The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760‒1857. By Peter B. Nockles. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. 364 pp. $55.99 (paper). In Orthodox Anglican Identity, Charles Erlandson identifies four different “spiritualities” that are commonly thought to be encompassed within “orthodox Anglicanism” as a whole: Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, Charismatic, and Global. The Anglo-Catholic spirituality is…
I am writing as a pioneer in the emerging science of Biblical Anthropology, an empirical approach to the canonical Scriptures that avoids denominational interpretations. A Biblical Anthropologist studies the Scriptures to identify anthropologically significant data that clarifies the cultural contexts of ancient biblical populations, and especially the social structure of the biblical Hebrew. This interdisciplinary…
The question of the inerrancy of Scripture has been freshly addressed in Anglican circles lately. It is such a terribly abstract question, with far too much hanging on semantics. Let us get into the same question from a more practical angle: the battle-scarred territory of Genesis 1-11. Though I didn’t know it by this name,…
Gerald Bray’s new Anglicanism begins with a chapter spelling out succinctly the history of the Church of England, its sisters, and successors until the middle of the Nineteenth Century. The Anglicanism of the early twenty-first century, Bray notes, “is essentially a nineteenth century invention.” Before the 1840s most members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in…
Two of them are talking in the woods. The night’s so still and bright with moon that he Lies staring on his pillow. Almost, it’s words He hears tossed back and forth from tree to tree. Almost, it’s wind whose wings slip past the window, Wavering the light. Almost, it’s silence, Almost ghost. From bed…
Unable to answer these arguments, I remained silent toward these people; but now I beg you Father, to instruct me in what I should say to defend the truth, so that (following the Apostle’s injunction) I may “be ready to give an account of the faith that is in us.” —St. Gregory Palamas I’ve been…
PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 5. The Witness of Beauty in Practice How individual churches can most readily manifest beauty to their communities will vary depending on their circumstances. For this reason, I will not try to be overly specific about what people should do to achieve this end, nor will I suggest any…
Last week, noted Calvin College philosopher James K. A. Smith caused a stir on Twitter when he posted a picture of himself wearing a pink “You Are Loved” T-shirt, captioned “At @Calvin Uni, ALL students are welcomed, affirmed, and loved. To our LGBTQ students always, but today especially: #YouAreLoved.” Further context for the pic was…
The steps of the Sacre-Coeur billow down the hill like a robe, and hundreds loiter on the hem, maybe hoping to be healed. Church steps have cradled them for centuries—the crippled, the homeless, the lost tourists, the tired pedestrians—but here at this place are three hundred steps instead of five or ten. The loiterers…
Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth: 12 Questions Christians Should Ask About Social Justice. By Thaddeus J. Williams. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2020. 288 pp. $22.99 (paper). “I can’t do it,” I told the couple sitting in front of me. It was the summer of 2020. The COVID pandemic was continuing to build, the presidential campaign…