The ACNA: A View from the NALC
Common Origins Founded respectively in 2009 and 2010, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) are on parallel tracks. The reasons for their founding were similar. In the case of the Anglicans, it was a longstanding objection to The Episcopal Church’s (TEC) drift into theological liberalism and moral…
The Spirit of Burning: Transforming the Pastoral Vision
“And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of…
What We’re Reading ‒ Summer 2021
Every so often, we here at The North American Anglican like to share with the world what we’ve been reading. Here are some of our summer reads! Canon Andrew Brashier, Contributor As It Is in Heaven, Fr. Paul A. F. Castellano Recently, I finished Fr. Paul Castellano’s work on liturgy, As It Is in Heaven,…
Blue Heron by the Pond
With sunlight on his plumage, noble stance, he’s fully grown, a handsome specimen, ideally formed, by some design or chance— exemplar of the avian citizen. He’s quite alone; he wants no company Immobile, his attention occupied by possibilities I cannot see below, he rules the grassy berm, with pride, you’d say. For him, it is…
Is Open Communion Historically Anglican?
This spring, my wife and I began the process of joining the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), the largest confessional Lutheran body in the United States. My story is not particularly interesting to those who do not know me well, and it suffices to say that our move was primarily motivated by local circumstances and my…
Metaphysics, Medicine and Modern Science: Why the Christian Response to COVID-19 Must Change
In his introductory book on Thomas Aquinas, Edward Feser contrasts medieval intellectual inquiry with modern scientific methodology in the following way: The medieval approach to knowledge was constituted by “a search for wisdom, understood as knowledge of the ultimate causes and meaning of things, in light of which one might improve one’s soul and prepare…
A Young Philosopher
A young philosopher went every day To watch a seamstress toil at her machine, Where she’d sit alt’ring clothes, a fine array, For those too over-grown or those too lean. Until, at last, because of all he’d seen, As if awoke from prayer, he raised his head, And grabb’d her Singer in a fit of…
Gloria Patri: Who Does It Hurt When We Don’t Sing?
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. It is a formula so familiar to Anglican worshippers, occurring with such frequency in the course of any BCP order of service, that its significance…
Whitsunday
Three days before the mystery of Whitsun A large tree across the road cracked in half The wind too much for its dried trunk As two men brought hedge clippers and a saw, Insufficient in tackling the mess, Looked for some time but finally left it Branches loosely strewn, uncut and ungraved Like an homage…
A Baptist’s Appreciation for the BCP
An Unexpected Mentor: A Baptist’s Appreciation for the 1662 Book of Common Prayer In May of 2017, I began my studies at a Baptist seminary by taking a course on eighteenth-century British Evangelicalism. While we spent most of our time examining the lives and impact of figures such as George Whitefield and John Wesley, the…