Archive for the 'The Church' Category

Covid 19 & The Communion of Saints

Friday, March 20th, 2020

I and the church I belong to are complying with the government’s request that non-essential gatherings discontinue until the end of March, but it has me wondering at what point I should perhaps not continue to comply. I say this because I was a bit alarmed at how readily church gatherings were placed in the […]

Why Millennials Long for Liturgy

Friday, January 17th, 2014

Below is a link to a good article on why some Millennials are leaving mainstream Evangelcial churches and crossing the liturgical threshold into Rome, Constantinople, or Canterbury. In short, they are looking for historical rootedness and tradition, a deep connection between the spiritual and the material, and an intimate connection between truth and beauty. Personally, […]

Salvation in the Body of Jesus

Monday, September 19th, 2011

Salvation is not an individual affair. It is not a direct line from God thrown to the individual soul. Our salvation is located in the body of Jesus, for he worked out our salvation in his body through utter reliance upon the Spirit. And through reliance upon this same Spirit we are incorporated into the […]

Betray Him With A Kiss

Wednesday, September 14th, 2011

The Church in the flesh can love God for her own reasons and in her own ways, but ultimately she will betray him with a kiss.

Intermission

Saturday, April 23rd, 2011

The priest who gave the homily at the Maundy Thursday service brought our attention to the provocative fact that the service will not have a closing benediction, as the service will not not end until Easter, three days later. Instead of receiving the closing benediction, we were dismissed for an intermission that lasted until the […]

Take the Bible Out of Their Hands

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

I just got a hold of The Moral Vision of the New Testament, a text I am considering for a theological ethics class that I have the opportunity to teach next semester. As is often the case in my relationship to a new text, I read through the introduction, scanned the table of contents in […]

Across Party Lines and Worldly Categories

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Every Sunday, in Anglican churches around the world, there comes a time in the liturgy when the deacon leads the congregation to pray for those in positions of authority. Here, in Fresno California, this prayer looks like something like this: Celebrant: We pray for Barak our president, Arnold our governor, Ashley our mayor, and for […]

A (Neon) Light Shines in the Darkness

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

Ya gotta give me a break regarding the quality of this photo as it was done with my cell phone, which is not amenable to taking pictures in low light. It is my plan to go back with a better camera. For now, however, I wanted to post it, as I just plain like it. […]

We Don’t Fit

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

I have voraciously been feeding on Tim Keller’s sermons. Tim is the senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York, and his ability to express the depth of God’s grace, and its ability to form a new community of “peculiar people,” has been for me a potent blessing. Below I give a small excerpt from […]

Emerging Church/Church Tradition

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

Those who know me know that historical rootedness, The Christian Tradition, and liturgy are important to my understanding and practice of the Faith. For this reason, Paula sent me a link to a post about the Emerging Church and the Christian Tradition by the Reverend Dr. Leander Harding who teaches Pastoral Theology and is the […]