Beeson Podcast, Episode #543 Dr. Gerald Bray April 6, 2021 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kirsten Padilla. We want to begin this episode by giving you our Easter greetings, because the Lord Jesus has risen from the grave we can say with Paul in 1 Corinthians, “Where o’ death is your victory? Where o’ death is your sting?” The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Today on the show we have one of our colleagues here to share with us about three recent books he has published. I was mentioning him just a few minutes ago this is a first for me. Dr. Gerald Bray is so prolific that we have three books to talk about in one interview. Many of you know him already. Kristen will introduce him in just a minute. Let me say that I am a great admirer of Gerald Bray and have been for many years. I count it a great privilege now to serve here together with him at Beeson and to count him as my friend. Thank you, Gerald, for being with us. Kristen, can you please tell us a little bit more about Dr. Gerald Bray? >>Kristen Padilla: Yes, and welcome everyone to the Beeson Podcast. As Doug has already mentioned we have Dr. Gerald Bray with us on the show today. He serves as research professor of divinity here at Beeson Divinity School. He first came to Beeson in 1993 to serve as our Anglican Chair of Divinity. He is now serving with our Anglican students as we are searching for a new Anglican Chair of Divinity. Dr. Bray is a prolific author, having published about 30 books. He’s also a minister in the Church of England. That’s all I’m going to say at this moment because I want to give you the opportunity, Dr. Bray, to say more about yourself. Most of our listeners know you already, but for those who don’t can you give us a brief introduction of yourself and let us know what you’ve been up to recently in your work here at Beeson? >>Dr. Bray: Yes, thank you very much. Well, as you say, right now I’m filling in, in what is essentially my job as Anglican Chair of Divinity here at Beeson Divinity School. I came to Beeson, as you mentioned, in 1993 having taught before then for 12 years in London. Before that I served in a parish also in London. Before that I trained for the ministry in Cambridge. And before that I was doing doctoral work in Paris. So, I got back a long way one way or another. I’ve been in university life for over 50 years. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of stopping just at the moment. But I started off in early church history, patristic studies, having done my undergraduate work in classics in Latin and Greek. Then my teaching load in London led me to develop an interest in the reformation, particularly courses in Anglicanism. Of course, that’s what I’ve been doing off and on ever since. Most of what I’ve published over the years has had to do with that. I’ve also published other things. I’ve published a systematic theology about ten years ago, historically theology in 2014, a commentary on the pastoral epistles in 2019, and I’m just putting the finishing touches on a history of Christianity in the British Isles, which will be coming out this June. So, I have wider interests as well. This is what you do when you’re in retirement. You’re never so busy as when you retire and that’s where I am at the moment. >>Doug Sweeney: Thank you for being there, Dr. Bray, and for continuing to be such a blessing to all of us at Beeson. We do have a lot to talk about today. Three different books to which we want to introduce our listeners. The first one is called Preaching the Word with John Chrysostom. Probably some of our listeners know who Chrysostom was, but not all of them. Could you begin simply by telling us who this man was and why his preaching was significant? >>Dr. Bray: Yes. John Chrysostom, of course Chrysostom was not his name. It means “golden mouthed.” And it was a nickname given to him about 100 years after he died. So, he would not have recognized it during his own lifetime. But he was the son of a government official in Antioch, which of course is well known from the New Testament. He was born there sometime around the year 350. At that time Christianity had become a legal religion, but it wasn’t as yet the official religion of the Roman Empire. That happened when John was about 30 years old. He was ordained around that time and he preached in Antioch for about ten years. He specialized in biblical exposition. In particular, the epistles of Paul. Then the emperor in Constantinople heard about him and heard that he was a great preacher and well liked and invited him to the imperial capital to take over there. John didn’t want to go, but when the emperor summons you, you go. It didn’t work out because John didn’t hesitate to criticize what he saw as the misdeeds of the imperial court. He fell out with people. It’s a long story in some ways, but in the end he was sent into exile. He went into exile in a small place not all that far away from Antioch. People who had known him in those days went to visit him and this was regarded as potentially dangerous for the regime. So, he was ordered to transfer his exile to the Black Sea coast. Unfortunately, on his way there he died from exposure to the cold. A very sad thing. But after his death the next emperor, the son of the one who had exiled him, repented of his father’s actions. Had his corpse removed to Constantinople and basically turned him into a national hero. He’s been so regarded ever since. He’s the most prolific Greek Christian writer that we have