A key vector in online apologetics is the role of Scripture in Protestant theology. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox partisans will gleefully point out that while Scripture may be infallible, its canon is not. In other words, an infallible Scripture has a fallible canon. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that this is…
Continuing further in Ryle’s Knots Untied, this is what the good Bishop had to say about the next mark of regeneration, which I am calling “living righteously”: Thirdly, John says, “Every one that does righteousness is born of Him”-I John 2:29. The man born again, or regenerate, then is, a holy man. He endeavors to live…
On Christian Priesthood. By Robin Ward. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011. 168 pp. $20.65 (paper). The nature of Christian priesthood, according to Robin Ward, has been obscured in recent decades: “Some theological themes which…are central to a proper understanding of ministerial priesthood in the Christian religion…have come to be seen as either unfashionable…
Someone recently commented to me that in order to bridge the Anglo-Catholic/Confessional Anglican divide, a prayer book should be created that simply includes the Holy Communion rite from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, as well as the one from the 1662 BCP (built on Cranmer’s 1552 BCP). On the surface, this might seem fair—after…
Going a little further in Ryle’s Knots Untied, this is what the good Bishop had to say about belief as a mark of regeneration: (2) Secondly, St. John says, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.” (1 John v. 1.) A regenerate man believes that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour…
The suitability of images in the Church’s worship of God is a question that stretches from the adolescent years of the Church to the present day. Consensus among the different traditions and denominations within the catholic Church on the topic seems to be futile. Many Protestants today find a connection to the ancient past through…
He took his place within the check-out line, A loaf of bread, some milk, and batteries Cradled against the paunch beneath his ribs. His eyes rest vaguely where they fell on rows Of chocolate, gum, and mints that lined the counter. But, just behind, came some sharp click of tongue— Briefer, but otherwise much like…
Among many self-professed traditionalists and apologists, the newly sainted Cardinal Newman is the fount for their rhetoric and argument. Often considered unassailable against “Protestantism,” Newman’s ghost haunts many well-read and historically aware Protestants. His oft-repeated quip “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant” often leaves the non-Roman (or, nowadays, non-Orthodox) a…
Reading in Ryle’s Knots Untied, in the chapter on regeneration, it is interesting to see what Ryle says are the marks of regeneration. He uses the First Epistle of John to outline these marks, and here is part of what Ryle says about the first mark of regeneration: Reader, I invite your particular attention to…
Last spring, as lockdown orders went out to American cities and states, many prominent Christian voices equated masking, social distancing, and staying home with the command to love neighbor, and the refusal to do so as tantamount to indifference to the lives of others. As the pandemic has rolled on, other church leaders have decried…
