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  • The Baptism of John and the Baptism of Jesus Christ

    In the Communion Gospel this Sunday from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, we have this in part:

    And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet? John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.

    (John 1:25-27 KJV)

    Bossuet explains this in his The Preaching of Saint John the Baptist. 5, The baptism of John and that of Jesus Christ, from the Elevations on the Mysteries:

    When Saint John opposes the water of his baptism to the fire of that of Jesus Christ, and when Jesus Christ himself explained that this baptism of fire and of the Holy Spirit is the one with which the disciples were flooded on the day of Pentecost, we understand that we must not believe that the baptism of Jesus Christ is not like that of John’s baptism, but it is that John’s contained only simple water, instead of the water that Jesus gave was full of the Holy Spirit and a celestial fire, that is to say of the same fire of the Holy Spirit whose flood poured out on the whole Church in the upper room. It is this fire which still animates the water of baptism today, and which makes the Saviour say: That we have no part in his kingdom unless we are reborn from the water and the Holy Spirit, that is to say, in the mystical language, if one is not reborn from water and fire.

    Here then is the consolation. The water of the baptism of Jesus Christ is not empty and sterile water; the Holy Spirit animates it and makes it fruitful; by washing the body it inflames the heart; if you do not come out of the baptism full of the heavenly fire of the love of God, it is not the baptism of Jesus Christ that you have received. Christian penance, which is nothing more than a second baptism, must be animated with the same fire: He to whom more is given must also, says the Saviour, love more. When you have only the tears that terror causes to shed, it is still only the water and the baptism of John. When you begin to love God as the author and source of all righteousness, Jesus begins to baptize you internally with his fire, and his sacrament will complete the work.

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  • Georg Cantor and infinity

    On 03 March 1845, the German mathematician Georg Cantor was born in St. Petersburg. In 1862, he entered the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, eventually becoming a member of the mathematics department. At the death of his father, he left Zurich for Berlin where, in addition to his mathematical interests, he began to study philosophy […]

    Georg Cantor and infinity

    Georg Cantor is a special interest of mine, not only from a mathematical standpoint but because his discoveries in transfinite mathematics can be used to solve the problem of subordination in God. That was the basis (on a crude level, admittedly) for my 1998 work My Lord and My God: A Layman Looks at the Deity of Christ and the Nature of the Godhead. I refined it in my more recent piece The Challenge from Aquinas That Changed Mathematics. The latter shows the clear connection between theology and mathematics, that the former inspired Cantor to change the latter.

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  • A Lesson for Anglicans: The Rt. Rev. Brian Barnett

    It seems I’m linking to quite a few obits these days. But those who have passed on have lessons for us who are left behind, and this is another one of those lessons. I knew Brian for many years, especially when he was Administrative Pastor of the North Cleveland Church of God and I was on the Finance Committee.

    As his obituary states, Brian Barnett was born in London, England. His religious background wasn’t much, but he met his future wife Jean and she took him to a meeting where he got saved. Shortly thereafter he enlisted in the Royal Air Force (his brother had fought in the Battle of Britain) and he was sent to Egypt.

    Newly saved, he was brimming with enthusiasm to do God’s work. So he reported to his Church of England chaplain ready to do ministry in any way he would. The chaplain’s response: “You’ll get over it.” Barnett, being a military man, knew that a dud was an explosive that didn’t, and that this one was definitely a dud. So when he returned to Old Blighty, he married Jean and joined the Elim Pentecostal Church, where he was a successful pastor and encountered “Jesus Music” artist Len McGee.

    The British Isles, however, are fabled places which filled two continents with the people who wanted to had to leave. When Brian decided to join that happy throng, he took his family (he lost one daughter to the NHS, an institution the Barnetts didn’t have much nice to say about) to the United States. He went on to be a successful pastor and State Overseer/Administrative Bishop (hence the need to refer to him as the “Right Reverend.”) He finally came to Cleveland where I get to know him.

    His story about the encounter with the Anglican chaplain has stuck with me because it rings true. In both its British and North American forms at least, Anglicanism has always discouraged excess enthusiasm in its adherents. I know I experienced this growing up as an Episcopalian. Whether this is due to the shattering experience of the English Civil War (which the Scots, true to form, helped to start) or the elevated demographics of the Episcopal Church, the message was clear–our execution of the liturgy was expected to be top drawer, but otherwise no one was expected to get too worked up about being a Christian.

