or tokens of Christian men’s profession.” They must be more. They must be, and I quote, “certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God’s good will towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him.”^[xi]

For example, consider Baptism. Here is our first encounter, the gateway into the happy land of the Trinity. I do not think it accidental that the Nicene Creed mentions baptism shortly after the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son, then the Father and the Son can send us the Spirit to give us new life. To put it theologically, the Spirit’s procession from eternity is extended by means of his mission to us in history, a mission by which he gives us the grace of the Son so that we may receive the love of the Father. We are told in the baptismal liturgy that the same Spirit who hovered over the waters in the beginning of creation, descends upon us in the waters of baptism, our new creation.

“We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are made regenerate by the Holy Spirit.”^[xii]

If we die and rise with Christ in baptism, then it is truly a means of grace. Previously I struggled to square baptism as a mere public profession of faith with Peter in Acts 2, as well as the Nicene Creed, both of which speak of baptism for the forgiveness of sins.^[xiii] However, if the Thirty-nine articles are right when they say “Baptism is not only a sign of profession…but it is also a sign of Regeneration or new Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church;” then the Articles are also right to conclude that “the promises of forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed” in baptism.^[xiv]

That explains why we do not keep it from our children. To keep them from baptism is to keep them from the love of the Father, the grace of his Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit. It is to leave them in Egypt when they should be summoned to Sinai after crossing through the waters of the Red Sea. How fitting then for the priest to thank God for the gift of water. “Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land of promise.”^[xv]

In summary, baptism is our entrance in the life of the holy Trinity, whereby we begin to receive all the benefits the Father sent his Son to secure and the Father and the Son sent the Spirit to seal upon us. In the words of the prayer book, in the Father, we are “sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ own for ever.”^[xvi]

If baptism is our entrance into the blessed land of the Trinity, then communion is our ongoing participation in the life of the holy Trinity. What else could we conclude when our Lord says, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (Jn. 6:53b)? Have you ever considered why it is advantageous to confess the Nicene Creed before receiving the body and blood of Christ? In the Nicene Creed the holy Trinity confronts us with reality. We need that awkward confrontation. We have been in the world, a world that tells us to make a reality of our own choosing, one that oscillates on our individual feelings, our passions. Live. Your. Truth. Is that not what we are told? But when we enter the church, the Nicene Creed confronts our expressive individualism with a different reality, one with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone.

Have you ever noticed how unapologetically objective the creed is? It simply states the reality of eternity and then lists the truths of history. The Son who is eternally begotten from the Father, really was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. The one who is Light from Light really was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died, and rose on the third day. The who is one Being with the Father, really did ascend into heaven and right now he really does sit at the right hand of the Father.

Why do we need to confess this eternal reality; why do we need to say these historic truths together? Because if they are not really true, then we will not encounter the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. By saying the creed first, our passions are re-oriented to reality in Christ. Only then are we ready to participate in his body and blood.

It’s an odd thing to believe in a Son who is born from the Father from all eternity and confess that this same Son is born of a Virgin in salvation history, only to approach his table as if his presence is nowhere to be found. What a relief to read the Thirty-nine articles:

“The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ’s death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ” (XXVII).

Partaking—does that word sound familiar? The Thirty-nine Articles are quoting 1 Corinthians 10, where the apostle Paul slams the Corinthians with a rebuke that is meant to knock them back into reality: either you are partaking of demons or Christ. To make his point, Paul has far more than a mere memorial in view. 1 Corinthians 10:16: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”

In the Eucharist meal, the same Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son ushers us into communion with the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ, so that by partaking of his body and blood we may be nourished by the sacrament of our redemption. Holy Eucharist is that paschal mystery by which we continually participate, through the Spirit, in the body and blood of Christ until at last, we see God face to face and partake of his divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). In this way, it is no mere sign but a sacrament, our Lord’s chosen means of grace to bring us into communion with the Father through the Son by the Spirit.

In the late sixteenth century, one of our greatest English theologians, Richard Hooker, said the church must confess “that this sacrament is a true and real participation in Christ, who by it imparts his whole, entire person as the mystical head to every soul who receives him, and that those who receive are united or incorporated to Christ as mystical members of him, and of those whom he acknowledges as his own.”^[xvii]

Whether you are a professor or priest, whether you are a mother or father, it is not enough to teach those under your care the mystery of the Trinity. You must lead them by the hand to eat and drink, so that they may participate in that holy mystery, body and soul. Nicene trinitarianism is not a lecture you heard or even a sermon series you endured; it is a summons to commune with the living God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

3. If Nicene Christianity is baked into Anglicanism’s sacramental theology, then Anglicanism is equipped to answer the metaphysical challenges of our secular age.

This may not seem immediately obvious, so allow me to explain. In God’s providence he often uses heresy to sharpen the philosophical acumen of Christianity. When Arianism confiscated the Son’s consubstantiality with the Father, the bishops of Nicaea understood they needed a philosophical vocabulary to clarify why the Son must be one in being with the Father. Remember, Arianism was so tempting because it came so close in its vocabulary while remaining so far away from the truth. The Arians were willing to say the Son is one in will with the Father, which allowed them to elevate the Son above the rest of creation while yet maintaining his subordinate status to the Father. That word in the creed—begotten—was then used in a creaturely way. Once the Son was not, said Arius, but then God made a Son for himself, and by doing so he became a Father for the first time.

The bishops at Nicaea understood, however, that a mere unity of will(s) is insufficient if Jesus is who he says he is, namely, “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30). But how could the Fathers articulate as much? On the one hand, the doctrine of eternal generation communicated distinction. To be a son is to be begotten from a father, and to be a father is to beget a son. At the risk of stating the obvious, this is why we call a son son and a father father. Therefore, the Son must be begotten to be a Son from the Father.

However, if passages like John 10 have any truth to them, he cannot be a Son like the Arians assume, as if to be begotten is to be made. He must be Son in a higher, far more eminent way. Unlike a human son, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. That word eternal has a way of eliminating all finite limitations that we might be tempted to attach to begetting. If the Son is eternally begotten of the Father’s essence, then the Father communicates all the blessedness and perfection of the divine nature to his Son and he does so timelessly, from everlasting to everlasting. By calling this begetting eternal, Nicaea now has a credible reason to say the Son is “true God from true God,” and without a doubt “one Being with the Father.” On that basis Nicaea can say that “through him [the Son] the world was made.” If the Son is begotten, not made, then the world that is made is made through him.

To reach these conclusions, the bishops of Nicaea assumed certain metaphysical precommitments. Metaphysics is the study of being, or what we might call being qua being. What then does metaphysics have to do with God when God is no mere being among other beings? To quote Michael Gorman, “Metaphysics cares about God not because he’s part of the subject matter, but because he’s the source of the subject matter.”^[xviii] The major question of Nicaea is where to locate the Son. Is he, with the Father, the source of all being in this world, or is he a being among other beings in this world? Arianism subordinated the Son by reducing him to an effect, a mere product of the Father’s will, which meant he could not be creation’s First Cause with the Father and the Spirit. The Fathers countered: with the Father and the Spirit, the Son is the source of all being (the source of all being qua being).

Today we find ourselves living in an age that the council of Nicaea could not have imagined. Nicaea’s challenge came from within, but we now face a challenge from without. The outlook of so many in our age is one of materialism, as if material properties is the sum of existence. Mechanism is not far behind, as if this world can be explained (and reduced) to mechanical causes. Nominalism is inevitable, as if all we are left with are particulars to which we apply names, particulars stripped of their universals. Without universals to explain what the many things in our world have in common, should we be surprised relativism follows, as if man is the measure of all things, severed as he is from participating in a divine reality to which he is accountable? And if relativism, why not skepticism? Why not doubt the acquisition of truth, and with it, knowledge itself?^[xix]

This all might sound quite technical, but I assure you it could not be more practical. On her first day of school this year, my teenage daughter sat down in class only for the teacher to ask her what she had decided her pronouns would be that year. With all eyes on her, my daughter came face to face with a metaphysical question that would apparently decide her identity. Thankfully, my daughter used common sense (which is another way to describe metaphysical reasoning). To ask her what she decided her pronouns would be that year was to ask her to be the Creator. Using reason, she was right to sense something idolatrous in the question itself. My daughter, as you know well, is not unique. The secular world she encountered is one you live in every day. And not only you but the people of your parish.

So, what are we to do?

Nicaea had the luxury of presupposing First Principles. Heretics and orthodox alike agreed on reality; where to position the Son in that reality was the point of controversy. However, today we do not enjoy such a luxury. Nicaea’s metaphysical precommitments must now be walked out on the red carpet.

Previous centuries operated in the first half of Acts 17, where Paul and Silas encountered Jews in the synagogue at Berea. Paul and Silas did not have to explain whether God is a cause or an effect, whether God is pure spirit or whether he is a composition of form and matter, whether he is his existence or depends on another to receive it, whether God is perfect in the fullness of his everlasting life or whether he must become something more to actualize his potential, and so on. No, the Bereans more or less understood the reality in which they lived; what they were missing was simply Jesus. So, they went back to the law and the prophets to find him.

We do not live in that world any longer. The world in which we live is the second half of Acts 17, where Paul enters Athens and addresses its philosophers in the Areopagus. Paul never mentions the name of Jesus, but he begins with their common ground, namely, the unknown God on which they all depend to live and move and have their being. By starting with participation, Paul can then correct their misstep: they have thought of divinity as something that must participate in our gifts for its fullness. However, the Creator is no needy deity, but he is a se, the fullness of eternal life in and of himself. He is no being among beings but the source of all being, the one in whom we owe our being. In reality, only a Creator who is the source of all being can give us new life by raising a man from the dead.

