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Excerpt #4 From “The Witness of Beauty and Other…
“There is never a situation in which we have no choice but to commit sin. God does not oblige us to break the very laws that are derived from…
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St Dunstan’s Academy: An Interview with Fr Mark Perkins
Andrew and Isaac interview Fr Mark Perkins about a new Anglican boy’s boarding school in Virginia. Read Fr Eric PArker’s article about St Dunstan’s Academy here. Visit the St…
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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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Book Review: “An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles”
An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles. By Alexander Penrose Forbes, with a new Foreword by C. P. Collister. Nashotah, WI: Nashotah House Press, 2024. 874 pp. $32.11 (paper). When Anglican seminarians ask me how to study theology, I tell them to pick one of the great theologians and burrow into his corpus. But make sure…
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Approaching the East: For the Life of the Church
Introduction When I say “Romania” what comes to your mind? Chances are your immediate reaction would be a vision of Count Dracula terrorizing unsuspecting peasants, or a cheap vacation on the Black Sea. What should come immediately to mind, in my own opinion, is Romania’s deep and ancient Christian roots as an Orthodox country. I…
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The Differences between Roman and Anglican Private Confession [Commentary on Browne: Article XXV (2)]
As seen previously, Browne readily grants that “four out of the five [minor sacraments] the Church of England admits, at least in a modified form.” However, it is important to note the qualification that they are admitted in a “modified form,” particularly with regard to private confession. Browne writes that “the Council of Trent anathematizes…
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Surface Beauty/Analogia Entis
Alia claritas solis, alia claritas lunae, et alia claritas stellarum. stella enim a stella differt in claritate. It’s not a dropdripped deep in each,nor yet a gemset ¡there! with care.It’s in the air,everywheretinted on skins,splashed and slathered,it’s visible to every eye. It shines out light,sparkless, at dark.Goes forth sourceless,but it angelsevery angle,ubiquitous,too thick to flicker,expressed…
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On the Ordering of the Sacraments of Initiation
Introduction In the history of the sacramental practice of the Church, the order of receiving the Eucharist and Confirmation has been a subject of theological reflection and liturgical variation. Traditionally, the sacrament of Confirmation has been administered before one’s first reception of the Eucharist, serving as a completion of Baptismal grace and a preparation for…
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Book Review: “Mad about Belief”
Mad about Belief: Religion in the Life and Thought of Bertrand Russell. By Larry D. Harwood. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2024. 362 pp. $66 (hardback), $46 (paper). Bertrand Russell is often analyzed in terms of his philosophical ideas, logic, and critiques of religion. In fact, he is often taken to be a despiser of religion…
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Lectio Divina as True Biblical Exegesis
The other day, I read a lovely book by Stephen Meawad, who teaches theology at Caldwell University. Titled Beyond Virtue Ethics (2023), this book argues that all too often, we treat ethics in isolation, as if it were either just a bunch of rules imposed on us, or else a matter of developing patterns of…
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Book Review – “Protestantism, Revolution and Scottish Political Thought”
Protestantism, Revolution and Scottish Political Thought: The European Context, 1637‒1651. By Karie Schultz. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024. 208 pp. $110 (hardback). Historians have often assumed that “political concepts traditionally associated with the modern state ‒ such as consent of the governed, parliamentary sovereignty or the election of magistrates” are correlated with “a process of…
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“In the Midst of Life,” A Reflection
A minister holds a strange position in society. He wears black from head to toe. He is neither blue-collar nor white-collar, but is vocationally connected to both and called to minister to both. In fact, his collar is black all the way to his neck, until a hint of white wraps around the neck to…
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Numbering the Sacraments [Commentary on Browne: Article XXV (1)]
It is widely recognized that the term “sacrament” has historically been a flexible one, even after the early church adopted it from the broader milieu of Roman culture into a specifically Christian context: “The commoner use of the word is either for a sacred rite in general, an outward sign of some more hidden reality—or…