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 sparrow that can fly against such windDeserves a spot in memory’s museum. Likewise the sunbeams on the bedroom blind,Slanted just so, a light preserved from autumn,Intruding its chill upon mid-June.As school lets out for good, I hear the cheeringOver rooftops of the kids at noonSet loose through double doors and spinningLike struck marbles, and…
One of the potential (but now rarely realized) delights of the Anglican lectionary is the number of saints and other holy days during the year, and the opportunities it presents for the choir or even the congregation to sing the faith. If you’re an English cathedral musician running a tourist service — or a medieval…
I. Introduction and Meditation Why do we pray? What do we expect to communicate to God? How should we shape our heart toward God? The first place we look for instruction in prayer is the Holy Scriptures, as our words to God should reflect His words to us. The second place we look should be…
God’s hov’ring Breath above the deepDrew from the new-created crustThe brush, the fruit which men would reap,And heads of wheat whose upward thrustsSprout grain for baking into loaves. Then like a mighty, rushing gustThe Spirit filled Christ’s Brother-BandWhose language left the men of dustTo marvel as God’s second HandStretched o’er the field that Peter sowed,…
Today, after taking an excursus into the ideals of Anglican parochial and higher education, I want to return in the months ahead to laying out a comprehensive vision of Anglican spirituality. In Tract 4, I defined and discussed Christian spirituality in general, and now I want to extend that definition in a more specifically Anglican…
The Anglican Church in North America has always embraced planting missions across the continent. Archbishop Robert Duncan began his tenure pressing the Anglican 1000 initiative, with the goal of planting 1,000 parishes within ten years. Archbishop Foley Beach took up the mantle with his Always Forward initiative and now Presiding Bishop Ray Sutton (Reformed Episcopal…
I am not a poet. As most of my peers in undergrad— in possession of richer emotional timbres or more complex childhoods— filed into the creative track of my Christian alma mater’s English major, I plodded along in the ‘literature’ or critical track. I dutifully read old poetry. The Anglican tradition in poetry was a…
The study of the senses and the English Reformation is one of the most creative historiographical interjections on the Reformation in England in recent years. Matthew Milner’s work is the first substantive treatment of the senses (sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste) in the English Reformation, which is surprising, as the historiography of the senses…
Sanguine clot on an altar of white,singular or sparse clustered, drippedas from a painter’s brush, smudgedblood print against a vernal shroud, tripartite leafed, yellow exclamations hold its center.Wakerobin, birth-ease, red eye amidstthe common trillium, by what mythis your incongruity clarified or entered but by a woman conjured to a fleeing doe,a hunter’s arrow in her…