We may be after Nicaea in time, but our world is that of Mars Hill. Until we establish the right metaphysic, laying the brickwork with those First Truths or First Principles, we will not have a road on which we can travel with the skeptic and explain what kind of Creator makes an empty tomb feasible to begin with.

What a well we can draw from as Anglicans. In the twentieth century, E.L. Mascall wrote books like He Who Is; The Importance of Being Human; The Christian Universe; The Secularization of Christianity; and more. On a more popular level C.S. Lewis wrote books like The Abolition of Man; Miracles; and Mere Christianity. Jason Baxter points out that C.S. Lewis saw our day coming. Here is Lewis in the classroom and he is encountering students who more and more have bought into the modern narrative of a disenchanted world, that is, a world in which the supernatural presence of God is absent, even irrelevant. Remember, Lewis himself was once an atheist, but thanks to friends like Tolkien, he discovered that all the myths he cherished in classic literature were but shadowy truths participating in the Grand Myth, the Myth made Fact. Now a Christian in the Church of England, Lewis became a rare jewel in the ruff, a medieval mind in a modern classroom, persuading students that reality is not merely matter and mechanics. His greatest metaphysical work was The Chronicles of Narnia because here the reader encountered a metaphysic of wonder, one in which every snowflake in this enchanted world participated in the magic of Aslan.

Lewis is clear that his intention in Mere Christianity is not to argue for this or that tradition. Still, I am convinced it takes an Anglican, and one like Lewis, to write this masterpiece. Have you ever noticed that Nicaea makes a grand appearing. Right in the middle of the book Lewis spends two chapters introducing the mystery of the Son’s eternal generation from the Father. But what we often forget is how he starts the book. Lewis does not begin with Nicaea but, recognizing he is standing in a modern Areopagus, he starts with natural theology, specifically natural law. Lewis could only arrive at that grand mystery of the holy Trinity by setting the stage with certain First Truths so that his modern readers could clearly perceive the power and presence of the Almighty.

Anglicans love to share how they are on mission, but we must understand that without First Principles, those First Truths on which Nicaea depends, Anglicanism will not be prepared to demonstrate to our secular age why Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the source of reality.

I began this lecture with those hard words I heard from my wife. “I am weary. I’m tired of thinking about myself. I just want God.” If you feel the same way, may these comforting words, on the eve of All Saints’ Day, realign your passions to that reality which bridges heaven and earth:

“Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical Body of your Son: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting.”

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Postscript: Trinity Anglican Seminary has now posted the video from the lecture.

ENDNOTES

^[i] Basil, Letter LXXXII.

^[ii] Moreover, when a candidate comes before the bishop for confirmation, the bishop says to the whole church, “Dearly beloved, it is essential that those who wish to be Confirmed or Received in this Church publicly … know and affirm the Nicene Creed” (BCP [2019], 176). As to article 8, it was originally article 7 in the Forty-two articles.

^[iii] You can also imagine my exuberance at the fact that it is not only Nicaea, but the Athanasian Creed that is affirmed.

^[iv] BCP (2019), 489.

^[v] “The Form and Manner of Ordaining and Consecrating a Bishop,” in BCP (2029), 498.

^[vi] Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.2.

^[vii] Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.2.

^[viii] Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.3.

^[ix] Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.3.

^[x] On this point, consult Hooker. One must not limit himself to the first four books of Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Laws but consider the whole of his work: The Folger Library Edition of The Works of Richard Hooker, Volumes I and II: Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, ed. Georges Edelen and W. Speed Hill (Harvard University Press, 1977).

^[xi] Article XXV.

^[xii] BCP (2019), 168.

^[xiii] Or as the priest says when he touches the water, “Now, Father, sanctify this water by the power of your Holy Spirit. May all who are baptized here be cleansed from sin, be born again, and continue for ever faithful in the risen life of Jesus Christ our Savior.”

^[xiv] Article XXVII.

^[xv] Notice, these words come just after baptism.

^[xvi] These words come just before baptism.

^[xvii] Hooker, Ecclesiastical Laws (Davenant, 2019), 115.

^[xviii] Michael Gorman, A Contemporary Introduction to Thomistic Metaphysics (Catholic University of America, 2024), 187.

^[xix] See my book, The Reformation as Renewal (Zondervan Academic, 2023), 227, where I draw on Lloyd-Gerson’s work, From Plato to Platonism.

Every November 1^st is All Saints’ Day, a critical moment in the life of the church. Why exactly? That should be an odd question to ask, shouldn’t it? In the The Apostles’ Creed we confess,

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints...”

Why All Saints’ Day? We believe in the church and that church is catholic. In society today, death is often that termination point which severs the living from the dead. Not so in Christianity, at least classical Christianity. There is a cord of participation between the living and the dead, so that we participate in the communion of those saints before us. Listen to the Book of Common Prayer and the way it instructs us to pray on All Saints’ Day:

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one

communion and fellowship in the mystical Body of your Son:

Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and

godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you

have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ

our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns,

one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Did you know that a day is coming when you and I will stand side-by-side in the communion of the saints as that mystical Body and together we will gaze at the beauty of our Lord? Yes, we ask for grace now to “follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living,” but that grace is for a purpose, namely, that we may participate in all of the “ineffable joys” God has in store for us. Our joy will one day be complete in the Beatific Vision.

Therefore, All Saints’ Day seems like the right moment to extend a personal invitation. Would you join me on April 24 and 25^th in Washington DC for the Credo Conference on the Beatific Vision? Together our voices will join the chorus of the communion of the saints as we ask God to give us even now a glimpse of his glory yet to come.

Honestly, I do not know of any conference that is completely devoted to the beatific vision. You will hear from myself, Mike Allen, J. Todd Billings, Gavin Ortlund, and Louis Markos. Each of them care deeply about helping you put your hope in the beatific vision, and many of them know the suffering of this life that makes that hope all the more real.

Plus, you will break into small sessions (my favorite part) where you will dialogue with each speaker around a classical text and a theologian from the Great Tradition—Augustine, Plato, Anselm, Calvin, Gregory of Nyssa, Aquinas, Richard Hooker, Irenaeus, and more. I’m sorry to say that once a session fills up, it’s full! So find your favorite session now.

Friends, will you join me? Let’s contemplate the beauty of our Lord together, linking arms with all those saints we will one day meet as we see our Lord face-to-face.

Registration is open.

The following is the inaugural convocation address Dr. Matthew Barrett delivered at New Aberdeen College near Charlotte, NC.

We are living in a day when universities are terminating their liberal arts education. The reasoning of these universities is quite modern: these degrees are not practical. No obvious job is waiting after graduation. Nor do these jobs produce a tangible product, let alone one that is profitable. In our modern day when success (and with it, a person’s value) must be quantified, the only question that matters is: why is that degree useful?

The collateral damage to the human person is conspicuous. When college is reduced to a career, the success of which is only measured by its product, virtue—and with it, the formation of the whole person—is no longer relevant. And with the absence of virtue, why live in wonder at that which is good, true, and beautiful and for no other reason that it is good, true, and beautiful?

Each month I host a gathering of students in my home, and I call it Anselm House, named after the first scholastic, Anselm of Canterbury. After coffee and a delicious pastry, we sit down and read a classical text out loud. After listening to a voice from another world, we then participate in a Socratic dialogue. At the end, we sing the doxology.

I’ve asked myself, “Why do these students come?” After all, they have classes, homework, and jobs, not to mention friends much cooler than a middle-aged man obsessed with old books. After several years, I think I’ve found the answer: for two hours nobody is telling them to be practical, nobody is judging them by their performance on social media, nobody is calculating their worth by their networking potential. For a brief evening, they do not have to be Martha but only Mary.

Sit, I say to them, and be still. We give you permission to be lost in thought. Simply contemplate God, not because it is useful but purely for the love of God. Simply because it’s worth it in and of itself. And you know what happens? Like a child who has a butterfly land on its hand, the rest of the world vanishes around them. All they want to do is stand there for hours, lost in wonder at the beauty of the butterfly. Moreover, they are not standing alone. By entering the depths of contemplation in community, virtue begins to penetrate their very being as they enter through the gates of the good life in friendship with others. As Aristotle said in his Nicomachean Ethics, “Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alive in virtue.”

The Love of Spectacle

I suspect the launch of a college like New Aberdeen is like discovering a hidden pearl at the bottom of the sea. Why? Because most students today will never encounter anything like it due to their exchange of one love for another. In her book Lost in Thought: The Hidden Treasures of the Intellectual Life, Zena Hitz observes that there are “two kinds of basic restlessness”—the love of learning versus the love of spectacle. “The one sort, exemplified by Augustine’s own journey as he describes it, unceasingly moves past the surfaces of things to what is more real. The second flees unceasingly from the object to object, all on the same level—never culminating in anything further, never achieving anything beyond the thrill of experience. … The love of learning always wants more; the love of spectacle is satisfied at the surface… While the love of learning is exercised by Ambrose alone in his study, engrossed in reading, the love of spectacle seems always to be enmeshed in a crowd.”

It does not take a professor to spot where the love of spectacle triumphs today: it’s the “compulsive use of social media” which Hitz calls a “screwed-up longing for communion.” I think Hitz is right. In fact, I am convinced social media is a candidate for the single-greatest threat to the love of learning today. Perhaps you think I’m being dramatic.

