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A site that publishes some brief articles and other teaching of Father Thomas Reeves, the Priest/Pastor at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Bloomington, IL (stmattsblm.org)
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
A Guide to Reading the Bible
This is a concise, thoughtful, and extremely helpful article in regards to how a historic and thoughtful Christian should approach Holy Scripture.
https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2015/08/14/top-10-rules-bible-reading/
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
A Drowsy Half-Waking
Two months before his death C.S. Lewis wrote:
"[We are] a seed patiently waiting in the earth: waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener's good time, up into the real world, the real waking. I suppose that our whole present life, looked back on from there, will seem only a drowsy half-waking. We are here in the land of dreams. But cock-crow is coming."
McGrath, pg. 360
Monday, January 11, 2021
Saturday, January 9, 2021
For Our Country: A Prayer
O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the people of this land], that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
-1979 Book of Common Prayer
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Wonderful article regarding a pandemic, death, and the hope of Christmas from a bishop in 1623:
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Friday, November 13, 2020
PASTORAL THEOLOGY
- I believe that popular notions in American Christianity regarding the separation of theology/practice, the past/present, the intellect/emotion, and the personal/communal are artificial, unscriptural, and in contrast with a faithful, historic, and Christian discipleship
- After the love we have for our Triune God, the foundation for a transcendent (thus, lasting) evangelism is the scripturally defined love that Christians are to have in community together. Biblical Community is a gift of the Holy Spirit but must be developed and sought after by God’s people.
- An enduring church worships, loves, and seeks the covenant-making God of the scriptures in both personal and communal ways. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, the faithful church effectively brings a transcendent Gospel to the world around it from a position of humility, authenticity, and depth.
- A parasitic form of Christianity loves people so that it may get something from them. It fosters selfishness, infighting, and power games within communal family life. While an unhealthy view of the church can survive for many years, in time this kind of Christianity will decline and evaporate. Empire building has no place in the Kingdom of God, and this spirit and approach contribute to an anemic and unhealthy church wherever it is found.
- Biblical discipleship lives and proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others. However, discipleship is not just an invitation to public conversion through baptism, but following baptism, walks in a relationship with the new convert as their genuine and personal faith grows, a later faith takes root, or an empty faith reveals itself over time.
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Friday, October 30, 2020
Nobility or the Status Quo?
Are you nobler than those who are quite satisfied with their comfortable beliefs? Read the below before you answer.
Acts 17:
11 Now, these Jews were nobler than those in Thessaloni′ca, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
When we are challenged by credible sources that we respect regarding the teachings of Holy Scripture, are we noble and do we give honest prayer, thought, and research to their challenges? Or, like anyone else who prefers the comfort of their own presuppositions, the fear of honest assessment, and the need to avoid the unknown, do we brush them off? (or like the Jews in Thessalonica, go on the attack?).
Does the "truth set you free" or are you the warden of your own captivity? The search is for Christ NO MATTER THE COSTS.
"My word is truth, and the truth will set you free" - Jesus (John 8)
Is it the "salvation" that Jesus offers that we truly want?
Thursday, October 15, 2020
How We Find Out
By their fruits, you will know them Matt. 7:20
We find out what people are really like by the way they take the things that happen to them. One might think a woman very charming, yet find her fail in the day of trouble, or one might be with a man when a fire broke out at a theatre, and find that he was immediately in a panic; or one might see someone, whom one had always regarded as very commonplace, do a very beautiful act. In each case, one would say, 'Well, I never thought he or she was like that! The circumstances of life reveal character.
Our Lord willed to come into this world and bring with Him nothing, to start with the poorest and to meet life as it came, and each thing as he met it revealed His character. Hate came to him, and He revealed His love. Success came to Him, and he revealed His humility. Failure came and revealed his faith. All things came to Him, eventually death, and death itself contributed to his royalty, for it revealed that He is alive forevermore.
