By Rainer Maria Rilke Translated by Susan McLean We know nothing about this going hence, which shares nothing with us. We’ve no foundation for showing hate or love and reverence toward death, whose mask of tragic lamentation strangely disfigures him. The world is still full of roles we play. As long as we worry about…
The debate touched off by Emily Mcgowin’s article on Women’s Orders in Anglican Pastor has opened onto the vast territory of the theology of gender. That is, of course, an important controversy to have out (though perhaps not on comment boards), but in the midst of the ruckus, I think that it is worth returning…
“Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” (Ps. 90:12) Humans are temporal creatures bound in time. But time should not be viewed as a prison; it should be seen as the progress of potentialities—momentary movements from glory to glory. This relentless succession of minutes and months becomes a…
On Numbering the Sacraments This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. I. Introduction It has long been the custom of Churchmen to make the most trivial contentions in doctrine out to be the most controversial. These trivialities have become far too many to enumerate…
Tracts for the Times 2.0 Today’s offering is Part 2 (of 3) of Tract #2. In it, I will continue presenting evidence that the Church in the British Isles was planted long before 597, was relatively well-established, and was associated with but not under the rule of the Roman Catholic Church during this time. At…
Hannah King’s call to “make a start” for unity with the Episcopal Church of the United States invites a fresh response–and not the sort that rehashes the well known divisions between progressive and orthodox Anglicans. But as another young priest in the ACNA (and another Texan as it happens), I write out of concern for…
It will soon be the anniversary of the consecration of the first American bishop, 14 November, which prompts reflection on the effects of that momentous occasion. Samuel Seabury of Connecticut received episcopal orders from three Scottish bishops — Primus Robert Kilgour, Arthur Petrie, and John Skinner — on 14 November 1784, the Twenty-Second Sunday after…
For R.S. Thomas Even here the priest must hold our horror in his hands, and press it to his lips, gentle, to surrender its shock, and drain the freight glow and gloss of the body’s bent light, while the land grays, and long green rolls of field and bone elide between twin silences. “See how…
On Private Speculation and Public Instruction in the Anglican Church, Especially as it Relates to the Bible, our Formularies, and Catholic Tradition. My proposal for a Reformed Litany of the Saints unintentionally caused quite a stir. What I intended to be a constructive creation was received in large part as being destructive. Moreover, the wave…
For my entire life, I have watched the institutions of Christendom’s power be turned against her in cruel and inhuman ways. We have all watched the horror which inevitably arises when the mechanisms of morality (churches, governments, academia, media, etc.) are violently disconnected from their Christian foundations only to be weaponized against us and our…
