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“Anglican History” a New Article for Logos.com
I was recently honored with the opportunity to write an introductory article on Anglicanism for the Logos.com “Word by Word” blog. Here’s the introduction: Anglicanism is a religious identity claimed…
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Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles – Introduction
The Reformation was not the work, either of a year, or of a generation. Its foundation was laid both in the good and in the evil qualities of our nature.…
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Tract I: What Is Anglicanism?
Tracts for the Times 2.0 I’m often asked the question, “What is Anglicanism?” To which I respond: “Do you want the two-word answer, the long one-sentence answer, or my book…
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Eighteenth-Century Anglican Worship: Architecture
Part 5. Architecture Until the mid-nineteenth century, most of England’s churches were mediaeval structures swiftly adapted to reformed worship in 1559-1562, with the introduction of the 1559 Prayer Book and the accompanying Elizabethan Injunctions. These had then been subjected to a process of slow evolution over the next two centuries as reformed worship matured and…
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Book Review: “Being God’s Image”
Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters. By Carmen Joy Imes. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2023. 248 pp. $22.99 (paper). Carmen Joy Imes’s Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters is a timely exploration of the doctrine of the imago Dei. It reflects significant trends in contemporary evangelical theology, three of which stand out…
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Take the Slack Out of the Lines: An Addendum to Canon Ashey’s “Turning the Church into the Winds”
I was heartened to see the Rev. Canon Phil Ashey’s series of articles which respond to and build upon Warren Cole Smith’s assessment of the existential challenges affecting the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). I was particularly interested in his second installment: Turning the Church into the Winds: Church Discipline, Canon Law, and Women’s…
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On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist Cries – Third Sunday in Advent
On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord is nigh; awake and hearken, for he brings glad tidings of the King of kings. Advent is a season of preparation. Oftentimes, we see it as a time of preparing the People of God for His return. However, we are called to always be…
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Eighteenth-Century Anglican Worship: Ceremonial
Part 4. Ceremonial We do not think of 1700s Anglicanism as being particularly interested in ceremonial, but there was a good deal left over from Lancelot Andrewes and his school, with their concern for the beauty of holiness. There was a basic decorum to public worship, which included the basic Anglican rule of “sit to…
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Young Anglicans for the Constitution
Reputation for Constitutional Cynicism It may come as no surprise that many colonial Anglicans at the time of the Revolutionary War were Tories, who broadly opposed the Revolution. Gregg Frazer has provided the most recent history of this faction. The most famous example of the loyalist clergy is the first Bishop of the New World,…
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Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending – Second Sunday in Advent
Lo! he comes, with clouds descending, Once for our salvation slain; Thousand thousand saints attending Swell the triumph of his train: Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ, the Lord, returns to reign. “Mark my words,” is the theme of this Sunday’s collect. Yet do we truly mark our Lord’s words? Hearing the Second Coming, the Judgment, and…
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Eighteenth-Century Anglican Worship: Music in the Parish Church
Part 3. Music in the Parish Church By contrast to the cathedrals, where a full choral establishment of organist, lay-clerks, and choristers was the norm, the musical resources of parishes churches were much more various. Some small and remote parishes simply had a clerk who would line out the metrical psalms that punctuated 1700s Anglican…
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Holy Words, Human Words
“See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand,” (Galatians 6:11) For the last two thousand years and for the rest of human history, people will read these words of St. Paul. Here we have, forever canonized in the Holy Scriptures themselves, the mysterious fact that the Bible was written…
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Come Thou Long Expected Jesus – The First Sunday in Advent
This is the first in a series of reflections based upon a seasonal hymn, the collect of the day, and the ancient Western Sunday lectionary, as reflected in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Come, thou long-expected Jesus, Born to set thy people free; From our fear and sins release us, Let us find our…