Recovering the Riches of our Tradition
The Breck Conference 2021
By The Rev. Dr. Greg Peters, Servants of Christ Research Professor of Monastic Studies and Ascetical Theology
On Tuesday, September 27, 1836, the Rev. John Keble, vicar of the parish church at Hursley and professor of poetry at the University of Oxford, and, importantly, leader in the nascent Oxford Movement alongside John Henry Newman and Edward Pusey, preached a sermon in Winchester Cathedral, “at the visitation of the worshipful and reverend William Dealtry . . . Chancellor of the Diocese.”
The sermon was then printed under the title “Primitive Tradition Recognised in Holy Scripture.” Keble took as his text 2 Tim. 1:14: “That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” The sermon begins with an acknowledgment that the times “Are a-Changin’” (to quote modern theologian Bob Dylan). In Keble’s mind the 1830s were a time of “persecution” and “perplexity,” but it was time for the clergy, thought Keble, “to put our hand to the plough, and we must not — we dare not — look back.”
For Keble moving forward meant holding onto the “the charge, trust, deposit” that was given to the church. In his own translation of 2 Tim. 1:12 (“I am not ashamed, for I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep my deposit, τὴν παρακαταθήκην μου, against that day”), Keble acknowledges that it “is not obvious at first sight, what this trust or treasure is,” but he is certain that the “good deposit is commonly understood by the Fathers to mean the truths committed by St. Paul to Timothy'” [italics in the original]. That is, that there was a deposit or trust of Christian dogma that pre-dates the Scriptures but does not contradict them: “we may assume with some confidence that the good thing left in Timothy’s charge, thus absolutely to be kept at all events, was the treasure of apostolical doctrines which made up the charter of Christ’s kingdom.”
This treasure is, in fact, what we call “Tradition,” writes Keble. Again, it is not equivalent with the content of the canonical Scriptures but it also does not contradict it. Keble writes,
it contained, besides the substance of Christian doctrine, a certain form, arrangement, selection, methodizing the whole, and distinguishing fundamentals; and also a certain system of church practice, both in government, discipline, and worship; of which, whatever portion we can prove to be still remaining, ought to be religiously guarded by us, even for the same reason that we see that which is more properly scriptural, both being portions of the same divine treasure.
As Keble rightly notes, by postulating the presence of an “apostolical doctrine,” he is not acknowledging anything that had not already been held by some of the earliest church fathers, such as Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202 AD) and Tertullian (c.155-220 AD). Nonetheless, Keble was advocating for an Anglican theological methodology that some had forgotten, especially those who associated “Tradition” with Roman Catholicism: “We are naturally, if not reasonably, jealous of the word Tradition, associated as it is in our minds with the undue claims and pernicious errors of Rome.” In Keble’s estimation, however, it is the church’s responsibility, including the Church of England, to embrace this tradition and in doing so withstand those contemporary philosophies and practices that undermine it. In short, “Let us be only true to our sacred trust: let us put everything else by for the sake of handing down the whole counsel of God, our good deposit, entire as we received it: and who knows but we may by God’s mercy be made instrumental in saving the English church from ruin not unlike that which has fallen on Ephesus, Smyrna, or Sardis?”
If Keble is correct (and, surprise, I think he is!), then it behooves us as twenty-first century Anglicans to take the Tradition seriously too in order to save the English church from ruin, if you will — a goal that is relevant for every generation. To that end, the James Lloyd Breck Conference at Nashotah House seeks to retrieve the Tradition for the sake of today’s Church. As we pray in our Breck conference collect, “O God of wilderness wanderings, who enkindled your priest, James Lloyd Breck, courageously to establish this House of prayer and study; preserve your Church with such faithfulness, enrich it with vocations to religious life, and grant that in our prayerful study of those faithful souls who sought you on the path of Gospel perfection, we may hasten to you without stumbling and attain the crown of eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” Notice that one of our ends is “prayerful study of those faithful souls who sought [God] on the path of Gospel perfection,” that is, the prayerful study of Tradition.
We do this because we believe that in recovering the riches of the Christian Tradition (i.e., the good deposit) that we preserve the church from abandoning her first love (à la the church at Ephesus), from error (à la the church at Smyrna) and from living death (à la the church at Sardis). We do this because we know that all of God’s words to us are not contained in the Holy Scriptures (John 21:25 – “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written”) so we must search out, embrace, and teach the Tradition.
To this end, the 2021 Breck Conference on Parish Asceticism, seeks to explore and understand early Christian ascetical practices so that those who serve as parish priests and Christian ministers today can “reverence and retain” the wisdom of the Christian Tradition, introducing it into the quotidian life of their parishes and into their own lives. Anglican parish priest Luigi Gioia will present on the western tradition’s ascetical practices, and Eastern Orthodox priest-professor Alexis Torrance will do the same for the early Christian eastern tradition. Whatever resourcing needs to be done regarding the good deposit, the best place to start, as Keble would be quick to note, is with the Catholic Christian Tradition. Come and join us!
Fr. Peters joined Nashotah House in 2018 and oversees the annual James Lloyd Breck Conference on Monasticism and the Church and teaches courses in monasticism and ascetical theology. His research interests include the history and theology of Christian monasticism, the history of Christian (esp. monastic) theology, and ascetical theology. He has presented papers regularly at the International Congress on Medieval Studies and the Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting. His published articles have appeared in the American Benedictine Review, Cistercian Studies Quarterly, Tjurunga: An Australasian Benedictine Review, and the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care, alongside articles in other peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. His most recently published books are Thomas à Kempis: His Life and Spiritual Theology (Cascade Books, 2021) and The Monkhood of All Believers: The Monastic Foundation of Christian Spirituality (Baker Academic, 2018).
Fr. Peters is also Professor of Medieval and Spiritual Theology in the Torrey Honors College of Biola University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Von Hügel Institute, St Edmund’s College in the University of Cambridge. In the past, he has also served as a visiting professor at St. John’s School of Theology. He serves (since 2012) as rector of the Anglican Church of the Epiphany in La Mirada, California. Ordained in 2009 in the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), he served from 2009-2012 in part-time ministry at the Diocese of Western Anglicans’ All Saints Cathedral, Long Beach, and until 2020 as a diocesan examining chaplain. Prior to his Anglican ordination he was a Baptist minister, serving parishes in Minnesota and Ontario, Canada. He is currently a member of the ACNA-Roman Catholic dialogue and the ACNA’s Monastic Communities Task Force. Until July 2022, he will serve as the first non-monastic, non-Roman Catholic president of the American Benedictine Academy.
Fr. Peters is a proud Virginian who loves to travel and read, especially nineteenth-century Russian fiction (Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov) and the twentieth-century French novelists Georges Bernanos and François Mauriac. He also enjoys the poetry of John Donne, George Herbert, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Fr. Peters’ hobbies include running, home improvement projects and watching films with his family. He was married to Christina in 1994, and they have two sons, Brendan and Nathanael.