Can you feel the wait? The weight of sin. The weight of glory. The pause of movement, Creation waits, Its Maker sleeps. Down into the pit Descends the One Who made the depths. All of Sheol Looks up and gazes Upon the Savior. The Alpha who spoke Light into existence Illuminates the dark…
Article X. Of Free Will. THE condition of man, after the fall of Adam, is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace…
The church was chilly, though the King had come to hear the sermon; no braziers set out; chill of December. Andrewes, golden-tongued, delivered words describing the long route the Magi took, the trials they endured: In solsitio bumali—”the dead of winter”; they rode wearying miles obscured by fog and snow; high prices paid for bread; camels…
The liturgical and theological coherence of ‘Old High’ Easter Eve According to the Church of England’s Common Worship: Times and Seasons provision for Easter, the term “the Easter Liturgy” does not describe the main Eucharist in a parish on Easter Day.[1] No, it is the title given to the Easter Vigil. It is the Vigil…
Sometime in the early 1980s, just about the time Bob Dylan was recording Infidels, a little girl in Shreveport got a plush toy as a gift from her dad. It was vaguely Easter themed—a plump oval, the bottom half a colorful sateen eggshell, the top half a fat, fuzzy chick. It was adorable, just the…
I came across this somewhat humorous description of Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575) when engaged in some random reading about the Swiss Reformation. The reference is apt because if you look at portraits of Bullinger painted from the 1540s onwards he sports the grandest of all the beards of the Reformation, singularly long and full, spreading out…
When some big loudmouth makes a crack, some I hate Christians rant-attack, I want to beat him to a pulp. Which isn’t Christian. So, I gulp it down and don’t—but dream I did. It’s like when Peter sliced that ear off Malchus as the end drew near and Jesus said, No more of this! Our…
Repeating the same theological debates that have already been hashed out many times in the past—only more intelligently and more eloquently—is bad enough on its own. On top of this, however, we frequently devote ourselves to overly speculative matters that touch little or not at all on everyday faith and practice. One such matter is…
Article IX. Of Original, Or Birth-Sin. ORIGINAL Sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is…
Confessing Anglicans are divided on the question whether women’s ordination is in accord with the teaching of Scripture and consistent with the doctrinal heritage of the Church. On the one hand, there is great exegetical disagreement regarding the status of women in pastoral ministry in the New Testament itself. That, certainly, is the really decisive…