By Subject
The Reformed Doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration
One of the several contentious issues that pits Anglican against Anglican today is the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Unlike other controversies, such as the insights or errors of women’s ordination, or the insights or errors of adopting elements of the Pentecostal tradition into our own, the question of baptismal regeneration is actually directly addressed within…
The Impact of Parish Schools Will Last a Lifetime
What if choosing the right kind of school could help students stay committed to their faith, their church, their society, and their Lord? We would want more of those schools! A recent study from the University of Notre Dame’s sociology department—sponsored by the Association of Classical Christian Schools—reveals that former students of classical Christian schools…
Anglican Orders of Ministry Part II
In sixteenth-century England, unlike in much of Europe, circumstances allowed for reformation through the ecclesiastical hierarchy, rather than in (total) defiance of it. This has created a unique, sometimes confusing, but, as I hope to show, beneficial position for the Church of England. The Church of England both maintained her historic structure and embraced the…
Anglican Orders of Ministry Part I
During the Reformation the Church of England, along with a minority of other Protestant churches[1] maintained its pre-Reformation episcopalian polity, with its three orders of deacon, presbyter, and bishop. In this two-part essay, I explore the Anglican orders of ministry. In this first part, I begin by discussing episcopalian polity generally; in the subsequent piece…
The Protestant Problem with Priesthood
Many aspects of Anglicanism can perplex other Protestants—including at times the suggestion that Anglicans are Protestants (the English Martyrs, the 39 Articles, and all that notwithstanding).[1] Those things to which suspicion attaches are generally aspects of Anglican polity and liturgy that seem “Catholic”—that is, those things that share names or appearances with what one might…
Tract VI – The Idea of the Anglican University
The Need for Anglican Universities Martin Luther allegedly once said: “If I believed the world were to end tomorrow, I would still plant a tree today.” And so, in spite of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, I’m planting the idea of the Anglican university today. If the church is to create and sustain her own faithful…
In Praise of 1552: a High Church appreciation
The Book of Common Prayer 1552: it is the bête noire of Anglican liturgy. Frere famously declared that with it “English religion reached its low water mark.”[1] Dix damned it with the most horrible imprecation he could summon: Zwinglian.[2] We all know, of course, that to be High Church means always choosing 1549 over 1552….
Tract V: The Necessity of the Parochial School
I’m taking a short break from my series of Tracts on Anglican spirituality because God has put on my heart to lay out a vision for Anglican education. In Tract V, I will try to persuade you of the necessity of the parochial school, and in Tract VI, I’ll preach the need for a distinctively…
How Has Modernity Shifted the Women’s Ordination Debate?
Perhaps through a flattering overvaluation of the part that we play in them as clergy or scholars, we often suppose that ideas and practices prevail in the social arena chiefly through strength of arguments. Consequently, we can easily overlook the frequently decisive role played by such things as shifts in political and institutional power, by…
Educating Free Men and Women
Most of us are familiar with the term “liberal arts,” but few of us stop to consider this curious term. Why “liberal”? Presumably not because these are the arts favored by political progressives (even if many historic “liberal arts colleges” have become quite “liberal” in that sense). Those who do attempt to attach an etymology…
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