Life finds us out, and our first discovery may be very like the discovery of St. Peter when he went out and wept bitterly after denying his Lord. But that was not the last word about Simon Peter, nor need our failures ever be the last word about ourselves. We can learn by our mistakes, and, if life finds us out, we can find out our God in our lives, and through its challenge and His grace bring forth the fruit that shall make us known as His children.
Father Andrew - Meditations, pg. 273
Doing Right or Getting the Right Result?
James 1:
2 My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; 4 and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
The surprising statement no doubt came out of St. James's own experience. The only way in which we can read "trials" is by taking it as being for the testing of the will, and that is surely what the apostle means. It has to be proved that we are doing right from the highest motives; that we are doing right because it is right, and not because it is profitable; that we are doing the true thing because it is true, and not because it is polotic (politically expedient).... if we do right from thoughts of punishment or reward, we may be doing right things but we are not really doing right.
-Father Andrew, Meditations, pg. 272
Friday, September 18, 2020
AGAINST SENSIBLE RELIGION
"There is nothing new under the sun". -Song of Solomon
"He (St. Athanasius) stood for the Trinitarian doctrine, 'whole and undefiled,' when it looked as if all the civilized world was slipping back from Christianity into the religion of Arius—into one of those “sensible” synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended to-day and which, then as now, included among their devotees many highly cultivated clergymen. It is his glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away.
-CS Lewis
SHORT-CUTS TO IMMATURITY
“Goal-setting, in the context and on the terms intended by a leadership-obsessed and management programmed business mentality that infiltrates the church far too frequently, is bad spirituality. Too much gets left out. Too many people get brushed aside. Maturity cannot be hurried, programmed, or tinkered with. There are no steroids available for growing up in Christ more quickly. Impatient shortcuts land us in the dead ends of immaturity."
-Eugene Peterson - “Practice Resurrection,” pg. 133
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Review: Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
One of Tom Wright's earliest books. An important basic read for popular Christianity and beyond.
View all my reviews
Review: Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Those who believe that Jesus is the King and Lord of the world today, accept his kingdom teachings and ways.
Tom Wright helps the reader confront the historical and theological assumptions that so many of the Jews listening to Jesus would have assumed regarding the coming of the Messiah; so many of the modern, western, and American assumptions we make today.
While clearing a path through the confusion of the many looking to shape their own vision of Jesus and a kingdom of their liking, Wright invites us on a journey of accepting the kingly rule of Jesus in all of its subversion, nuance, and complexity. He reveals a Jesus who calls his people to be the worshipping church together, desiring his lordship in every area of their lives and in every category of the created order.
In the end, he calls the church to her true mission: To Worship the triune God of the Bible by receiving her established Lord and King. He tasks the baptized to together open their hearts and lives to the Kingdom work that he longs to do through them. We proclaim the Good News of redemption through Christ and aid people as they begin to live the new creation that has taken and is taking root in the church and in their lives. The kingdoms of this world will not endure, but the powers are unaware of who is truly in control and that they have already been defeated.
It is only our God who builds his eternal kingdom (both now and in completion someday); those building their own kingdoms (while naming them the kingdom of God) will find the life and teachings of Jesus inconvenient, indeed.
View all my reviews
Thursday, May 28, 2020
Humility or the Need for Cultural Power?
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
The Model of St. Patrick
As a teenager, Patrick was captured and made a slave by Irish pirates off of the coast of Britain. After six years of labor in Ireland, he escaped with the aid of some fishermen. During his time in Ireland, he became much more devout in his Christian faith. Not only did Patrick forgive those who had enslaved him, but after training and schooling returned to bring them the Gospel as a missionary.
Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Our Thinking is to Be Turned Inside Out
"Our thinking is to be turned inside out when we realize that the true God raised Jesus from the dead and thereby announced to the whole world that he is the life-giving God, the God of generous love, the God who takes the metaphorical leprosy of the world and deals with it. Let the true God renew your mind as you worship and follow his risen Son."
