Our sustained strategy for enabling the English to worship themselves - the Royal Supremacy over the Church, Parliamentary Democracy and, finally, the General Synod, is bearing great fruit. Since our triumphant suppression of the Book of Common Prayer, our English Anglican clients have long been accustomed to cherishing their infernal dreams rather than worrying about deceitful lusts, appetites, devices and desires.
Read moreFrom our Great Generation legacy, my family received a strong work ethic and biblical morality that laid the foundation for our success in the world. The unfortunate side-effect of this legacy is that it also created the burden of a performance-based sense of self-worth and a susceptibility to a works-oriented (instead of grace-oriented) soteriology. American Christians too easily accept the idea that we were saved only to serve and succeed.
Read moreThe wars in Ukraine and now Gaza call to mind the events of nearly 50 years ago. We supposedly are no longer engaged in the "forever wars" of the Middle East, yet if you look at the map, American men and material are involved in the area that can be described as the "Middle East": east of Greenwich and midway between the equator and the North Pole.
Read moreIn 1984 I was attending Fuller Theological Seminary, working toward graduate degrees in both the School of Psychology and the School of Theology... and I was wrestling (both personally and academically) with this issue of self-esteem. What I discovered in both my study of theology and clinical research in the behavioral sciences was a mixed bag of expert opinions, with a lot of hints but no unequivocal answers to my questions.
Read moreAppeals that God loves a cheerful giver, that we should give--not until it feels good--but until it hurts, that even Jesus paid deference to the Temple's receipts from the widow (Mark 12: 41-44; Luke 21: 1-4) have fallen on deaf ears. If, as Lenin said, capitalists will sell the rope with which the communists will hang them, I refuse to pay into church coffers merely to prolong their slide into the Sheol of oblivion.
Read moreThat final echo of doubt hints to a broader drift. Until the middle of the last century, there were several foundations like Filsell's across New York, choir schools where boys were sculpted into singers. The Saint Thomas Choir School is the sole survivor, making it the last church-affiliated choir boarding school in North America.
Read moreNot by politics
Read moreThese prognoses followed a warning to Swedes from two top defence officials that they needed to prepare for war[ii]. Other parliamentary speakers from the Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have more recently delivered strong warnings about the preparedness of the west in the event of an expanding conflict in Europe. The United States is making serious preparations as it moves nuclear warheads back onto British soil after an absence of fifteen years[iii].
Read moreThat is until 1974 when the Philadelphia Eleven burst upon the scene and sent the first fission through the Episcopal Church and eventually the entire Anglican Communion.
THE INFAMOUS PHILADELPHIA ELEVEN
Read moreThe audience consisted of women priests who were offended. They protested and the conference organizers decided to unseat Fr. Robinson from the summary panel. The Rev'd Jeffrey S. Miller posted this explanation: For the concluding panel discussion of the 2024 Mere Anglicanism Conference, Father Calvin Robinson was pulled from participating not because of his views on women's ordination, but because he failed to address in his plenary presentation the topic that was assigned to him.
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