    That puts a ceiling on the level of our relationship with God that the New Testament doesn’t justify. The change of being reborn as a new creation in Jesus Christ (2 Cor 5:17) denotes a revolutionary change in a person’s life, and a church which thinks this is in bad taste will deprive its adherents of that experience and of the high level of participation that goes with it. Those who put the true rebirth and the life that comes with that first will find other places to live out the life that God has given them in Jesus Christ. Brian Barnett did this and so did I.

    My deep condolences to his family, his daughter Shirley and her husband Terry (our long-suffering sound man for many years) and their children Hilary (now Dr. Hilary Pace Reid) and son Robert and their grandchildren as they mourn his loss and celebrate his legacy.

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  • Daniel Vassell: The Man Who Took the Celebration to the People Now Celebrates in Glory

    Daniel Vassell, dean of Mobilize in the Church of God Division of Education, has gone to glory:

    Dr. Daniel J. Vassell Sr., 64, was many things — a husband, father, grandfather and reverend — but one thing was certain: he was a visible representation of joy. You could always feel his presence in the way he lit up a room and welcomed all who graced him because his laughter would radiate contagiously throughout any space. Whether he knew you for 20 years or had just met you, you were immediately his friend.

    That was manifest in my post Take the Celebration to the People, which I wrote right at the time I left the International Offices of the Church of God, and I’ll reproduce most of that as my tribute to him:

    One Christmastime I met him in the lobby, and I think I mentioned something to him about my Anglican activities.  For someone whose roots are Jamaican like Daniel, Anglicanism is a familiar thing.  You even see Anglican traits reflected in the way Pentecostal West Indian churches worship and operate.  I remember one church I preached at in New Jersey where the Grenandan pastor changed the colour of the pulpit stoles.

    Daniel was emphatic at the mention.  “You mark it down,” he said, not wanting me to forget what he was about to say.  Anglican and other liturgical churches were, in some ways, better at taking the “celebration” outside of the four walls of the church.  Pentecostal churches gathered on Sunday, exuberantly worshipping, and, in too many cases, that was it.  Because of the constraints of the liturgy, other churches had to celebrate elsewhere–and if there’s one thing that West Indian churches like to do, it’s celebrate.  But it’s better when the church took the celebration to the community around it and not just kept it to itself.

    In many ways, that encapsulates what is, IMHO, wrong with most of North American Evangelical Christianity these days.  To start with, our churches–especially our Anglo ones–are far and away too performance oriented.  That’s odd, considering we preach that Jesus Christ’s work on the cross is what gets us to heaven, not our own works.  But we’ve come to equate fulfilling the mission of Jesus with what amounts to a business model of performance.

    Beyond that, our obsession with worship has led us to focus our attention and resources on our Sunday service and how it’s done and housed.  That in turn has led both to wrapping our Christian life around our worship and to the expensive edifices that we’ve built to house that worship, edifices that have sapped the financial resources God has given us from directly ministry related activities, to say nothing of the celebration we’re supposed to be having.

    But our life in Christ is to be celebrated, and that celebration needs to come out of the confines of the walls of our churches and into the world around us.  How that takes place depends upon the culture we’re ministering into and the legal status we have, but in a world racked by economic uncertainty the sight and experience of people who still have something to celebrate and do it is a powerful message.

    So, as I prepare to venture out from the confines of the International Offices (my work has been part time, so the venturing in has been likewise) my message is this: it’s time to take the celebration of the life that Jesus Christ has given us out of the confines of our churches and into the community around us.   It’s time to take the celebration to the people.

    Rest in peace Daniel, we’ll do our best to take the celebration to the people.

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  • Duane Alexander Miller Attempts a Reality Check for Anglican Missions

    In this video:

    I would strongly suggest that Anglican provinces visit the Church of God World Missions website. It shows how a centrally, episcopally governed church manages its missions, both in places where Christianity is welcome and in those places where it is not. Unlike the poker playing dog, we don’t tell everything we know. World Missions plays all kinds of shell games with its missionaries (and their oversight) to insure their safety (and we do have a pastor or missionary killed from time to time, even in places like Guatemala where the church is well established.)

