A Living Text

Category: Anglican

  • “Celtic” Christianity

    In a commentary piece for the TLS on the Venerable Bede, Archbishop Rowan Williams says: A great deal of nonsense has been written about “Celtic Christianity”, as if this were an intelligent designation for some self-contained variant of Catholic orthodoxy in the early Middle Ages, a variant more attuned to the sacredness of nature and…

  • Modern Anglican Theologians

    If Anglicanism is to have a lasting and ongoing impact globally, it surely must move beyond a grateful embrace of the past and engage the Scriptures and the modern world in innovative ways. We rightly venerate Hooker, Donne, Herbert, Cranmer, Jewel and many others, but we need new theologians who do more than simply unpack…

  • Playing an Away Game

    Ties to the African Anglican churches have by and large been positive for American Anglicans. Their orthodoxy, fervency for Jesus, and love of Scripture have been a glass of water in a thirsty land of apostasy. With that in mind, it seems to me that we are aligning ourselves with political situations we have little…

  • “A Scandal in the Body of Christ”

    The Anglican TV interview with Archbishop Duncan that was released over the weekend was very revealing. Some of the salient points that jumped out at me are summarized below: [1] Duncan recalled the 2010 separation of AMiA and ACNA and noted that AMiA claimed back then this separation was necessary because “the bishops of Rwanda…

  • Predestination, Policy and Polemic

    I have just finished reading Peter White’s book, Predestination, Policy and Polemic, Conflict and consensus in the English Church from the Reformation to the Civil War. It is a masterful summary of the topic throughout a varied landscape of Church politics, belief systems, and changing theologies. …the model of a theological dichotomy between ‘Calvinism’ and…

  • The Anglican Autumn

    2011 saw the collapse of governments across the Middle East in a broad move later dubbed the Arab Spring. A major catalyst for this implosion was the strength of people connecting on the internet through Twitter, Facebook and blogs. The medium of the internet exposed these governments to scrutiny that had not previously existed. Leaders…

  • The Origins of Women’s Ordination in the Episcopal Church

    The Origins of Women’s Ordination in the Episcopal Church

    So how did it all begin? Without going into great detail, we can look at the seventies and the illegal ordinations that happened at that time. The heretic James Pike had previously ordained a woman to the diaconate, but the ball really got rolling in 1974. In the book “Anglican Communion in Crisis”, Miranda Hassett…

  • Splitting up: Anglican angst

    From the Christian Century: by Jason Byassee in the May 20, 2008 issue Last year the Church of the Resurrection in suburban West Chicago closed its doors and put its building up for sale. The Episcopal congregation had suffered membership losses 14 years earlier when some conservative members left to start their own church, also called the Church of…