Listening to the wise son of Sirach
the significance of the use of the Apocrypha in Tillotson’s preaching On September 13th, 1689, King William III appointed a commission of bishops and theologians “to prepare such alterations of the liturgy” as would enable “the reconciling, as much as is possible, of all differences among our good [Protestant] subjects.” On the same day, one…
Response to Steven McGregor’s Review of Orthodox Anglican Identity
Thank you, Steven McGregor, for taking the time to read and review my Orthodox Anglican Identity, for caring about Anglicanism, and for challenging me to think even more deeply about our beloved Anglican tradition. I’m glad to see that Steven has picked up on the structure of the book, as well as some of its…
Incarnation Continued: Humanity in the Presence of God
“Christ maintains his humanity to all eternity… It is a clothing which He does not put off. It is His temple which He does not leave. It is the form which He does not lose.”[1] ~Karl Barth For the Gospel to truly be “good news” there needs to be more to the story than life…
Book Review: “Metaphysics in the Reformation”
Metaphysics in the Reformation: The Case of Peter Martyr Vermigli. By Silvianne Aspray. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 176 pp. $80.00 (cloth). Attempting to discern a systematic approach to metaphysics in the Reformation quickly runs into a problem, namely that the Reformers generally did not treat metaphysical questions as such in their writings. As…
Alfred Hope Patten
1885-1958, Anglo-Catholic priest and restorer of the Shrine in 1922 Your name has a certain gleam to it – eccentric sounding, as you were yourself, misfit farmer’s boy, dodger of tests, perhaps the printed word oppressed you unlike the sensory glory of High Church. You loved the drench of incense, the cleansing douse of holy…
The ‘Not-Secular’ Option: A Miserable Offender Responds
Stepping Into the Fray Over the past week, I read an article printed in this journal that I believed to be in need of some gentle correction. Before I had finished my own response, however, I noticed that another writer I admire had beat me to it, only to find myself more frustrated with this…
Book Review: “Orthodox Anglican Identity”
Orthodox Anglican Identity: The Quest for Unity in a Diverse Religious Tradition. By Charles Erlandson. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2020. 224 pp. $47.00 (cloth), $27.00 (paper). Books on Anglicanism nowadays often read like eulogies. Charles Erlandson’s Orthodox Anglican Identity might be included in this genre. He is not irenic like, say, Alistair Redfern, who, in…
Excommunication
“IT IS ORDERED that the defendant be placed on probation, and the defendant shall … not consume intoxicants at any time or any place, and not be present in a place where the sale of alcohol is the major business.” I was most sad when they said unto me, Let’s go into the house where…
Rhythms and Relations at Trinity Connersville
This article serves as the second diary entry for the missionaries first mentioned in a recent article here at the North American Anglican. In this continuing series, we hope to highlight some of the day-to-day challenges which face a church plant in the year of Our Lord 2021 but also to glory in the small…
The Dream of Descartes
I A dry heat glowing in his shins and brain afire, The night sky gray behind the distant münster’s spire, He found himself awake upon a rain-slicked street, His boot heels slipping on the stones; the wind searched every pleat Of his brown cloak and struck his body till it spun Him back and all…