Introduction A friend once said to me that “all theological debates go back to Prolegomena.” Namely, what is our justification for what we believe? What is our measure of truth in matters of faith? How can we know what God has revealed? These Questions are vital for those in the Anglican Communion. We have “Anglo-Catholics,”…
Divided We Stand: A History of the Continuing Anglican Movement. By Douglas Bess. Berkeley, CA: Apocryphile Press, 2006. 291 pp. $20.95 (paper). “Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us…” (Luke 1:1, NKJV). Those words have never been applied to the…
In this article, I thought I would take the prerogative of a catechist for a moment. Even good bishops need to be catechized. After all, they are the chief catechists of the Church. For the past several years, I have served the Anglican Church in North America as the chair of the Committee for Catechesis….
“Self-deception is nature; hypocrisy is art.” Mason Cooley The most charitable take I can possibly provide for last week’s statement from the GAFCON Primates is that they are merely self-deceived. Such meetings provide ample reason to be charitable towards one’s friends. I can imagine that no one wanted to call his brother an apostate, much…
Union with Christ: Salvation as Participation. By Jordan Cooper. Just and Sinner Publications, 2021. 246pp. $24.00 (paper). When I first began to listen to podcasts, Anglican-specific shows were hard to find. This dearth of content from within my own tradition led to my first exposure to confessional Lutheranism, primarily through two shows: Issues, Etc. by Lutheran…
Once Emma knew someone who thought it funny that she had no brothers or sisters. Having grown up with many siblings herself, the woman liked to say that Emma must have been awfully spoiled when she was little. Because to be an only child meant to be spoiled. It was inevitable. Somehow she never realized…
“Forgetting pain is convenient, remembering it; agonizing. But uncovering the truth is worth all the suffering.” ~Lewis Carroll Convenient forgetting. Over thirteen years have passed since the Jerusalem Declaration was released in 2008. At the time, I was a 28 year old priest, and the recipient of a young leader invitation to this pivotal conference….
At the beginning of this series, I proposed that the first step toward understanding this “secular” age would be exploring just how we got here. The first major resource I’ve recommended for that task is the book After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre. Which Way: ARISTOTLE OR NIETZSCHE? Alasdair MacIntyre wrote After Virtue to convince his…
To the Primates and Bishops of the Holy Catholic Church in the Global Anglican Future Conference: Every Trinity Sunday, we confess that “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith.” This faith has been passed down to us from our Fathers. It is the faith by which…
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). This book is a useful exploration of ecclesial identity through the lens of the Anglican tradition. As the title makes clear, Erlandson explores both the diversity of Anglicanism and…