now. Probably not the most prolific in his own lifetime, but writings of others, people like Origin have been lost or destroyed. From what has been preserved more of Chrysostom has been preserved than of anyone else. So, we have quite a corpus of material available. Most of it, in fact, almost all of it are sermons of one kind or another. >>Kristen Padilla: That segues nicely into a question that I have about your book. You mentioned that John Chrysostom was known for his preaching. And we have so many of his sermons. You concentrate in your book on sermons that he gave on Genesis, Matthew, John, and Romans. What can we learn from his preaching, in particular, sermons on these books? And what are some of the themes from his preaching that you brought out in your own book? >>Dr. Bray: Right. Well, first of all, I wanted to concentrate on his preaching because he was a preacher and that was what he was known for. Of course, he’s left a sermon series on many books of the Bible. But in a short book you have to make a choice. You have to decide what you’re going to concentrate on. Although there are four books that I’ve concentrated on, in fact, there are three different subjects. Genesis, which is creation, because he only preached on the first three chapters. Matthew and John, of course, go together as gospels – his portrait of Jesus. And Romans I chose, it’s Paul’s most important letter. He was very much dedicated to the Apostle Paul. The thing we learn from Chrysostom, above all else, is how to apply doctrine to practical life. The century in which Chrysostom lived was a time of great productivity in the life of the Church. I mean, this was the era of the great creeds, the great arguments over Christology and so on. We today tend to read those things. We concentrate on the doctrine. We forget that this doctrine had to be communicated to ordinary people who had other concerns. You know? Chrysostom is the link, really, between the doctrine of the Church, with which he was fully in sympathy, and the practical requirements of a pastor. We see this in Genesis for example. Like most of the fathers of the Church he had to bring home to people that creation is good, that the world that God made is good. It’s meant to be used. But that, of course, gives us a responsibility. How do we use it? What do we do with it? We can’t misuse it or abuse it. So, he takes us through the days of creation and shows how at each stage God was preparing a world for human habitation. He said that everything in the world is designed for our benefit. He goes into that in great detail. When he comes to the life of Jesus he concentrates on Jesus the pastor. He’s very taken with Jesus’ encounters with people. This is why particularly John’s gospel. He doesn’t concentrate so much on the farewell discourses and so on, the theological parts. Although he does mention them. That’s not his concentration. He’s much more concerned with Jesus speaking to Nicodemus. Jesus speaking to the woman at the well. The man born blind. Those encounters. He brings them to life. He says this is our relationship with God in Christ. That we see in Christ this. Romans also, perhaps the most interesting thing about this is that John sees the last chapter of Romans. Romans 16 with that long list of members of the congregation in Rome as actually one of the most important chapters. Modern readers, of course, think of it as an appendix. Paul expounds everything and then he adds this as a kind of extra at the end; say “hi” to so and so and greet somebody else and all the rest of it. But for John this was very important because he said this shows that Paul was talking to real people in a real congregation; people who were very ordinary. We don’t know much about them. He didn’t know any more about it than we do. But that mattered and they were on his heart. It was for them that he was writing. This was the whole point, you see? Paul wrote Romans for us, for ordinary people like us. We have to see it in this way. He saw himself very much as walking in the footsteps of Paul. That was his model. He took Paul as a model for preaching and for application of the preaching to the pastoral needs of the Church. All the things we read in Paul’s epistles, all the controversies between Jews and Christians, and different types of Christian people. Some people who use their freedom to eat meat and sacrifice to idols this kind of thing. And not worrying about the conscious’s of others. John would sort of tackle all these issues and say, “Well, you know, this is the application. How do you apply it? How do you work this out in your everyday life?” So, it provides a nice balance, if you like, to what we normally read about the Fathers and their arguments over the divinity of Christ or whatever. Which are very important and John was very much on what we would call the Orthodox side today. But he applied it to people’s lives and so that’s what matters. >>Doug Sweeney: Okay. Preaching the word with John Chrysostom is the first of the three books we want to feature today. The second is called, “The Attributes of God: An Introduction.” Gerald, would you tell our readers what is that book about? The attributes of God, obviously, but what are you trying to accomplish in this introduction to the attributes of God? >>Dr. Bray: Oh yes, well, thank you for this. This is part of a series, a short introduction to various aspects of Christian doctrine. I was more or less asked to write on the subject of the attributes of God. Actually, I was sent a list