Featured
1
“Anglican History” a New Article for Logos.com
I was recently honored with the opportunity to write an introductory article on Anglicanism for the Logos.com “Word by Word” blog. Here’s the introduction: Anglicanism is a religious identity claimed…
2
Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles – Introduction
The Reformation was not the work, either of a year, or of a generation. Its foundation was laid both in the good and in the evil qualities of our nature.…
3
Tract I: What Is Anglicanism?
Tracts for the Times 2.0 I’m often asked the question, “What is Anglicanism?” To which I respond: “Do you want the two-word answer, the long one-sentence answer, or my book…
0
The Protest of Anglicanism
It is common to hear Anglicanism described as “Reformed Catholic,” and I appreciate this term. I think it helps outsiders and insiders to understand the two major emphases of the denomination. That being said, I still want Anglicans to hold on to the name “Protestant.” I largely have John Jewell to thank for this, an…
0
Book Review: “Images of Pilgrimage”
Images of Pilgrimage: Paradise and Wilderness in Christian Spirituality. By R. D. Crouse. London, UK: Darton, Longman, and Todd Ltd. 96 pp. $24.99 CAD (paper). Christian thinkers past and present have often considered our relationship with place—the lands and cities that we dwell or sojourn in. Often, these considerations reflect larger theological questions: Are our…
0
Egalitarian Christianity is Incoherent
Conclusion of The Debate This is the final (planned) essay in my series on William G. Witt’s book promoting the ordination of women, Icons of Christ. In the first essay, I showed how those wishing to maintain a “male only” priesthood could read the book of Genesis, not necessarily as a book requiring the exclusion…
7
We Cannot Live Without Sunday: When Can the Church Tell the State, No?
What follows are some thoughts about the extent and limits of the church’s obligation to obey the civil authorities. This is particularly relevant to the recent closing of hundreds of churches in Rwanda by the Kagame regime.[1] Nevertheless, I would not begin to presume to offer any admonition or advice to Rwandan believers in general…
2
This Thy Table: The Anglican Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper
One of the hottest debated questions among Anglicans is the doctrine of the Eucharist, or, as the Articles of Religion refer to it, the Lord’s Supper. When I began investigating the Anglican tradition, what I discovered sent me down a path of reformation and renewal. Rather than looking to the Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman…
2
The Oxford Martyrs: A Call to Faithfulness
Four hundred sixty-nine years ago, Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were bound to a wooden pyre. Their bodies were restrained and immovable. The pyre was lit and the men burned up and burned away into martyrdom and into history with Bishop Latimer immortally encouraging his companion, “Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for…
2
The Meaning of “Reformed Catholic”: A Response to Gerald McDermott
In his review of Bishop A. P. Forbes’s An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles—a new edition of which was recently published by Nashotah House Press—Gerald McDermott compares Forbes’s work to that of Edward Harold Browne and finds the former “deeper and richer,” with Browne being “decidedly Protestant in his approach, while Forbes is reformed catholic.”…
2
Book Review: “An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles”
An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles. By Alexander Penrose Forbes, with a new Foreword by C. P. Collister. Nashotah, WI: Nashotah House Press, 2024. 874 pp. $32.11 (paper). When Anglican seminarians ask me how to study theology, I tell them to pick one of the great theologians and burrow into his corpus. But make sure…
1
Approaching the East: For the Life of the Church
Introduction When I say “Romania” what comes to your mind? Chances are your immediate reaction would be a vision of Count Dracula terrorizing unsuspecting peasants, or a cheap vacation on the Black Sea. What should come immediately to mind, in my own opinion, is Romania’s deep and ancient Christian roots as an Orthodox country. I…
0
The Differences between Roman and Anglican Private Confession [Commentary on Browne: Article XXV (2)]
As seen previously, Browne readily grants that “four out of the five [minor sacraments] the Church of England admits, at least in a modified form.” However, it is important to note the qualification that they are admitted in a “modified form,” particularly with regard to private confession. Browne writes that “the Council of Trent anathematizes…