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…
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…
A mother to her daughter Gazing out over the water: ‘Back up you come, honey.’ I would not be without The love that puts paid to doubt For lust nor money. My sense of you is thorough As church bells rouse Hillsborough And the children play – Like the sudden certitude That saved us from…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
“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…