My oldest is a senior in high school and she has been fed a steady diet of the love of learning her whole life. But to participate in an internship she enrolled at the public high school. She came home from her first day of school and she was greeted by a dad curious what her experience was like. “Dad, no one’s alive. I tried to meet people, but they don’t look up. Everyone’s scrolling on their phones in class. And when the teacher tried to get to know them, asking what hobbies they enjoy, the student next to me answered, “does scrolling count?” My daughter came home feeling numb, like nothing’s real. Where the love of learning is absent, that same restlessness that plagued Augustine (Confessions) will plague us until we can rest in something real. Otherwise, no real community follows.

My point is not to shame public schoolers; I don’t doubt there are a variety of experiences to be had. I went to public school myself. My point, rather, is that for the first time in her life, my daughter had to reckon with the love of learning versus the love of spectacle. Which one will she have? Better put, which one will have her? Hitz might as well be describing the fork in the road my daughter knew that day when she says, “In the supremely shallow realm of acting for the sake of acting and a preoccupation with spectacle, growth is impossible. All that lies there is an endless, repeated sequence of increasingly joyless thrills. Our sense of emptiness and lack of satisfaction are signs that we have not in fact attained any human goods or actually connected with other human beings. The dissatisfaction is a sign that we long to attain real goods, and that we long to bond with others in truth, in the depths, and not remain at the surface of things.”

Merely Modern

This fork in the road is not unique to our day. As early as Book 2 of Plato’s Republic, we are faced with a choice: “Tell me, do you think there is a kind of good we welcome, not because we desire what comes from it, but because we welcome it for its own sake—joy, for example, and all the harmless pleasures that have no results beyond the joy of having them.” Plato has fixed our gaze on the core of classical education. If we desire the good not to use it but for its own sake, then what is education but love’s quest to learn? As Plato says, “the love of learning is the same thing as philosophy or the love of wisdom.”

Before you run Plato through the filter of our modern box of education, remember that in the very next breath he speaks of music, poetry, and literature. Take fiction. Stories from imagination do not settle for telling people what’s good. They are so enduring, so penetrating because they show us the good, displaying its embodied form, until its beauty shapes the student’s very soul. Therefore, G.K. Chesterton warns us, “The first use of good literature is that it prevents a man from being merely modern. To be merely modern is to condemn oneself to an ultimate narrowness.”

Have you ever noticed how similar Jesus is to Plato? Jesus puts before his students a story, the story of the good Samaritan, for example. Why? Because one of his students was phony enough to think he could genuinely fulfill the commandment to love God while loving all except those who would cost him his reputation the most. This young student did not want to be good, but he merely wanted to appear good, to use it.

Faculty of New Aberdeen, if you commit your students to the classical way, so that your students love the good—not in some attempt to use it, but for the joy of the good itself—then they will not only love but live the good life? In the minds of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the good life was not the affluence of mindless luxury nor the sloth of perpetual hedonism, as it is for us today, confusing leisure for recreation as we do. Rather, the good life was a quest to become the type of person who radiates virtue, embodying virtues like prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude.

The Sophist today

Consider fortitude from the perspective of a student born and bred on the love of spectacle. Our day is not all that different from Aristotle’s, a day in which it’s far more spectacular to be a sophist. A sophist looks at his peers, identifies that rhetoric which public opinion will favor, and then postures itself accordingly as if a defender of the truth. In book 11 of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle calls this X, formerly known as Twitter. But seriously, every professor in this room feels the weight, as student after student defines courage not by recalling, say, the martyrdom of Socrates but according to the latest 280 characters. If you think I’m being dramatic, I have watched as students make life-altering choices as significant as changing traditions after one video from a new YouTube personality with half a million views.

Professors, I may just know what’s going through your mind: how can I possibly instill courage in students embedded within a culture of online group think so dominant that it decides the fate of presidential candidates every four years? Philosopher Peter Kreeft, who has taught for decades at Boston College, knows your despair. In his book Back to Virtue, he laments that “sociology has socialized and collectivized morality; consensus determines rightness or wrongness; and democracy becomes our religion: vox populi vox dei (‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’).” But the state of education is more desperate still: What professor could have imagined trying to instill virtues in a student population turning to ChatGPT to validate their psychological state or let alone their pronouns? We are no longer anticipating Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; we are living in it.

Aristotle (and Jesus) on Courage and Cowards

Yet Aristotle would ask, at what cost? Students, imagine if Aristotle taught your class this semester. To live the good life, he would call on you to be brave. But bravery means your quest for truth, goodness, and beauty is not to be dictated by the consensus of the social media mob. Nor is it decided, ironically enough, by the “virtue signaling” of those who declare themselves courageous. No, the student with fortitude, says Aristotle, “feels and acts according to the merits of the case and in whatever way reason directs.” The student with fortitude does not look to the “democracy of the living” (whoever happens to be alive, says Chesterton) to decide what bravery shall be, as does the sophist, but evaluates whether the end, the telos itself, is good, true, and beautiful. And with no little help from the “democracy of the dead.” As Aristotle says, “it is for a noble end that the brave man endures and acts as courage directs. When the end is noble, the brave man will lay down his reputation, even his life if he must, while the coward will die only to escape such pain altogether. In the words of Aristotle, “to die to escape from poverty or love or anything painful is not the mark of a brave man, but rather of a coward; for it is softness to fly from what is troublesome, and such a man endures death not because it is noble but to fly from evil.”

As it turns out, Aristotle and Christ have much in common. For if the end is noble—like saving a man who has been robbed, beaten, and left to die—then it is not the priest or the Levite who is brave but the Samaritan. While the priest left the man for dead so that he could reach the synagogue where he had a class that day to instruct students in virtue, it was the Samaritan who put virtue into practice. Compassion proved the bridge to courage, mercy the gateway to fortitude. He left that day living the good life.

What does Athens hath to do with Geneva?

At the start, I said New Aberdeen’s recovery of the classical liberal arts is rare today, like finding a glass of water in a desert. But I believe New Aberdeen is more unique still. For it is not only classical but reformed. What does Athens hath to do with Geneva? The Reformed confessions and catechisms are invaluable because the Christian sojourner on his and her way to that happy land of beatitude demands not just any virtues but theological virtues—faith, hope, and love—apart from which we cannot experience the vision of God. For the darkness of our state is not only ignorance (as Plato thought), but death, making its solution not merely knowledge of Logos (as Plato thought) but life through the Logos made flesh. Our depravity requires not only illumination but regeneration.

In this way, the good life and all the happiness it brings takes on additional significance. Relying on Thomas Aquinas before them, the Reformed Scholastics taught their students to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to infuse them with virtues by which they could be consecrated and conformed into the image of Christ. “Make us a good tree,” they prayed, not in order to be justified but because they had been justified. For they knew, as Jesus said, a tree is not a good tree if it bears no fruit.

A classically reformed institution like New Aberdeen is like a glass of water in a desert because the road to the good life is paved by the presence of the Spirit. Aristotle was right to say, happiness is god-given. But the Heidelberg Catechism is right to add that it is the Holy Spirit who is “given to me; to make me by true faith a partaker of Christ and all His benefits” (Lord’s Day 20). Students of New Aberdeen College, with Aristotle, don’t let this secular, disenchanted age tell you the good life is anything but “god-given.” But with Heidelberg never forget that the gift of the good life is the Spirit, given to you by the love of the Father through the grace of his Son.

How then will you educate?

Faculty of New Aberdeen, how then will you educate? There is a Fundamentalism afoot, and it would have you believe that the past is irrelevant to the future. Fundamentalism sees a jungle and shoots dead its exotic animals, all because they heard creatures in the wild are dangerous. Fundamentalism proudly waves the flag of faithfulness but on the very tractor cutting down the forest. New Aberdeen, your entire future is before you, yet the horizon before you, the one in which you will be sending students, is not a jungle but a desert. In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis lays before you your mission: “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” The Great Tradition stands behind you. Open its deep wells to your students. Be “liberal,” that is, open those ancient wells to your students so they may drink and be satisfied.

Students often ask me, “If you can only pick one book on the council of Nicaea and the Nicene Creed, which one is your go-to book?”

“Oh that’s too easy,” I respond. “Lewis Ayres of course. No question about it. Have you read his Nicaea and Its Legacy?”

The reason I give this answer all the time has to do with the way Ayres ends the book with his chapter, “In Spite of Hegel, Fire, and Sword.” I usually tell students to save themselves some time and start with this chapter and then read the rest of the book. If you don’t, you almost have to go back and re-read the entire book again. Ayres exposes modern trinitarianism as seriously inconsistent with the pro-Nicene legacy. It’s a firecracker ending.

I am not exaggerating when I say, I don’t think any student should graduate seminary without reading this book.

I’m getting ahead of myself. The real reason I am writing is to tell you that you can hear Ayres for yourself this November because he will be joining The Center for Classical Theology in Boston on Monday night, November 17th. If you are going to ETS (Evangelical Theological Society), then come the night before for this unique event.

Honestly, one of the best parts about CCT is just how encouraging it is to see so many like-minded theologians gathering around classical theology. You will walk away with a lot of new friends who care about what you care about.

Adonis Vidu, professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, will deliver the annual lecture that night and then I will sit down with Vidu and Ayres to think out loud about classical trinitarianism, especially “In Spite of Hegel, Fire, and Sword.” Since Vidu will focus on the “Christian experience of the Trinity,” and since Ayres is an Augustine scholar, I am especially eager to see the two of them engage one another.

