I've always been a strong advocate of patristic studies. That's not an easy advocacy in Evangelical Christianity, but it's one that needs to be made. It's not always easy in Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy either, because the Fathers of the Church--or more precisely those who wrote and, as we learn here, preached, during the Roman …
Are People Who Don't Like the Manhattan Declaration Necessarily Bigots?
At the end of an otherwise interesting post, James Gibson at Sanctus makes the following parting shot: The visceral reaction against the Manhattan Declaration is a case study in the evangelical ghetto mentality. Born in ignorance, it grows into bigotry and a most un-Christlike lack of charity. If he was fishing for understanding, he needs …
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Augustine on the Temptations of Jesus and the Three Major Lusts
Linking the three temptations of Jesus in the wilderness with the three major lusts outlined in 1 John 2 has a long history in Christian preaching. Here is an example from Augustine's second homily on 1 John, with some bullet points for clarity: These three (temptations) there are, and you can find nothing whereby human …
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The Greatest Ambition: Jerome on Psalm 84
Another gem from Jerome's Homilies on the Psalms, this time Psalm 84 (from here): “How lovely are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!” The sole ambition of some people is to possess property; others long to be enriched with the wealth of the world; still others wish to hold prominent places at conventions and be …
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The Tree of Life, Psalm 1 and Jerome
The Tree of Life has been a topic of special interest to me since I made the connection with the lignum vitae (The Tree That Grows in Heaven.) Here is Jerome's linkage of Psalm 1 with the other allusions to the tree, from his Homilies on the Psalms (from here): “He is like a tree …
Latin America, the Fertile Field, but for Whom? and Richard Dawkins Defends Christianity
It's been difficult to "do Holy Week" on this blog because of events, and Ruth Gledhill's blog entry only makes it harder. First, we have this, a part of the running fiasco of the Roman Catholic paedophile scandal: Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee has published a post with horrific details of a case surfacing in Brazil. …
Blast From the Past for Maundy Thursday: Reflections on an Orthodox View of the Eucharist
For this Maundy Thursday, I'm going back to the obvious topic (obvious to me, at least): the institution of the Eucharist, which I went on at length about in 2008 with this series. You can access it as follows: Part I Part II Part III Part IV Those of you who are advocates of the …
The Importance of Causality
In his book Introduction to the Differential Equations of Physics, German physicist Ludwig Hopf opens with the following statement: Any differential equation expresses a relation between derivatives or between derivatives and given functions of the variables. It thus establishes a relation between the increments of certain quantities and these quantities themselves. This property of a …
Women in Ministry and Authority in Churches: A Response to the Ugley Vicar
It seems that the prospect of women in ministry--and especially women as diocesan bishops--is always linked to a discussion of the nature of authority in churches. That was certainly the case in my own 2007 piece on the subject, Authority and Evangelical Churches, and now the CoE's "Ugley Vicar" takes on the issue in his …
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Choose Life
Since this is the day we're supposed to think about these things, I'm going to feature an album from The Ancient Star-Song that's a favourite of mine: Choose Life, from the School Sisters of Notre Dame (in Mankato, MN.) Since the album dates from 1976, I would think that, when they recorded the title track …
Positive Infinity 