Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Thanksgiving Day (in the U.S.) is coming up, and our ministers are gearing up appropriate sermons (I hope they're appropriate, at least) for the occasion. So this is my contribution to raising the homiletical level, and perhaps it will edify you in the bargain. In 1534 Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, which transferred control …
Continue reading "The Two Sides of Thanksgiving: The Strange Story of the Venite (Psalm 95)"
Fellow Palm Beacher George Conger has written a fascinating summary of the 2008 Lambeth Conference in his article The Hollow Men: Lambeth 2008, What Happened And Why. In the course of this, he focused on Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' own consistent philosophy of religion: Dr. Williams is a consistent thinker. Since his enthronement he …
There's been a lot of talk about syncretism on MissionalCOG, but what passes for it in the Church of God is nothing compared to this: Bishop Geralyn Wolf of the Diocese of Rhode Island has inhibited the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding for publicly professing her adherence to the Muslim faith. The notice states that the …
Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori is confident that the crisis in the Episcopal Church is over: The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori told a Columbus Dispatch newspaper reporter that she thinks the worst of the crisis in the denomination is over. She also predicted that openly gay bishops will be elected …
Continue reading "The Fastest Way to Solve Problems is to Boot the Dissenters"
Both Fr. Greg and Abu Daoud have weighed in on this post, itself a follow-up to my reflections on the Orthodox view of the Eucharist. Let me respond to both and, in doing so, make some observations about these two important subjects. To start with the end of Fr. Greg's response: on a practical level, …
Continue reading "Thoughts on Infant Baptism and the Nature of the Church"
My four-part series on this subject got a few comments, which will enable me to expand on some things that obviously weren't clear in the first part. First thing to note: I got no responses from my Pentecostal bretheren on this subject, after the considerable back and forth on this subject here. Sooner or later …
Continue reading "Response to the Comments on “Reflections on an Orthodox View of the Eucharist”"
I wanted to ignore this but couldn't: The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, was today branded a ‘papal puppet’ after he became the first leader of the Church of England to accept visions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes as historical fact. He asserted that 18 visions of Our Lady allegedly experienced by Bernadette …
Continuing from before with John of Damascus' The Orthodox Faith, 4, 13: The bread and the wine are not merely figures of the body and blood of Christ (God forbid!) but the deified body of the Lord itself: for the Lord has said, "This is My body," not, this is a figure of My body: …
Continue reading "Reflections on an Orthodox View of the Eucharist: Part IV"
Continuing in this series, we get to the heart of the matter: The body which is born of the holy Virgin is in truth body united with divinity, not that the body which was received up into the heavens descends, but that the bread itself and the wine are changed into God's body and blood. …
Continue reading "Reflections on an Orthodox View of the Eucharist: Part III"
I pick up from last time in John of Damascus' The Orthodox Faith, 4,13: For it was fitting that not only the first-fruits of our nature should partake in the higher good but every man who wished it, and that a second birth should take place and that the nourishment should be new and suitable …
Continue reading "Reflections on an Orthodox View of the Eucharist: Part II"
Positive Infinity 