of all the books and volumes that had been written and it turned out that the only one that hadn’t been taken up by somebody else was this one. So, I was given a choice, but if you see what I mean, like Henry Ford, you could buy any car from him as long as it was black. I could write any book for Crossway as long as it was on the attributes of God. (laughs) So, that’s what I did. I was glad to do it because the attributes of God, this is a subject which has been understudied in Christian history. Particularly in recent times every systematic theology will have a chapter about it. God is invisible, immortal, and so on. But if you read my book the place to start in a way is with the appendix at the end. Because I originally wrote what is now the appendix as my introductory chapter. And with reason. Because what I do there is I show by quoting different theologians over the centuries how basically and particularly in modern times you pick up a systematic theology, turn to the section on the attributes of God, and you realize that the author has just thrown down off the top of his head whatever comes into mind. I mean, all these attributes are sort of listed but in no particular order and without any very clear internal logic. So, what I tried to do basically is sort this out, put it in order, trying to make some sense of it, try and decide what is an attribute and what is not. Because that’s another question. You see? I mean, for example, some of these lists will say that the wrath of God is a divine attribute. But actually it’s not, because if the wrath of God were a divine attribute God would be angry all the time. Just as he’s invisible all the time. (laughs) You couldn’t have it any other way. Whereas in fact, of course, wrath is the way we perceive God at work at different times in his dealings with us or with the creation in general. But it’s the outworking in time and space and in our experience of who and what he is in himself. We call it wrath because that’s what we see, but of course from God’s point of view this is a manifestation of his love and of his justice and those things. So, we have to be careful about how we use this terminology. Basically, that’s what I’m trying to do in the book is to get people to be more careful about the language they use when they talk about God. >>Kristen Padilla: I’d like you talk more about the attributes that you cover in your book. I noticed that you divided your book into God’s essential attributes as they are in themselves and as we perceive them, and into God’s relational attributes also as they are in themselves and as we perceive them. Can you talk to us about these two categories and some of the attributes you address? >>Dr. Bray: Yes, I can. The difference between essential and relational is the same as the difference between what in theology would be called the nature or the being and the persons of God. So, just as we say that God is three persons in one nature, one diving nature, the relational attributes are the attributes of his persons. And the essential attributes are the attributes of his nature, of his being. For example, invisibility is an attribute of his being. When God says he wants us to be like him he doesn’t want us to become invisible, because in his being he’s completely different from us. So, we don’t really know what invisibility is as a positive characteristic. We just know that it’s not visible. It’s a negative in that sense. So, we confess that about God, but we can’t really say what it is. I mean, if you’re invisible. Well, there’s no way of describing you. I mean, you just can’t do that. So, that’s that. But his relational attributes, of course, his love for us. And when he says, “Be holy as I am holy.” This is a sharing of something which is true of him, which he wants also to be true of us. But if I take the holiness, for example, in what way is God holy? Well, God is holy because he’s separate. He’s different from anything and everything else. But we are holy, first of all, because he has chosen us. And separated us from the world. And basically we work out the holiness in us by obeying his law, by conforming to his will. So, of course, when we talk about holiness ... it’s something we perceive. What is God like? Well, God wants this, that, and the other. So, I do what God wants. And therefore demonstrate my relationship with him and this is what holiness means in my life. But of course you can’t really say that God obeys himself because God has a will, naturally, and he just lives as he is. I mean, he’s not obedient to himself. So, without the creation, without us, the concept of holiness wouldn’t exist. Or, if I put it a different way, God is Lord but we talk about him as Lord, but you can only be Lord if there’s something to be Lord of. So, it’s a relational thing. God is Lord of creation. God is Lord of the world. Something like this. But in and of himself he’s not Lord because there’s nothing to be Lord of. But on the other hand, if you say God is love, God is love in himself without the creation, because the love of God is shown in the love of the persons of the Trinity for each other. This is where the subtlety comes in because the love is fulfilled in their inner relationship. But the concept of lordship doesn’t apply because the Father is not Lord of the Son or Lord of the Holy Spirit. They’re all equal. You have to distinguish these terms according to what is true in and of itself and how we perceive them. What is true in relation to us. And that’s basically what I