Any questions you are dying to ask them? Send me a message and I will seriously consider it.

Crossway is our sponsor and you can expect to receive some free books on classical theology.

What are you waiting for? The event is free! Register and join us at 7pm on November 17th at Tremont Temple. Plus, if you do, it gives me the chance to meet you in person.

If I haven’t convinced you, here’s Vidu himself.

ps, I almost forgot. We have a scholastic award! Write a 2 page paper and get published in the Journal for Classical Theology. Not to mention, Crossway will give you the works of John Owen and Stephen Charnock. How long can a 2 page paper take? Put on your Aquinas hat and send it in. Submit it here.

Why is it that some assume to be deep in theology is to cease to be prayerful? And why do systematic theologies in our modern era say so little about prayer? You have to admire Calvin. One of the best sections of his Institutes is on prayer.

I recently found out my son enjoys for poetry and even wrote a poem himself. I ran to my study and grabbed George Herbert off the shelf. Have you ever read Herbert’s poem on prayer, I asked him? He shook his head. We then read it not once but twice. Afterwards, we took time to reflect on this line, speaking of God: “Thou canst no more not hear, than thou canst die.”

Now that will change your confidence when praying. It certainly moved me to start praying more like a child with unreserved faith.

All that to say, I don’t know that my section on prayer in my Systematic Theology can be as long as Calvin’s, but plan to see some stolen wisdom from George Herbert in it. If you struggle at prayer, as I do, then you should know how much you might benefit from the Book of Common Prayer. But why just you? Why not your whole family? The section called “family prayer” in the Book of Common Prayer has been a fortress for our family.

Speaking of Anglicanism, it’s hard to believe it’s been a little over a month since I released my article explaining why “I am leaving the SBC and becoming Anglican.” I have been overwhelmed by so many encouraging messages and emails (I apologize if I haven’t gotten to yours yet). So many of you reached out to share your own stories as to how the Lord opened your eyes to the beauty of Anglicanism as well. Thank you, all of you. Your Christ-like words have been galvanizing. And I must say, God has brought so many new friends into my life. I’ve realized even in a month’s time that the Christian world is so much bigger than I knew.

Of course, there was lots of hate on social media as you might have expected. But as one friend said to me, “it only served to prove the points of your article; the irony is thick.” I am grateful for how the Lord has used that irony to confirm my turn to Anglicanism.

But that is not what has occupied my attention this past month. I’ve been deep in the writing process, back in the pocket constructing my Systematic Theology. It’s as if I’ve caught a swift new wind in my sails. I’m writing with new zest, eager to put into play a participation theology, and not merely around my chapters on the sacraments but throughout. Furthermore, Anglicanism allows me to wed theology and spirituality in a historic way that was missing before. In chapter 1, I spend some time defining theology as contemplation, a contemplation that is meant to blossom into participation. To that end, I am indebted to Aquinas who says, “This is the ultimate perfection of the contemplative life, namely that the Divine truth be not only seen but also loved.”

Also, I have been preaching at St. Aidan’s Anglican Church on the Nicene Creed alongside clergy there. My latest homily was on the Holy Spirit. My next later this month will be on why we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. This will be the first sermon I’ve preached on catholicity, and how fitting that it will be at St. Aidan’s. In preparation, I’ve been returning to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Church, and I’ve noticed how catholicity bleeds from every chapter.

I also delivered the inaugural convocation address for New Aberdeen College. What an honor. It’s so rare to see a college that is Protestant and committed to classical education. Remarkable. But I’m seeing more and more of these college plants. If you are a student looking for a college, go to one where you will be immersed in the great books. Anyway, in my next substack article, I will share my address, which I took as an opportunity to identify one of the greatest challenges to classical education today (hint: read Zena Hitz’s book, Lost in Thought).

I have quite enjoyed two recent conversations, one with Drew Keane and the other with Jason Baxter. I invited Keane on the Credo podcast, and we spent two episodes pondering how to use the Book of Common Prayer. We spent some time discussing C.S. Lewis who said, “Ex tempore public prayer has this difficulty: we don’t know whether we can mentally join in it until we’ve heard it—it might be phoney or heretical. We are therefore called upon to carry on a critical and a devotional activity at the same moment: two things hardly compatible. The rigid form really sets our devotions free.” Listen to part 1 and part 2 to understand Lewis’s logic. The Credo team also just released my conversation with Jason Baxter: Literature in a Digital Apocalypse. With deep insight into the psychology of social media, he exposes the way it manipulates beauty to feed our narcissism. In the process he tells a story of an adventure that almost cost him his life.

In other news, the new academic year has started at Trinity Anglican Seminary. I’m gearing up for my course on the English Reformation in which students will read theologians like Thomas Cranmer, John Jewel, Richard Hooker, and others. Did you know that in October I will deliver the annual John Rogers Lecture series at Trinity (all are welcome)? I have titled my lecture: The Legacy of Nicaea & the Future of Anglicanism.

Speaking of Nicaea, we are only three months out from the Center for Classical Theology. We have heavy hitters: Adonis Vidu and Lewis Ayres. Vidu will deliver the annual lecture and his focus is unique: the Christian experience of the Trinity. Afterwards, I will sit down with Vidu and Ayres for a conversation. What questions do you think we should discuss? Not kidding, send me a message and pass on questions you would like answered. The event is in Boston on Monday night, November 17th, the night before the Evangelical Theological Society. Crossway will be giving away books! Register before seats are gone.

I have a bunch of exciting news to share with you in the weeks ahead, but I’d better not spoil it. I’ll just say, some new series on the Credo podcast are coming your way. And I can barely contain my excitement over the 2026 Credo conference. I’ve already said too much. Come back and I’ll share it in bits and pieces. In the meantime, can I leave you with The Sanctus? We sing this in church every Sunday before we participate in communion.

Holy, holy, holy Lord. God of pow’r and might.

Heaven and earth are full of Your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Haven and earth are full of Your glory.

Hosanna in the highest!

There are moments in your life when you are alone with two cups, and you have to pick one to drink. There are moments when the decision will change everything.

-Everything Sad Is Untrue

Hit by a storm

I have been at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for eight years now. More than that, I have given twenty years of my life to Southern Baptists—2025 marks two decades. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. For two decades my family has sacrificed a lot for the SBC.

But we can do so no longer.

I cannot begin to express how happy we are with that decision.

So, what happened? We were hit by a storm, a tornado really. We had no idea the tornado was coming and for the longest time we told ourselves it cannot be. But in much suffering, we have discovered that the Lord himself sent this tornado. In fact, we’ve learned since that the Lord himself was in this tornado, knocking down one pillar of our SBC house at a time.

The first pillar started to crack a year ago when a group of Southern Baptists stood before the SBC asking for the inclusion of the Nicene Creed in the Baptist Faith and Message. I applaud these men. But the responses said everything, from “No creed but the Bible” to “It’s not good timing” to every other excuse in the book. When the resolution was presented before the Executive Committee months later, the committee officially rejected the creed’s inclusion. Regardless the reason, I cannot stay in a denomination where the Nicene Creed has been officially rejected from inclusion and remains blatantly absent.

I will, of course, pray that the SBC changes its mind. But I’ve come to realize that even if it is included the polity of the denomination is not such that it can implement the creed with authority like other traditions can, traditions that believe in councils and synods and have the polity to credibly support them. But more to the point, the culture of the SBC is not one that can ultimately sustain those who care about retrieval and the Great Tradition. Here we are in 2025 and EFS (eternal functional subordination of the Son) is still taught at Southern Baptist seminaries. At some point, we have to stand for something. Otherwise, we are complicit in our complacency.

The second pillar that started to crack was polity, but more specifically the culture in which it is embedded. My experience after two decades both at the local level and institutional level is this: for Southern Baptists image is everything. There is nothing and no one they will not sacrifice on the altar of their image. But it’s not just a commitment; it’s embedded in the culture itself. When image is everything, a culture of fear follows, so that anyone who does not match up with that image is considered a threat. As we’ve seen in the last couple of years, the SBC has been plagued with covering up sin to protect its image. But this occurs at the local church level as well. When there is sin in the leadership, the impulse is to cover it up to protect the image rather than being transparent with the church. Southern Baptist pastors often tell their congregations, “Just trust us,” and “Don’t gossip,” which results in a church incapable of acting when they suspect sin in the leadership. Moreover, they have little recourse to an external ecclesiastical authority to hold the leadership accountable.

But as I returned to the scriptures, I could not escape a very different, and far healthier model, one designed to keep leadership and laypeople alike accountable. After reading the book of Acts with fresh eyes, especially the Jerusalem council in Acts 15, it was conspicuous to me that most other traditions are far more consistent with the whole of Acts. Presbyterians have a presbytery and synods, and Anglicans prosper on a rich heritage of bishops and councils. After the apostolic age, episcopacy becomes the majority report in the pre-modern church for good reason.^[i] I can no longer go along with Southern Baptists who pride themselves on a type of independence that locks out effective external accountability. Nor can I continue ignoring the spiritual abuse that so many have suffered as a consequence. In short, when image is everything, the cross is eclipsed. Ironically, this does not image the humility of Christ.

