Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part Five

This is the fifth installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Peter Davids, Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick.
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JR: You grew up in the Plymouth Brethren fellowship and have ministered a great deal in Vineyard Fellowship circles, and you are an Episcopalian/Anglican minister. Tell us some of the things you have learned from that ecumenicity and why you have chosen the Anglican/Episcopalian communion as home.
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DAVIDS: The Brethren taught me to immerse myself in scripture and to seek to understand the early church, although in many ways they are as much children of the 1800’s as of the first century. They also taught me that the Lord’s Supper is the central act of worship, something that I believe that both biblical theology and church history confirm.
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Thus when God called me into the Episcopal Church (while I was in Wiedenest), he was confirming some of what I learned in the Brethren. Of course, I had been using the Book of Common Prayer and the classic works of other denominations in my devotions for two or three years by then, so he had been leading me before he spoke to me. But I realized that most of what divides us denominationally has more to do with style and history than with things that the scripture teaches.
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An exegete does a lot of "debunking" in that one often sees that the scriptures used to establish this or that teaching in a movement or denomination do not really support what they are supposed to prove. I started to learn that in Wheaton College where student friends did not all become Brethren when I explained "scriptural principles of gathering" to them.
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So for me the move into the Episcopal Church was not giving up something, but adding new dimensions to my previous commitments, something that the Bishop of Pittsburgh, Robert Appleyard, made easier by accepting me as a transfer of ordination from the Brethen (he accepted commendation as tantamount to ordination) and stating when he ordained me that he was not giving me a ministry but widening my ministry.
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When I left Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry to teach at New College, Berkeley, and later Regent College, it was because I knew that the believing world was wider than evangelical Anglicans. It was at Regent that I got involved with an interdenominational renewal group led by George Mallone and it was that group of 30 pastors that invited John Wimber to Canada..
John was not an innovative theologian – he used the standard evangelical works I knew well – but he put some "hands and feet" to those truths. Yes, Jesus came to bring the kingdom; yes the gospels were written so that we could follow Jesus; and yes the Holy Spirit is the on-going gift to the church to help us to follow Jesus. All of that I believed. Now, said John Wimber, let’s do it not just here in the meetings but in the streets. There is nothing "un-Brethren" or "un-Episcopal" about that.
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At that time I was involved in both a very progressive Brethren church and an Anglican parish. When the Holy Spirit came to the Brethren church our eldest member, whom I expected would be shaken, instead tapped her cane and said, "O, the glory. O, the glory. I never thought I’d live to see this day." So what I have learned is that each denomination has gifts and that we minister best if we minister using all of the gifts.
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The reason why I call the Anglican or Episcopal communion my home has two parts..
The first part is that I am convinced that the high point of worship in both Old and New Testament is a meal in the presence of God and in the New Testament we call this the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist. This goes back to my Brethren days and it is one place where I think that the Brethren pick up a significant theme of the New Testament. Thus I feel incomplete in situations where there is worship without the Lord’s Supper, for it is like almost getting to a climax and then stopping. The Episcopal Church is generally Eucharistic for its main service on Sunday and often at other times as well..
The second part is simply that I am convinced that God did call me both to the communion itself and to ordained ministry in that communion, so while I have drifted away from that call at various points in my career, the more my experience with God, the more I want to follow that call until he calls me elsewhere. Of course, I do like liturgical worship, for it is thoughtful and absolutely full of scripture; I do like the continuity down the ages that the liturgy gives one; and I recognize that many groups are led by "bishops" whether or not they call them "bishop" (so why not be part of a group that selects its bishops through a relatively open process), but those first two reasons are the main reasons..
I might add that I see my ability to enjoy multiple traditions to be a gift. I know that all do not have this gift. In fact, my wife finds it difficult and normally focuses on the Vineyard alone. I accept it as a gift and try to use it for God’s glory. So presently I am a theological advisor to the German-speaking Vineyard movement, am sometimes called upon for an article or theological advice by the Canadian Vineyard movement, but generally minister in Anglican churches in New Brunswick or Episcopal churches in Maine (other than a lovely 10 week stint earlier this year teaching at a church-based Anglican training college in London)..
God loves his whole church, so I hope I can copy him just a little and embrace as much of it as he makes possible for me, all the while keeping my roots in that part of his church where he has planted me..
NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: Scholars like J. I. Packer are taking firm stands on the tensions currently in the Anglican Church. Have you felt the necessity to identify yourself with either side of the struggle?