do in the book. I try to make that distinction. >>Doug Sweeney: As if the book the preaching of John Chrysostom and a book about these attributes of God were not blessing enough for the rest of us, there’s a third book about which we want to talk today entitled, “Anglicanism: A Reformed Catholic Tradition.” What does that mean, Dr. Bray? What kind of Anglicanism do you want to promote? And what does it mean to call Anglicanism a reformed catholic tradition? >>Dr. Bray: Well, yes, well this is another book that I was asked to write. Because the term “Anglicanism” has become very popular in recent years. Many people are turning to the Anglican Church or various manifestations of the Anglican Church, looking for something or other. And it’s not always clear what they think they’re going to find. For me, of course, having been brought up in it and trained in it and so on, it’s very frustrating to meet people who claim to be Anglican but don’t have a clue what it’s all about. So, I said, “Well, I’ll sit and write a book and describe it.” And it’s catholic because the catholicity is to do with what we share with the entire Christian world; the Protestants, both Lutheran and Reformed, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and so on. That we are part of the mainstream Christian tradition. We’re not a sect. We’re not a heresy of some kind. On all the basic things: the doctrine of God, the scripture, and so on. We are at one with the entire Christian world. But we’re also reformed because, of course, Anglicanism as we now understand it is a product of the Reformation. I mean, had there been no Martin Luther there would be no Anglicanism. At least not in the way we know it. And we have to recognize that heritage. I mean, we believe in justification by faith alone. We stand on this. We stand on the doctrine of sola scriptura. The scripture is the supreme authority in matters of faith. We believe in the priesthood of all believers. That there isn’t a hierarchy within the Church of superior people and inferior people. We’re all one in Christ Jesus. Things like this that make us definitely protestant. We try to keep these things in balance. I mean, there are things about the Anglican tradition that we’re not particularly proud of. I mean, nobody’s particularly proud of the fact that Henry VIII wanted to annul his marriage and that’s what led him to break with Rome. That’s not (laughs) something we boast about. Although, it’s interesting to note that there was a point where it seemed quite likely that the Pope would grant him his annulment. He might have been persuaded to do that, but the person who came out most firmly against that was actually Martin Luther who thought that Henry had treated his wife extremely badly. So, it gets very complicated from that point of view. But I want to bring all that out, because one of the problems is that people see a certain aspect of the Anglican world and they latch onto that. It’s particularly true of people who come from more evangelical protestant traditions. They tend to be attracted by what you might call the sound and light performance. People dressing up in fancy robes and prancing around and all that kind of thing, the liturgy, failing to see that this is the expression of something which is a coherent and consistent theology underneath. That’s what really matters. God doesn’t care what clothes you’re wearing when you celebrate the Eucharist. But he does care about what’s going on in your heart. It’s trying to get people to see that dimension of it. So, it’s basically an attempt to clear the ground and say, “Well, if you’re interested in Anglicanism this is what it is.” It’s been interesting to see the reactions. >>Kristen Padilla: Dr. Bray, you end your book looking at Anglicanism today describing it as a global network of episcopally ordered churches. Where are Anglicans today in the world and how has Anglicanism taken different shapes? Perhaps, if you have time, maybe you can speak to what you see as the future of Anglicanism? >>Dr. Bray: The Anglican communion, or the Anglican world has become a global network of churches. Mainly, of course, as an off-shoot of the British Empire. I mean, it as the British who took everything to Africa, India and so on and colonized Australia and New Zealand and all the rest of it. So, it is an extension of this. It has spilled over to some degree into other countries. So, now there are flourishing Anglican churches in places like Argentina and Chile, which were never British colonies. Parts of Africa that never were. But in the historic lands of Europe, Anglicans only exist basically as foreigners. If you go to Paris or Berlin, or somewhere like that and look for an Anglican church it’s probably an English speaking church catering mainly to foreigners, rather than an indigenous church. Not like the Baptists for example who evangelize in those countries and create local churches, national churches. So, it tends to be that. The differences that you come across are usually to do with the way the Church was originally planted there. So that in some cases, for example, you have very evangelical missionaries who went to places like Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, and created a very evangelical Anglican church. You have other places where more high church, more Anglo-Catholic people went, in South Africa, for example, or the Pacific Islands. So, you have a different kind of Anglicanism there. Often, these people haven’t met each other. They might not even