Several took up the challenge and, in the context of this debate, Jewel wrote "The Apologie of the Church of England." In this short essay he explained in a concise and beautiful way why schism is, at the same time, regrettable and sometimes necessary - the only proper response towards an institutional church that refuses to reform itself according the authority of Holy Scripture.
Read more"I have been talking about the un-free will for thirty years and have never had a single person agree with me on my first attempt. People instinctively rise up against the idea. I repeat, I have not experienced a single instance, in thirty years, of anyone immediately agreeing with me that the human will is not free. (In fact, the only people who display any receptivity at all to the idea are alcoholics and criminals.
Read moreHis treasured volume entitled Christian Leaders of the Last (Eighteenth) Century, first published in 1868, was fairly recently made available by Charles Nolan Publishers, Moscow, Idaho, 2002, and a brief account of a smaller number of these able servants of God has been published by The Banner of Truth Trust as Five Christian Leaders (see their online catalogue).
Read moreDr. Bradly Nassif, a widely-published scholar and professor in North Park's Christian Studies Department for 17 years, was one of four tenured faculty fired when the university closed the department in May 2021, without consulting with the faculty senate as required by its own governing documents, reports the Bull Elephant.
Read moreProtestantism signified greater religious and political freedom which appealed to many French intellectuals and the professional classes, but the world was still Roman Catholic, France was still more than 90% Catholic, and the Catholic Church was determined to maintain its control. Leading up to St. Bartholomew's Day (beginning the evening of August 23, 1572), clashes between Protestants and Catholics worsened.
Read moreIn church history, as with everywhere else in viewing the past, it is the pre-eminent persons who attract the spotlight, and that, of course, is perfectly proper to a large degree. It is the grand movements in history that are chiefly "grandstanded" before an interested public. But there are less obvious figures, no less called and gifted by God, whose roles in the cause of Christ warrant our attention and appreciation.
Read moreFor anyone who studies church history, there can be no doubt that there has been an organic development of doctrine which has grown out of a centuries long reflection upon the nature and meaning of New Testament Christianity. Partially, this has grown out of the age-old question of individual judgment versus corporate judgment. This is not a new question. In church history, we are literally "crowded about with a great multitude of witnesses".
Read moreThe heart of Tudor Protestantism was not right doctrine but right desire. Undoubtedly, Cranmer and his fellow English Reformers thought the two were closely connected. Truth about God would draw humanity homeward. Right desire could only be formed by right knowledge of both God and fallen human nature. Nevertheless, saving truth by itself was insufficient to move a self-centered humanity to return to the Creator through repentance and amendment of life.
Read moreFor example, at the start of his work The Book of Pastoral Rule, Pope Gregory the Great explains that the work was written in response to a letter from John, Bishop of Ravenna, in which John reproved Gregory 'for having wished by hiding myself to fly from the burdens of pastoral care.'[2] Gregory's response to this reproof was to write to John explaining why he viewed the burdens of pastoral care involved in being a bishop as being so heavy that he had sought to avoid them:
Read moreIn this short paper I shall argue that the claim that the GSFA are illegitimately weaponising the Eucharist in this way is misplaced. The reason I say this is that, as someone who was engaged in Faith and Order work for the Church of England for a decade and a half, I can say with absolute confidence that what GFSA are proposing is in strict accordance with established Anglican ecclesiology and Catholic ecclesiology more widely.
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