    Pentecostal churches have never made being invited into a country a prerequisite for doing missions there, and Anglican ones shouldn’t either. World Missions isn’t perfect but it’s an improvement over what many Anglican provinces do.

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  • Fifty Years Ago, Swimming the Tiber Was Good. Now…

    It’s that time of the decade again. As I noted ten years ago, fifty years ago today (on the Feast of Christ the King no less):

    On a very nice South Florida November afternoon, I took my baby blue Pinto on the very short drive to St. Thomas More Parish and, with just me and Fr. Connolly there, I took the profession of faith as a Roman Catholic.  These days, both churches like to do stuff like this in big public ceremonies but, as was the case with my baptism seven years before, it was in private.

    It was the beginning of the spiritual adventure of a lifetime, starting with the intellectual part and going to the Newman Association, the Charismatic Renewal, and ultimately hitting the wall because of that renewal. It’s a move I have no regrets about making, even a half century.

    But to do it now…things don’t look so hot, thanks in no small measure to the current Occupant of St. Peter’s see and the many who are like minded with him. My years as a Roman Catholic made me aware of the possibility of him and he hasn’t disappointed. It’s sad that the Church has missed the opportunity of real renewal, but it has, in the West at least and evidently in Latin America too. Most of the problem comes from the perceived need to preserve the institution at the expense of the spiritual well-being of the flock. That manifests itself in a number of ways. One of them is the uninspiring parish system, which is better designed to dispense sacraments than to create community. Another is the fear of being crushed by the culture, which is no different than the reverends pères Jesuites of old (and they are in the driver’s seat right at the moment.)

    It’s sad that, in an age where many are looking for reliable, consistent authority, the Roman Catholic Church is so out to lunch, but here we are, and we need to make the best of it.

  • Running out of HARM

    For the Russians, that is, as the US depletes its stocks of its own critical weapons to support Ukraine:

    Some sources also raised concerns about US production of additional weapons systems, including HARMs anti-radiation missiles, GMLRS surface-to-surface missiles and the portable Javelin anti-tank missiles – although the US has moved to ramp up production for those and other systems.

    The article has a lot of bluff from our government, but…

    One reason for the concern about low stockpiles is that the US industrial base is having difficulty keeping up with demand quickly enough, the sources said. In addition, European allies cannot sufficiently backfill Ukrainian military requests due to their need to maintain to their own forces’ supplies.

    Because I was involved in the development of the HARM (High Speed Anti-Radiation, AGM-88 and its progeny) missile, I’ve used that as a sort of “interest benchmark” for the application of American weapons systems in this war. But the basic problem is that we’ve let our industrial base run down to the point where we cannot produce the weapons necessary to sustain either a long war like this one or a two-front one (think Taiwan.) The great moral cause that our elites have made out of the Ukraine are belied by our inability to back it up with the industrial might–at all levels, I might add–to sustain it, and for us to be the “Arsenal of Democracy” that we were in the two World Wars.

    Ever since the 1960’s the “hippie dreamers” and their progeny have have had an instinctive aversion for a manufacturing-based economy, primarily because a) it was seen as a running environmental disaster and b) it produced the suburbs with all of the “phonies” that lived there (and those too were seen as an environmental disaster with their urban sprawl.) Now that we don’t live in a unipolar world any more, those sensibilities have come to haunt us–and the Ukrainians fighting the Russians.

  • Anti-racism attacks my American Dream

    What was I — a lifelong Democrat — doing at an election watch party in rural Virginia, surrounded by Republicans? As Ron DeSantis, 800 miles away, …

    Anti-racism attacks my American Dream

  • John Milton’s free speech crusade

    For John Milton, death was not the end of his troubles. He spent his final years blind and disgraced, in continual fear of execution by the state. As…

    John Milton’s free speech crusade

  • J. Robert Ashcroft: Assemblies of God Pastor, Evangelist, Educator, College President — Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center

    This Week in AG History — November 2, 1958 By Ruthie Edgerly ObergOriginally published on AG News, 03 November 2022 James Robert Ashcroft (1911-1995) served God, family, church, and community with unwavering integrity in every opportunity he was given. Known as a man of prayer, the Scriptures, and the Spirit, he served the Assemblies of […]

    J. Robert Ashcroft: Assemblies of God Pastor, Evangelist, Educator, College President — Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
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