Holy Week was magnificent. You, the Rector of an Anglican church, know it. The choir was heavenly. The altar guild outdid themselves again. Not a revisionist in sight. Your sermon even ended with more than half of the congregation awake! Your golf game on Easter Monday with the Senior Warden only crowned the whole experience. …
The Epistle Dedicatory to the Authorised (King James) Bible
Today many of the millions of Authorised (King James) Bibles printed and distributed lack the preface of the translators to the most important translation of God's Word in the English language. We present it here for the following reasons: It shows clearly that the Authorised Version is a product of the Church of England, which …
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Fixing the Unfixable
The many disparaging remarks by Anglicans/Episcopalians on both sides about Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' "sabbatical" are largely unjustified. Williams has made his share of mistakes, but the chasm between the orthodox and revisionists in the Anglican Communion is probably unbridgeable. It is reminiscent of a remark made about the Revolutions of 1848 that equally …
Overcoming Obstacles: A Reminder For Us All
Back in 2000 there was a funeral for Nadezhda Shatova, a Ukrainian Pentecostal living in California. As noted below, on the surface there wasn't anything extraordinary about it. But one of her relatives shared the testimony about their lives--and the persecutions they suffered in the old Soviet Union--and this account was put into the piece …
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Internationalism is a Two-Way Street
TEC House of Bishops' recent rejection of the Anglican Primates' request for a "primitial vicar" to help those parishes which could not stomach the church's left-wing agenda is an illustration of how it's easier to tell others to be internationalists than to be one yourself. Liberals--and not just Episcopal ones either--have been telling the rest …
Sell All or Shut Up
“And a man came up to Jesus, and said: “Teacher, what good thing must I do to obtain Immortal life?” “Why ask me about goodness?” answered Jesus. “There is but One who is good. If you want to enter the Life, keep the commandments.” “What commandments?” asked the man. “These,” answered Jesus:--“‘Thou shalt not kill. …
When “Doing Right” Isn’t: A Follow Up
In the course of the back and forth over the "failure" (technically at least, but there's dispute over that) of Mark Lawrence to obtain the necessary consents for his election as Bishop of South Carolina, I brought up SC's last legal miscalculation: attempting to block All Saints Pawley's Island's departure, which I originally commented on …
The Best Argument for Disestablishment
Ruth Gledhill's piece about former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey calling for the disestablishment of the Church of England is an intriguing one, if a little disorienting for Americans. (Not this one, as you can see for yourself!) The best practical argument for disestablishment, however, is that it would give more freedom to the church …
Amazing Grace and the Army of Joshua
The film Amazing Grace--or at least the life of William Wilberforce--highlights something that most people have forgotten: many of the "social justice movements" had their roots in the evangelical Christianity that emerged towards the end of the "Age of Reason," and specifically Wesleyan Methodism. (The French proved that the "reasonable" didn't need any help from …
The Preferential Option of the Poor
One of the most militant expressions of left-wing Christianity was and is Liberation Theology, that creation of Latin American Roman Catholicism that brought Marx into the Church for so many years. One of the enduring slogans of that movement was "the preferential option for the poor," which means that the Church acts in such a …
Positive Infinity 