God took a sledgehammer to the third pillar: baptism. When forced to account for the whole of ecclesiology in the book of Acts, I simultaneously could not escape the apostle Peter’s stalwart promise at Pentecost. At the end of an evangelistic message, Peter calls on the crowd to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and to receive the Spirit. But that’s not all. Peter adds, “For the promise is for you and for your children” (Acts 2:39). I think Peter was smart enough to know what he was doing. He knew he was echoing God’s covenant promise to Abraham, a promise that is not individualistic but corporate, not free will based but familial. Knowing the continuity of the covenant promise, Peter was not about to leave the children of believers homeless.

I don’t need to rehearse arguments for infant baptism here (see J.V. Fesko and Guy Waters). But the scales fell off my eyes when I saw for the first time that the Baptist hermeneutic is truly individualistic—it’s modern to the bone. After noticing it could not account for the whole canon, I also had to ask myself, “Was the entire church wrong to baptize the children of believers for a millennium and a half? Was believer’s baptism taught by the apostles only to disappear under the supervision of the greatest theologians of the church, and then reappear for the first time in sixteenth century?” For someone serious about catholicity, that pill was too big to swallow. Of course, others told me, “You just have to trust the progressive covenantal argument.” Besides its inability to provide wholistic answers, it’s self-conscious departure from reformed confessionalism, especially around the covenant of grace, proved insufferable. As if Southern Baptists today do not have enough of a proclivity against creeds and confessions.

The Beauty of Anglicanism

Some will assume I am becoming Anglican because I don’t want to be Southern Baptist. But that’s only half the story. In the rage of the storm the Lord took me to a quiet nook deep in the cleft of a rock where clarity waited along with the peace of God. There I met Anglicanism as if for the first time. There I found the church. And she was beautiful indeed.

As you can tell, our family is burnt out on the Southern Baptist mindset—the big show. My family has been crying out for participation, not mere performance. And then we walked into St. Aidan’s Anglican Church in Kansas City. It ruined us in the best way.

The Book of Common Prayer is meant to be experienced, not described. But I will mention a few key turning points. At 10:00am the people at St. Aidan’s turn in unison to the back of the church where the processional with the cross begins, a picture of Christ going before his bride. The clergy do not wear clothes that tell us about their personalities, but vestments that convey the gospel. Rector Michael Flowers (now a good friend) begins with a congregational collect for purity as we approach a holy God. Then comes a flood of scripture. A psalm is chanted, and the congregation chants it back. The church shouts “Alleluia!” as the deacon proceeds into the middle of the church with the Holy Gospel signifying Christ’s descent into the middle of his people. As for the homily, it is a deep spiritual exercise in contemplation (think more Mary than Martha).

After collective Prayers for the People, the church stands to confess the Nicene Creed, only to drop to their knees for the Confession and Absolution.^[ii] After pronouncing the Peace on one another, the Doxology begins and the whole church sings The Sursum Corda, a liturgy from the third century. Michael then chants—yes,chants—the liturgy (“It is right, our duty and our joy, always and everywhere to give thanks to you…”), to which the church responds by singing that patristic hymn, The Sanctus.^[iii] Next, from memory (!) Michael chants the Prayer of Consecration only for the church to respond by proclaiming the “mystery of the faith,” the Lord’s Prayer, and the Prayer of Humble Access. The people are never warned about Christ’s real absence but instead the BCP petitions God to sanctify bread and wine, as well as the people to receive it. “Receive” is the optimal word. For when the people come forward, they do not take but receive the bread and wine from the rector himself (his presence providing accountability and counsel). For as Luther said, we are beggars. Last, the people respond with that seventh century prayer, The Agnus Dei. I could go on, but the liturgy we experienced (BCP) is a movement of ascent. Christ descends into the midst of his people, his presence made real by word and sacrament, so that we can ascend by the grace of his Spirit to participate in the benevolence of the Father. This sacramental theology stands in stark contrast to the disenchanted mindset of our modern world, which is why so many are drawn to St. Aidan’s.

And these are just the basics. I have not even described morning prayer, the church calendar’s consecration of time, a patristic homily on Good Friday, the three-hour tour through scripture for the Easter vigil, or Easter which is not one Sunday but a whole season of Eastertide. I have never encountered so much scripture than when I’m in an Anglican church and such love for the Great Tradition at the same time.

What a comfort to tell our kids, “The way we are worshipping is how Christians have worshipped across history. It’s really, really old. You are participating in the church universal.” Our kids were surprised to learn that Anglicanism is not only ancient but the largest Protestant tradition in the world today. It is a global communion. John Webster was right: “episcopal order is indicative of the ‘self-organizing’ power of the gospel.”^[iv]

So, what’s next?

We are leaving the SBC, and our family is becoming Anglican.

Trinity Anglican Seminary

I have officially joined the faculty of Trinity Anglican Seminary. What a privilege to be elected Research Professor of Theology. My first course, “The Reformation as Renewal,” will begin in January.

Trinity is led by President Bryan Hollon. One thing I respect about Bryan is that he is a president who cares about classical theology (read his vision for Trinity). He is a theologian himself, one who has written on Henri de Lubac.

Trinity is committed to being “classically Anglican,” as they like to say. The seminary is unapologetically “catholic and reformed.” Students are taught the Reformation, but in a way that “reclaims” the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Naturally, they take patristic and medieval theology seriously. Consistent with being classically Anglican, students are trained in liturgics, virtue, aesthetics, and of course Anglican history and doctrine. Trinity is right to claim, “non-Anglican seminaries cannot match the Anglican immersion offered by Trinity’s community life and curriculum.” Students begin and end each day on campus with morning and evening prayer and once a week the entire community comes together for Holy Eucharist.

Moreover, Trinity has some notable scholars. I’ve used their books in the past with students. David Luy is the author of Dominus Mortis: Martin Luther on the Incorruptibility of God in Christ (Fortress) and Evil and Creation with Matthew Levering (Lexham), Joel Scandrett is the coauthor of Mapping Atonement (Baker Academic), and Don Collett is the author of Figural Reading and the Old Testament (Baker Academic) and a Commentary on Hosea in Swain and Allen’s International Theological Commentary series (T&T Clark). They’ve also just appointed Alex Fogleman, author of the new book on catechesis called Making Disciples (Eerdmans), as associate dean and assistant professor of theology. And many others.

Kansas City, here we stay!

Trinity has been generous, inviting me to travel to its campus throughout the year to teach my courses so that our family can continue living in Kansas City. Moreover, they will partner with St. Aidan’s to start a church-based program, so that each year one of my courses is taught here in Kansas City.

My story is ironic. I was a Baptist when I was a lecturer at Oak Hill College in London, England, the same school where J.I. Packer cut his teeth. But in God’s mysterious providence it is here in the heartland of BBQ and Chiefs territory that the beauty of Anglicanism finally pierced my heart.

Our family will be confirmed at St. Aidan’s where we plan to stay. If you are in Kansas City, come join me. You do not have to be Anglican to come. Most of the people at St. Aidan’s did not start out as Anglicans anyway. Plus, Anglicanism is at its best when it is as kind as Jesus was meek. As my cousin from Los Angeles kept saying to me, “The Anglican Church welcomes you, Matthew.” Welcomes you.

Moving forward, I have much peace now that I’m out of the SBC. I experienced an angry fundamentalism in the SBC, one based out of a deep-seated fear. Believing in classical theology and publishing in classical theology brought on no little harassment. I finally realized it was not possible to do true academic work in classical theology within the SBC without fear of constant inquisition. I kept telling myself otherwise, but at last I came to see the obvious: I care most about what is being taught; they care most about who is doing the teaching. The latter is toxic for scholarship when coupled with that second-degree separation mentality. It violates the academic’s duty to engage people of different ideas. When you have to separate from everyone who does not first become “like us,” you might as well dig a grave for the intellectual life.

My pilgrimage into classical theology has led me to conclude that Anglicanism is the most beautiful representation of classical Christianity. Undoubtedly, there’s a reason it takes a C.S. Lewis to write Mere Christianity. But the great thing about this pilgrimage is that I am not alone. The living portraits of countless saints line this trail, from St. Aidan to Anselm, from Thomas Cranmer to John Jewel, from Richard Hooker to George Herbert, from John Stott to E. L. Mascall, from reformed theologian J.I. Packer to the late John Webster. I am not naïve. I know that the ACNA has its fair share of challenges. But I am ready to humbly serve wherever I can be of use.

As for my Baptist students, you have been a blessing to me, and I pray I have been the same to you. Do know, this is not the end but only the beginning. I pray my writing continues to serve you as you retrieve orthodoxy. I hope my future ministry embodies the warm spirit of C.S. Lewis towards those of you who do care most of all about the renewal of orthodoxy today.

As for Anglicans out there, thank you for being so kind to me and my family. I look forward to learning from you and serving alongside of you.

Gratitude

One of God’s bulwarks during this tornado was the counsel of old and new friends. Regardless of whether they agree with my final decision, I am thankful to all of them. I am thankful for Bishop Julian Dobbs. I had the privilege of speaking at his conference, and the unity of so many in his Diocese for the Living Word around the 39 Articles gives me great hope for the future. I am also truly grateful for the providential friendship of Randy Caldejon whose passion for retrieving classical Anglicanism is contagious.

I should also thank my friend Lee Gatiss, whom I first met in London. When I confided in him, he provided me with resources and kept checking in on me. But no one understood my situation so well as Craig Carter, a faithful friend. I am indebted to many others who provided counsel and prayer, including J.V. Fesko, Scott Swain, Timothy George, Robert Yarbrough, Michael Reeves, Michael Bird, Carl Trueman, canon theologian John Clark, Tory Baucum, and my enduring friends, Joshua Hedger and Ben Klar.