recognize that they’re all Anglican because they’re coming from a different strand of Anglicanism. Whereas in western countries, like the United States, or of course, in England these different strands live side by side. People are aware of it. So, that’s one big difference. I think it’s also true to say that in the third world, the developing world, like other churches the Anglican Church is growing. Sometimes quite dramatically. Whereas in its historic homelands its declining. However you read that. So, that’s another issue. What is the future of Anglicanism? Well, no one can predict this with any degree of certainty, but my suspicion is that there will be a lot of change at one level. I mean, I think the Church will move much more into the developing world and reflect that. That a hundred years from now the impetus will be very much from Africa and Asia and so on and not from the Western world. But that in other ways perhaps in form, liturgy, and so on it will look pretty much the same. It will be tossed up in the air and fall down again. When it falls down the pattern will be recognizable – is what I suspect. That’s what’s happened before. And one just imagines that’s what will happen again. But of course I don’t know what it will all end up as. It may well be that Anglicanism will cease to exist as a definable form of Christianity because it will merge with other things. I mean, if you go back a hundred years ago there were huge differences between Anglicans and, say, Lutherans or Reformed or Baptist or whatever. But now we all work together and we rub off on each other. It’s sometimes hard to tell who’s who and what’s what. I mean, the divisions are much more blurred now than they used to be. That probably is a sign of the future, too. >>Doug Sweeney: Dr. Bray, you know that we like to end these interviews in a personal and explicitly spiritual mode, asking people what God has been teaching them recently. We don’t have to tell any of our listeners that this past year has been something of a crucible for all of us. Is there anything that God is doing in your life or teaching you coming out of this crucible that you might share with our listeners by way of a concluding blessing to them? >>Dr. Bray: I think the great thing that I’ve learned from the past year is how totally dependent on God I am and must consciously be. If you’d asked me a year ago what I would be doing now I would have had no idea. I wouldn’t have known, for example, that when I left Beeson last March that I would spend the next five months basically a prisoner in my own house and a lockdown. I didn’t know that I would be reading the Bible more deeply, taking things off my shelf like the sermons of Martin Lloyd Jones and so on and working through them in a way that I’d never really done before. And just using the time to grow spiritually, to grow closer to God, and to be aware, first of all, of how much I owe to him – how grateful I need to be for all that he has done for me in the past. I really need to understand that. That’s been the thing. Just that sense of dependence; learning to depend on him in a way that I hadn’t done previously. So, I would put that first. Then I would say, too, that I’ve learned about myself just how deeply sinful I really am. I mean, I can always learn more I suppose on that score – and how overwhelming the grace of God is. Luther wasn’t wrong (laughs) on that point. That we’re taught to see ourselves as sinners, saved by grace. And that the more you understand the grace of God the more you understand the seriousness of your own sin. I think that’s a very positive thing. You could say, “Oh, you’re sitting around feeling miserable because you’re a terrible sinner.” And I say, “Well, no, the more I realize that the more I realize just how great God is and what he’s done.” I mean, I’ve always been mystified by the fact that God has reached out to save me. Because I can’t imagine why he would do that. Why me? (laughs) And that’s his marvelous love. I’ve learned a lot about the love of God and seen it at work in my own life in the past 12 months. I would say that to people. I would recommend that they look beyond COVID-19; look beyond lockdown; look beyond all the things that seem to be getting in the way of our life right now and use it. The apostle Paul spent three years in the desert preparing for his ministry. What did he do? Well, I mean, he just, I suppose, got closer to God and prayer and so on. We’re going through our own of mini desert right now. I think that’s what we need to do. Just say, “Well, don’t sit about moaning about all the things you might do. Do what you can in the circumstance and remember that God is with us.” Whatever situation, really. And he’s using this time to build us up, to make us see what our priorities should be, and preparing us. That’s what he’s been doing with me. I hope and pray that he does it with everybody. >>Doug Sweeney: Amen. Simple, but very profound words of wisdom from one of our most seasoned scholars, Dr. Gerald Bray, one time Anglican Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School, a allegedly moving into retirement, but actually serving very busily as Research Professor of Divinity here at Beeson, and the interim shepherd of our Anglican Institute and Student Group. Thank you very much, Dr. Bray, for being with us. Thank you to all of you for tuning in. We are grateful for you. We covet your prayers. We are praying for you regularly and we say goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.