Today is the Feast of Christ the King. The script that calls out the liturgical year on this site simply refers to this as the Sunday before Advent, and that's what it was for centuries. The idea of this feast--at the end of the liturgical year--comes from the "new theology", one that generally gets a …
The Evangelical Comeuppance in the Middle East
I've not had the time lately to post in as timely fashion as I would like, mostly because of the semester-by-semester crapshoot which is my PhD pursuit. But there's a long-term issue that deserves some comment, and that concerns a long-overdue attitude adjustment that Evangelicals need to make because of events in the Middle East. …
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The Relationship Between Faith and Works
From St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theolgiae, Suppl., 89, 7: The judgment as regards the sentencing to punishment for sin concerns all the wicked, whereas the judgment as regards the discussion of merits concerns only believers. Because in unbelievers the foundation of faith is lacking, without which all subsequent works are deprived of the perfection of …
Victoria Osteen's Moment, or "What Are We Doing Here Anyway?"
It's another week along the Southwest Freeway in Houston as Victoria Osteen has embroiled herself in a controversy over remarks about why we worship God. The usual people say the usual things, and the usual fracas ensues, just as it has over much of what her husband Joel says. I think we'd be better off, …
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The Perils of This Life
From Augustine, City of God, XII, 22: That the whole human race has been condemned in its first origin, this life itself, if life it is to be called, bears witness by the host of cruel ills with which it is filled. Is not this proved by the profound and dreadful ignorance which produces all …
The Complicated Business of the "Tradition"
@DaleMCoulter muses on his students: The task was not to defend the tributary of Christianity in which my students had first touched the waters of baptism, but to show them that it was fed by a vast river stretching back two millennia. In short, I defended Christianity by helping them swim upstream so that they could …
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The Sign of Peace and Those "Happy-Clappy" Masses
Amidst the sorrow and tragedy that dominates the news these days, the Vatican weighs in on a matter that may seem trivial to some: The Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship (CDW) has urged the church’s bishops to crack down on boisterous exchanges of peace during the Eucharist service. In a letter dated 8 June 2014 …
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@holysmoke: The "un-English and un-Manly" Hit the Wall
Translated, Church of England Anglo-Catholics: From the moment the General Synod voted for women priests in 1992, it was inevitable that it would also vote for women bishops...Conservative Anglo-Catholics now face a simple choice: stay in an established Church that has reaffirmed its liberal Protestantism by this vote, or seek full communion with Rome, either …
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So Who Are My Mother and My Brothers? Part II
The oldest Pentecostal educational institution that I am aware of is the Holmes Bible College in Greenville, SC. For many years Dr. Paul F. Beacham was its President, impacting the lives of many of his students. In his 1950 book Questions and Answers on the Scriptures and Related Subjects (published by the Pentecostal Holiness Church publishing house), …
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David Moyer Does the Right Thing
By throwing the towel in as a priest: During “The Watch” on Maundy Thursday, I did what I said I would do – in giving to our Lady (as Father Jay Hughes did) my priesthood. Whether I can resume it is up to God in Christ who called me to it many years ago. But …
Positive Infinity 