I am also grateful to Bishop Stewart Ruch who dedicated himself to prayer. The Lord used his timely encouragement to push me forward. But above all, Michael Flowers has been patient, persistently empathizing as one who has known our pain. A true friend in the fire. Thank you, Michael, for showing us that Jesus is gentle and lowly in heart. Thank you, all of you, for caring for me and my family.

What shall I say in the end? God is my light. Deus Lux Mea Est.

^[i] I had to ask myself, Why did the church fathers believe the New Testament naturally gave birth to bishops (of which we have elaborate records)? Are we consistent to cherry-pick, stealing away the doctrine of the creeds while rejecting the polity of the councils and the office of bishop so instrumental to implementing doctrinal accountability in the church?

^[ii] The Nicene Creed is affirmed in the Thirty-Nine Articles, along with the Athanasian creed and the Apostles’ creed.

^[iii] Based on Isaiah 6:3, Revelation 4, and Matthew 21:9.

^[iv] Webster is paraphrasing P.T. Forsyth’s Lectures on the Church and the Sacraments.

I’m back from the Credo x Sola conference in Washington. Those who could not make it have asked me, what did you think? My answer: I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed, that is, by the eagerness of those who attended to know and worship our triune God. It is truly powerful hearing 700+ people say the Nicene Creed together, and not just once but several times each day of the conference. I was reminded that the creed is not only essential for sound doctrine but instrumental to true worship. I did not plan on it, but towards the end of my message I went off script to say just that, encouraging laypeople and pastors alike to incorporate the creed into their worship each Sunday.

But here are a few more reasons the conference was overwhelming in the best way possible:

1. Unity: many traditions came together around orthodoxy. People came together from so many traditions: Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran. This is what Nicene orthodoxy is supposed to look like. Beautifully Christian.

2. Deep theology: each theologian delivering robust teaching on the Trinity of Nicaea

3. Zeal: attendees bought so many (!) theology books to go home and learn more

4. Worship: we repeatedly said the Nicene creed together as a spiritual exercise.

5. Humility: a truly unique mark of the conference was dialogue over classical texts as attendees personally interacted with speakers in a spirit of faith seeking understanding (Anselm).

There were many high points to the conference, but here are a few our team at Credo found so good:

1. Michael Horton singing the Gloria Patri to conclude his message.

2. Fred Sanders drawing his *Nicene Line* to keep subordination out of the Trinity.

3. Michael Reeves starting Q&A with a defense of catholicity

4. If I can put one in myself, watching Jesus in John 5 demonstrate inseparable operations (and why that doctrine matters for worship)

5. Gavin Ortlund’s tears over the burial of Christ.

6. Kevin DeYoung’s love for Gregory’s pastoral rule and his encouragement to apply its orthodoxy in the church

And how can I forget the breakout sessions, which we named Anselm Houses after the great scholastic thinker and his emphasis on faith seeking understanding. Each breakout was devoted to reading a classical text from a major theologian from the Great Tradition…out loud. Then each speaker (as well as others like Brannon Ellis, Adriel Sanchez, Jesse Johnson, etc.) engaged attendees in a Socratic dialogue, contemplating the Trinity together. I heard back from attendees how much they appreciated a smaller space like this to talk with speakers on a deeper level and think out loud with one another.

Plus, we had fun too. Did you know that my daughter Georgia sold out of her crochet theologians an hour before the conference even started? If you didn’t get one, or if you are seeing these for the first time and got to get one, send her a message on Instagram and place your order. I asked her what theologians she plans to crochet for next year’s conference? Rumor has it that Bavinck might make an appearance (Baker Academic, if the rumor is true, you’d better come with Reformed Dogmatics).

I can’t release the topic for next year’s conference. But after taking one long nap upon returning from D.C., I woke up excited about it already. I think you will be too.

In the meantime, a few more updates on my end:

My Systematic Theology continues! In preparation for the Credo conference, I went back and re-read Aquinas on the Trinity. I love how he ends with the Trinity’s missions. One task in my systematic is to connect the processions in the Trinity to the Trinity’s missions. Aquinas is a great model, so that even when he transitions to missions to explain how we receive grace, he never leaves the Trinity behind. Notice how he defines a mission: “Now a mission is a procession in time.” He is building on Augustine at this point. He goes on to conclude that “there is no mission or temporal procession of a divine person except by reason of grace.” Aquinas makes me wonder if we need to connect processions and missions more explicitly in our theology today if we are to put the full scriptural power behind our articulation of divine grace.

We just released a Credo colloquy between me and D. A. Carson. We reflect on his career together. I appreciated his firm defense of “Son of God” language even when he was criticized by missionaries to Muslims who wanted to dispense with it. Carson also expressed some words of correction for our age, warning us that we are too caught up in our public image. His story about the humble ministry of his father reminds us what God really cares about. And it’s not triumphalist theology, as Carson puts it.

I pray on a regular basis that renewal would come to the church through the recovery of the Nicene Creed. So I am honored to deliver the annual theology lecture at Regent University. And on my birthday! They are accepting paper proposals for breakout sessions. Join me! It’s a privilege to speak alongside patristic scholar John-Paul Lotz as well.

I am excited to share that Adonis Vidu will deliver the lecture for the Center for Classical Theology on November 17^th (evening before ETS). Lewis Ayres will join him afterwards in a discussion. And out of all places, the historic Tremont Temple in Boston. Registration is now open! Dr. Vidu has titled his lecture, *The Christian experience of the Trinity.* To learn more, go to CCT.

Now that I’m back from the conference I’m back to writing my systematic. More updates to come on what I’m learning…and reading. I look forward to sharing more with you soon.

I’ve decided I need a breather from writing the chapters in my Systematic Theology on creation and anthropology. They are thrilling to write as the contrast between a classical approach to creation and a modern one makes for quite a story. Nevertheless, I need to let them marinate for a bit. I write in such a way that I let chapters sit for some time so that I can come back and evaluate them with fresh eyes.

So, I’ve returned to the doctrine of the Trinity in the meantime, immersing myself in the trinitarian texts of the fourth century, which is like meeting up with old friends. In the process I’ve been reminded how important theological precision can be, sometimes the determining factor between orthodoxy and heresy.

For example, I was contemplating the Father, specifically John’s Gospel and what it means for the Father to be without origin (the principle who alone is without principle), when I came across this line by Gregory of Nazianzus: “‘Being unoriginate’ necessarily implies ‘being eternal,’ but ‘being eternal’ does not entail ‘being unoriginated,’ so long as the Father is referred to as origin.” Here’s what I said in my systematic, commenting on Gregory’s point:

Gregory concludes that the Son and the Spirit are from the Father, but they are “not after him.” Even in our human experience with light we understand that something can have an origin but be of the same nature. Consider the sun, says Gregory, from which light proceeds. The light is from the sun, but the light is not inferior to the sun, its source. Or as Gregory says, the sun may be the source of light but “the Sun is not prior to its light.”

Obviously, we should not push Gregory’s illustration (which I also mention in my book, Simply Trinity) to the breaking point, something he cautions against as well. But his warning is to be taken with great seriousness. For if we do not understand the exact relationship between “unoriginate” and “eternal,” we might assume (as some subordinationists did in the fourth century) that the Son and Spirit cannot be eternal since they are not without origin like the Father. In that scenario, only the Father would be eternal since he alone is unoriginate, which would result in the subordination of the Son and the Spirit to the Father. Being “from” the Father would then entail that they are “after” the Father, making the Father “prior” to each of them. Gregory is pushing us to consider how we can affirm that the Father is unoriginate but without projecting hierarchy into the Godhead.

The Nicene creed models Gregory’s point quite well. The Son, it says, is “Light from Light.” On the one hand, the phrase assumes a distinction between Father and Son, one in which that preposition “from” identifies the Father as the Son’s eternal relation of origin and yet does not sacrifice the Father as unoriginate himself. On the other hand, that same phrase “Light from Light” captures the consubstantiality of the Son. True, the Son is not unoriginate like the Father, but that does not preclude him from being eternal. As the rest of the creed reads, this is the Son who is eternally begotten from the Father. And if he is eternally begotten from the Father’s divine nature, in which the Father eternally communicates all the perfection of his divine nature to his Son, then the Son cannot be inferior to the Father. Light from Light is a subordinationist defeater in the creed.

Why does this matter? It matters because we need to speak of the Father as that person in the Trinity that is unoriginate, as Gregory says. However, we must learn to do so in a way that does not lead us into the swamp of subordinationism, as if the Father has priority over otherwise inferior persons (the Son and Spirit). That misstep is a costly one, ultimately eliminating the Son and Spirit from our worship.

If you want to read more on the subject, explore On God and Christ (look at 3.29.3). On that note, I am excited to share with you some news: with the help of Credo and a slew of theologians, we’ve launched TheNiceneCreed.org. There you will find 12 short Videos, each by a different theologian, walking you through the creed. Plus, included are additional pages with other videos answering tough questions. I really hope this resource will assist pastors and churchgoers alike, giving them an onramp to the Trinity.

In other news, I can hardly believe it but the Credo Conference is almost here, just over a month away. I’m talking to the other speakers, and I think the breakout sessions will be special. They are almost full, so if you haven’t registered, now’s the time. By the way, several publishers (Crossway, B&H, Christian Focus) will giveaway books to every attendee. So plan on entering the conference with arms ready to embrace some books on theology!

