Sir, There seems to be a shortage of joy in the church if recent correspondence is a reliable guide.
The gospel teaches the promise of forgiveness of sins and eternal life for those who truly repent and receive God’s grace through Christ.
I understood that living in God’s kingdom starts in the here and now with the assurance of heaven hereafter. That assurance should be evidenced by widespread joy and confident proclamation of such
good news. Recent letters on the question of praying for the dead have not indicated widespread assurance of salvation. It is not surprising then that when I talk with people outside the church they have little idea of the distinctive message of the Christian gospel.
We must have confidence in what Christ has achieved and promised ”” it has the power to redeem individuals and change the world.
–J Longstaff, of Woodford Green in Essex in a letter to the editor to this week’s Church of England Newspaper, page 10
There is an interesting history to prayers for the departed in Anglicanism. The intercessions at Holy Communion used to be “for the Whole State of Christ’s Church Militant here in earth,” because the text deliberately excluded the Church Triumphant or Expectant. As late as the summer of 1914, only a tiny minority of Anglican churches (mostly of an advanced Catholic character) tolerated prayers for the dead. The situation had completely reversed itself by the winter of 1918, by which time only a tiny minority (mostly of a pronounced Protestant character) did not have such prayers. Most of the Anglican Prayer Book revisions after that time have remembered the departed without committing themselves to a particular theory of why such prayers might matter.