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August 04 2023
THE INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH FATHERS
The fathers as individuals bequeathed to us much that is edifying, spiritually stimulating and interestingly and charmingly useful in our Christian nurturing, particularly those who have come to be regarded as the most significant and well-known as the "oft-quoted" in matters of pastoral concern and development of life in Christ. Many Protestant publications are raising the profile of the fathers in our time.
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July 25 2023
Heresy! Why Christians must confront false teaching
The Henrician Canons of 1535 referred to heresy as "fireballs by which the Church is inflamed and continues to burn miserably". These 16th-century reformers said the devil "daily piles up even more firewood in the shape of false opinions". These would be thrown by Satan into the Church, to cause as much trouble as possible and lead people astray.
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July 21 2023
Why Do Christians Call God Father?
The power of the word "Father" is its specificity. We have only one biological dad; usually, that's the only person we will call "Father." Sometimes, if our dad has died or departed, we will use the term "Father" for an adoptive dad.
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July 12 2023
Anglicans, Let's Stay True to Our Confessional Heritage
Ensuring that clergy embrace, and laity study, the Articles and our other often forgotten but official formularies (the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the first and second Books of Homilies)--could help to fix the doctrinal incoherence Anglicans have grappled with for decades.
Returning to the Articles could help to fix the doctrinal incoherence Anglicans have grappled with for decades.
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July 08 2023
"NATIONAL APOSTASY"
But today when someone pulls the "great tradition" card they almost always mean something like: "I don't buy that Anglicans are Protestant" or "I don't accept the Reformation or the Elizabethan Settlement as determinative for describing Anglican identity" or "I subscribe to a conciliar definition of 'Anglicanism' as opposed to a confessional definition."
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June 17 2023
JUNE 16: BIRTHDAY OF ANGLICANISM IN AMERICA
Since Thomas Cranmer's 1552 Book of Common Prayer, and in all its revisions until the 1979 Prayer Book revision, the communion table was called a "table" or "holy table" so that is wasn't confused with an "altar" and the medieval Roman Catholic understanding of the sacrament. On an altar a sacrificing priest re-offers Jesus as a sacrifice.
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June 11 2023
THE REPUTATION OF JOHN DONNE RE-DONE
The necessity and effectuation of a substitutionary atonement was at the foundation of Donne's proclamation of the Gospel of our Savior: "He would not spare, nay he could not spare himself. There was nothing more free, more voluntary, more spontaneous than the death of Christ . . . And behold how that Lord that was God, yet could die, would die, must die for your salvation" [Death's Duel]. Sermon, 25th February 1631, no 192, Selected Prose, Penguin Classics, 1987].
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June 01 2023
THE PROPHETIC POLEMIC
Isaiah sorrowfully witnessed this sordid tendency of base and vile contempt for God strongly prevalent in his own time: "When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts . . . I will hide my eyes from you: even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen . . . See how the faithful city has become a harlot!
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May 26 2023
WHO IS THE GREATEST?
What about successful evangelists and church leaders? Still no, at least not as measured by the standards of fame and honor in this world.
Note that the disciples were straightforward in questioning Jesus (Matthew 18:1):
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"
May 24 2023
MCILVAINE ON REVIVALS
McIlvaine stated his revival principles in a letter to one of his parishes in his second year as bishop of Ohio. The parish, which had never enjoyed the regular services of a pastor, was clearly in need of wise and timely advice, as the teeming energies stirred by revival were producing startling results both favorable and unfavorable.
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