In other news, Anselm House met again and on St. Patrick’s Day. We read Patrick’s Confession. One thing we talked a lot about: in the church we often push back the Trinity, as if it’s irrelevant until someone is a very mature Christian. But the Gospels do just the opposite, making the Trinity the centerpiece in evangelism, baptism, and discipleship. Saint Patrick is exemplary: “Since I believe in the Trinity, I must make known the gift of God.” A big thanks to Christian Focus who sent along Michael Haykin’s Patrick of Ireland, so that these theologians could leave with a great from the Great Tradition.

Last, to all you dedicated podcast listeners, you will be pleased to hear that both Michael Horton’s lecture from the Center for Classical Theology, as well as the Q&A with Horton, G.K. Beale, and Craig Carter are now up on the Credo podcast. Enjoy.

It can be tempting to plow right over deep, complicated passages in a classical text, but I find they often present us with an opportunity to contemplate a great mystery.

I am writing the chapter on the image of God in my Systematic Theology, and I keep returning to a paragraph in Athanasius’s On the Incarnation. Each time I read it I find myself thinking about it from another angle. Here it is:

“When he made the human race through his own Word, God, who has dominion over all, seeing again the weakness of their nature—that it was neither sufficient of itself to know the Creator nor to receive any knowledge of God, as he is uncreated whereas they had come into being from nothing, and as he is incorporeal whereas human beings had been fashioned here below with a body—and, comprehensively, that the deficiency of creatures for the understanding and knowledge of the maker was great, again had mercy on the human race, in that being good he did not leave them destitute of the knowledge of himself, lest their being should be profitless. For what profit would there be for those who were made, if they did not know their own Maker? Or how would they be rational, not knowing the Word of the Father, in whom they came to be? … So, lest this should happen, being good he bestowed on them of his own image, our Lord Jesus Christ, and made them according to his own image and according to the likeness, so that understanding through such grace the image, I mean the Word of the Father, they might be able to receive through him a notion of the Father, and knowing the Creator they might live the happy and truly blessed life.”

I cannot exposit the depths of this paragraph here, but a few observations from the perspective of Athanasius deserve attention: (1) On the basis of God’s incomprehensibility and incorporeality, Athanasius considers it a mercy that God would bestow on us a knowledge of himself. (2) The rationality of man is not only a gift but one that is fitting so that the mind of man can know the Logos himself—the Word. The Father creates man rational through his Logos so that by means of man’s rationality man may know the Logos (more on this in point four). (3) The imago Dei is a display of God’s inestimable goodness towards man. For what is the image he bestows on man but the Lord Jesus Christ himself? The goodness of God is the gift of his own image (the Logos). (4) Therefore, man can know the Father through Christ, because the perfect Image of the Father (Logos) is the image in man. As a result, man may know and enjoy his Maker, the source of his happiness.

Like I said, this single paragraph is profound. I love to read the Fathers because they can draw so many doctrines into their orbit in a single paragraph. However, this paragraph could be controversial. I was reading this paragraph from Athanasius at the same time I happened to be reading Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretical-Practical Theology (vol. 3). He provides caution: Man is not “formed according to the human nature of Christ,” as if that human nature was “assumed in an extraordinary way at the time when man was created, as some of the fathers assert.” Mastricht is convinced we should adhere to a contrast: “we were created according to the image of God, not of Christ, and that Christ in his incarnation was made like us in all things, except for sin (Phil. 2:7; Heb. 2:12, 17).” (I think Mastricht means the incarnate Christ when he uses italics; I doubt he would deny we are made in the image of God, the Trinity).

Now, Mastricht does not tell us what fathers he has in view, so it is hard to know if one of them is Athanasius. Maybe, but maybe not. Also, in the paragraph I’ve qoted Athanasius does not teach exactly what Mastricht fears, namely, that when Adam was created, he was created according to the human nature of Christ. Rather, Athanasius draws our attention, at least in this passage, to the eternally begotten Son, the Logos through whom the cosmos was made. So, it is difficult to discern whether these two theologians are in actual conflict with one another. For Mastricht’s worry may or may not be Athanasius’s point.

Regardless of whether a true disagreement is present (I will let others decide), both theologians keep us from a stunted understanding of the imago Dei. Athanasius will not allow us to think of the image as if it is a gift from the Father alone. For if this image consists of a faculty like intellect (interesting, isn’t it, that an emphasis on rationality is not merely a Western notion), then the way we know the Father is through the gift of the Logos, the Image. At the same time, Mastricht keeps the reason for the incarnation in view (a motivation Athanasius surely would have appreciated). By means of the incarnation the Son is made “like us in all things, except for sin” so that he might heal the image of God in us. He who is the Image by nature has assumed our nature so that we who are the image by participation might have that image repaired.

Besides writing my Systematic Theology, what else has been happening?

First, what am I reading for research? I have a stack of old and new books I’m working through. For example, Edward Feser’s Immortal Souls is a muscular defense of Aristotelian-Thomistic anthropology over against everything from Cartesian Dualism to materialism (see table of contents here). I love this power-punch of a line, which gives you a flavor of what you’re in for: “Say what you will about the Aristotelian-Thomistic account, its notion of a ‘formal identity between the intellect and the object it knows prevents the mind-world gap that has plagued modern philosophy...”

I’m also returning to Tertullian’s A Treatise on the Soul as I look at how the Fathers answered the question, From where does the soul originate? Emmaus press recently released their translation of Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul.

Second, I just found out that the breakouts (we are calling them Anselm House) for the Credo Conference are selling out. Some are already full! In these videos, Kevin DeYoung, Michael Reeves, Gavin Ortlund, and I all share what we are excited to talk about in our main messages as well. Register here before seats run out.

Third, the Center for Classical Theology met again. What a beautiful time seeing so many encourage one another around orthodoxy. Michael Horton delivered a lecture titled, “If Reformed, then catholic: Sola scriptura revisited.” Afterwards, GK Beale and Craig Carter joined Horton for a discussion that touched on everything from allegory in the Fathers to creeds in the liturgy. The 2025 CCT lecture will be in Boston. Stay tuned for details!

Fourth, the Credo podcast goes on while I am on sabbatical. Sam Parkison talks to Wyatt Graham about whether “Catholic Protestant” is an oxymoron. And more recently Sam is joined by Keith Mathison to critique the thought of Cornelius Van Til, based on Mathison’s new book, Toward a Reformed Apologetic, in the REDS series J.V. Fesko and I edit.

Fifth, during our recent family trip to New York City I escaped not a few times to explore historic churches and cathedrals. I’ll limit my selection to four (pictures in order) that featured something quite unique:

1. Cathedral of St. John the Divine - its pillars were like redwoods and the pulpit pictured wins the competition.

2. St. Patrick's Cathedral - I snuck in during a wedding and what I loved most were the church fathers surrounding the pews, including Anselm (which is rare to find in my experience)

3. St. Thomas Church - I only included one picture and it's by far the most intricate. You will know it when you see it.

4. Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church - by far the most formidable wood pulpit I saw (and with overhanging organ).

That’s all for now. I’ll be back soon though. I’m contemplating the simplicity of the Trinity for my message at the Credo Conference, and I will have some insights to share. In the meantime, we just started a donation page for Credo. Your contribution helps us make everything from the podcast to the magazine to the conference happen.

This Fall two worlds converged. On the one hand, I am writing on the doctrine of creation in my Systematic Theology (Baker Academic). To that end I have not only been deep in conversation with church fathers like Augustine (and his Genesis commentary) but Joseph Ratzinger and his books, The Divine Project: Reflections on Creation and the Church and In the Beginning. Ratzinger still speaks today because he is a megaphone in a world whose cosmology is indebted to modernism, at points boldly addressing our present departure from a classical understanding of the cosmos. Modernism’s break with Aristotle’s cosmos of causality is a crack in the foundation that Christians today still struggle to concede, but it will be one I force my readers to face head on, however uncomfortable it may be. I am reminded of Edward Feser’s sobering statement:

“Abandoning Aristotelianism, as the founders of modern philosophy did, was the single greatest mistake ever made in the entire history of Western thought.”

If you think Feser is exaggerating, finish his book The Last Superstition first. In that light, I’ve been spending my time representing David Hume’s attack on causality to my reader, which has motivated me to return to his book, A Treatise on Human Nature (so when I opened this Amazon delivery package I couldn’t help but laugh because it is a visual summary of how the story ends…as well as how bad my head hurts as a result).

On the other hand, I was invited to speak to students at Benedictine College. (Yes, Benedictine is the college where Harrison Butker from the Chiefs gave his heard-around-the-world graduation address. And yes, I am devasted to hear the news that Butker is out for who knows how long with a knee injury. With half of the team on IR it is almost miraculous the Chiefs are undefeated.) I was asked to speak on my book, The Reformation as Renewal (my gratitude to Tory Baucum and his hospitality). I thought the Reformed Scholastics and their retrieval of Thomas Aquinas to be a strategic topic (even test case). Imagine this: Roman Catholic college students meeting Jerome Zanchi or John Owen for the first time, only to discover that Thomism was instrumental to the Protestant defense of everything from scholastic realism to Nicene orthodoxy to the classical Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo and more. John Owen proved most helpful because even in areas of soteriology he exhibits a critical appropriation of Aquinas that is judicious.

But I discovered that at the end of my talk Ratzinger once again proved relevant. He did not hesitate in his day to critique Karl Rahner’s approach to ecumenism, an approach that tended to sideline dogmatics for the sake of institutional unity. Ratzinger could not see how Rahner’s approach could lead to anything but skepticism. By contrast, Ratzinger proposes a “mutual giving” whereby Protestants and Roman Catholics do not forfeit their principles but nonetheless consider how they might benefit one another where the other finds itself weak against the battle hammer of modernism. Thus began a fruitful comparison of the Reformed Scholastic use of Aquinas to withstand the intrusion of Socinianism and today’s evangelical struggle to survive the influx of theistic mutualism in our own ranks.

Afterwards I talked to some of these college students and I was impressed, even encouraged, by their humble resolve: we both agreed that we cannot afford to ignore each other when those in the church and academy alike are increasingly drowning in the waters of nominalism and secularism. (By the way, if you want to learn more about “mutual giving” don’t overlook the Roman Catholics and Protestants that Matthew Levering brought into conversation with one another in his book, Joseph Ratzinger and the Healing of Reformation Era Divisions, including Protestants like Douglas Sweeney, Timothy Larsen, David Luy, and others). To be transparent, I am still considering where in my systematic my reading of Ratzinger will be most relevant, but my hunch is right after the reader has felt the full impact of the blitz by Hume and Kant, as well as Darwin and Dawkins. If we do not see our need for retrieval after Empiricism, Positivism, and Materialism, then I don’t know if we ever will.

In other news, I just returned from New York City. I’m afraid there is so much to tell (especially my bizarre encounter with both Darwinism and Intelligent Design at the Natural History Museum) that I will have to save it for another newsletter. But between walks in Central Park, visiting Central Presbyterian Church, and my days living at the MET, I have much to share. One glimpse: I happened to stumble into St. Patrick’s Cathedral during a wedding. I apologize to the bride and groom. However, I did manage to meet some friends perched high in the nave: Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, Athanasius, Bonaventure, Bernard, and yes, my closest friend, Anselm. I wonder how many churchgoers look up at Athanasius on their way into church to say the Nicene Creed.

Before I sign off, here’s what I’m up to next: First, next week the Center for Classical Theology meets, and we get to hear from Michael Horton, G.K. Beale, and Michael Allen. If you are going to ETS in San Diego, then come the night before. Register asap! Crossway is giving away some good books.

Second, I had a friendly conversation with two of my PhD graduates now off teaching at other institutions, Sam Parkison and Ronni Kurtz, about my Systematic Theology on the Credo Podcast. What fun thinking together about what the ST will look like.

Third, I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to the Credo Conference. I keep telling people: bring a group and get a discount. Come join me, Gavin Ortlund, Kevin DeYoung, Fred Sanders, Michael Horton, Michael Reeves, and others. Register today.

I will be back soon to tell you how CCT went. And yes, it will be nice to be back in sunny southern California, my home state. I plan to visit In-N-Out burger at least once. Last thing, I started Credo over a decade ago and I’ve kept it free since. But we just started a donation page. As the holidays approach, would you consider giving Credo a Christmas gift? Your contribution helps us make everything from the podcast to the magazine to the conference happen.

This summer I made great progress on my Systematic Theology. I returned to one of my most treasured subjects in theology: the attributes of God. It’s been a while since I wrote None Greater, so I was curious to open this door again, knowing from experience there was far more on the other side than I could possible convey back in 2019. So, allow me to share just one snapshot of my research over these simmering summer months.

Towards the end of my survey of the divine perfections I briefly distinguish between different shades of divine justice, many of which are apparent in the Psalms as well as the prophets (David in Psalms 5 and 11 has been especially pertinent, but so has Habakkuk 1). I’ve noticed that when God’s justice is in the dock, Protestant Scholastic dogmatics follow the patristic and medieval instincts of classical theology. For example, they are quite adamant that divine justice can be distributive but not commutative. Why? Commutative justice, says Francis Turretin, is “based upon an equality of what is given and received and through which authority may be transferred, neither of which can be said of God.” Turretin’s definition reflects the same insight found in Thomas Aquinas’s definition: commutative justice “consists in mutual giving and receiving, for instance in transactions such as buying” explains Thomas.

Does commutative justice sound a lot like theistic mutualism? It does, which is why both theologians are quick to show commutative justice the door. To do so, Turretin quotes the exact same passage Thomas quotes: Romans 11:35, where Paul says, “Of who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid [recompensed]?” Commutative justice, in other words, would subject God to a “give-and-take” transaction, which could only put God in man’s debt. Check Petrus van Mastricht too. Same strategy. The point is, Protestant Scholastics are quite careful, and seriously precise, to follow the logic of classical theism.

But here is something fascinating (and I hope, if you’re a Protestant, this next point will make you proud of your heritage): Reformed Scholastics then apply these same classical instincts to their reformed understanding of the divine decree. Personally, I’d go so far to call this a contribution. For example, when Mastricht takes on the challenge of middle knowledge in his day (no time here, but if you’ve not heard of middle knowledge before, then do a little research on Luis de Molina), he exercises those same classical muscles. His critique reveals his dire concern that we resist any temptation to condition God, making him dependent in some way upon man for his knowledge (and choices). He gives 9 reasons why. I won’t quote all of them, but here’s a snapshot if you want to read them in detail.

In one sense what the Reformed are up to is quite original: they are transferring classical instincts into the domain of reformed theology. But in another sense, there is nothing original: we’ll never know what a conversation between Thomas and Mastricht over tea (or coffee?) would have been like, but I can imagine a scenario in which they both would have expressed their shared frustrations over Molinism. True, that hypothetical conversation would be lined by different motives: Thomas would have been concerned with the direction Molina was leading Roman Catholics (“My future Dominicans, don’t take this Jesuit bait”) while Mastricht was concerned with Molinism drawing away his Reformed colleagues, even tampering with the good and necessary consequences of their confessions. But who knows, Thomas might have thanked Mastricht in the end since the latter’s instincts are shared instincts, ones others in the Great Tradition might have resonated with as well if they had lived to see the challenges of Mastricht’s day. None of this minimizes differences between Thomas and Mastricht on a variety of loci, nor the nuances in their own presentations of theology proper. But it does remind us that our Protestant heritage retrieved catholic instincts, instincts perpetuating and even refined by someone like Thomas. And the Protestant Scholastics were imaginative enough to ask how those instincts might help them answer modern innovations at the intersection of theology proper and soteriology.

In my systematic, I’m not discussing all this background (though I do allude to it), which is the point of this newsletter. But I hope you can appreciate these subtle vibes of catholicity when you encounter them. I’ll be sharing some of these this Fall as I speak with students and faculty at Benedictine College about The Reformation as Renewal. I plan to report back on my time there.

What else has been going on this summer?

First, some incredible news. For a long time, I have dreamed of launching a Credo conference. Well, it’s finally happening! May 1-2, 2025. Washington D.C. The theme for the first conference? The Trinity. After all, it is the big anniversary of Nicaea in our lifetime. Who will speak? Gavin Ortlund, Fred Sanders, Michael Reeves, Kevin DeYoung, Michael Horton, and myself. But here’s the best part: not only will the speakers walk you through the Nicene Creed, but each of them will lead an Anselm House. In this breakout session you will have the opportunity to join one of these main speakers in a small setting and dialogue with them over a classical text. Each speaker has picked a favorite classical text of theirs (Athanasius, Cyril, Augustine, etc.) that they want to discuss with you. I don’t think you’ll find this type of Socratic dialogue with main speakers at any other conference. Register here and pick your Anselm House before it fills up. One other unique quality: each day the whole conference will say the Nicene Creed together. I would love to meet you in D.C. and link arms around orthodoxy. Will you come join me?

Second, I have edited a book with IVP Academic called, On Classical Trinitarianism. It is what it sounds like. 40 theologians, all writing to recover the Trinity of classical theology for the sake of renewal today. You have the chance to read everyone from Thomas Joseph White to Andrew Louth to Stephen Holmes to Swain & Allen to Carl Trueman. I pray that this book will correct course, amused as the last century has been with revisionist approaches to orthodoxy. I also pray that the diversity of authors will remind us that doctrines like the Trinity are a matter of orthodoxy, and the church universal can unite around them. The book releases October 1^st but word on the street has it that it’s showing up in people’s mailboxes already.

Third, the Center for Classical Theology is coming soon! We meet this November in San Diego (the night before ETS) and Michael Horton will deliver a lecture titled, “If Reformed, then catholic: Revisiting sola scriptura.” And (!) G.K. Beale and Michael Allen will join him afterwards for a roundtable discussion. Crossway will be giving away books on the topic as well. Seats are running out so register soon.

I can’t fail to mention either that we are offering a Scholastic Award. It’s a short paper in a scholastic style but the reward for winning is big: the works of Charnock and Owen, plus publication of your paper in a journal. Details here. The deadline is only a month away so submit soon.

In other news, the new issue of Credo Magazine is out: The Revival of Classical Education. I am convinced that if we don’t start our kids off with classical education K-12 then we really can’t expect them to share its values, outlook on the world, and accompanying theology in college let alone seminary. Included in this issue are some all-star articles by educators, some new, some seasoned.

Also, I sat down with biblical scholar Robert Yarbrough to discuss why we love the Bible so much and why we read it with the Great Tradition. Yarbrough has some sobering words about the collateral damage of methodological atheism and need for creeds (especially among Baptists) in hermeneutics. Watch this brand-new Credo Colloquy.