Wright, N. T. (1994). Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship (p. 67). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Discerning Spiritual Leadership
The writer of Hebrews is concerned with some churches who were struggling and being tempted to walk away from their beliefs about Christ. What these Hebrew Christians didn't realize was that their very spiritual lives were at stake. So why were they vulnerable to some of the false doctrines promising them things that the Gospel never had?
Hebrews 5:12-14
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of God's word. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the world of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 6:1
Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity...
"You hear it said [these days], with a great air of religious common sense, that it is the man that the modern age demands in the pulpit, and not his doctrine. It is the man that counts, and not his creed. But this is one of those shallow and plausible underparts which is blandly offered for the arduous whole. No man has any right in the pulpit in virtue of his personality or manhood in itself, but only in virtue of the sacramental value of his personality for his message. We have no business to worship the elements, which means, in this case, to idolize the preacher ... To be ready to accept any kind of message from a magnetic man is to lose the Gospel in mere impressionism. It is to sacrifice the moral in religion to the aesthetic. And it is fatal to the authority either of the pulpit or the Gospel. The Church does not live by its preachers, but by its Word."
Peter T. Forsyth - a speech in 1907
We live in a society of people who want to remain children. Children think in very simple and concrete terms: yes or no, black or white, good and bad, my group and your group. This is the crowd most ready to latch onto or commit to "dynamic leaders". They want leaders who will make the complex simple, the profound manageable, the painful anesthetized, and consequences inconsequential. But the mature and the discerning, i.e., "those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil" will not tolerate such things. They are mature and live a life of complexity, discipline, and patience.
Instead of using the church as a spiritual crutch, those who are mature will desire both truth and accountability. The mature will stop church shopping when the going gets tough (or uncomfortable) and commit to a messy but grounded covenant family by which to use their gifts for the kingdom of God, They will accept the complexity and transcendence of God's great character, ways, and salvation, and lay aside the facade of personal control and self-preservation.
Or - like most Americans - Christian or not, they will continue to follow the dynamic leaders and churches that promise things they can't deliver and American dreams that God never promised.
Do you want to be a spiritual child or a mature adult?
If "adult" is you answer, then stop following the salesmen, pop stars, and ringleaders, and start following Jesus through those clergy who are more concerned with giving you Christ and His Kingdom rather than their own answers, visions, and empires; who are committed to leading the church by walking with their people through the joy, confusion, pain, grounding, eternal hope, and lasting peace that Jesus Christ came to give us.
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Church Membership and Confirmation
Moralism is the Enemy of the Gospel
"Moralism is the enemy of purity, integrity, and authenticity. On its surface, moralism looks helpful, but the surface is deceiving. Moralism is very concerned with what it does and how it looks. It is obsessed with public relations and the perceptions of those that it is trying to impress or motivate.""
"Moralism, in its most basic definition, is the doing of good things, the embrace of good behavior, and the measurability of said things in comparison with others. Moralism is self-serving under the guise of serving and sacrificing for others. This is why it is such a dangerous, capricious, and duplicitous enemy. It (and the Evil One’s subtle use of it) often fools us all."
"Moralism produces visible and short-lived behaviors without changing a person’s beliefs and character. In other words, if the “heart” of a person or an organization does not change, a lasting, loving, authentic behavior will not take root. Integrity cannot be faked, and in the end, is seen most clearly when one has something to be gained or lost. Only a “heart of flesh” can be genuine in its intentions and good works."
("Was Jesus An Evangelical", Reeves, Page 167).
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
True Freedom
It is hard to intimidate or manipulate those who are willing to die
Willing to Die - John 19:1-16 (Audio)
Monday, October 21, 2019
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Do You Have the Courage to Make a Pharisee Mad?
"If you follow Jesus, eventually you are going to tick-off some Pharisee. Stop worrying about what people think, and start thinking about obedience to the will of God."
-The Rev. Dr. Michael Van Horn
There is a Fountain - Audio
Saturday, August 31, 2019
True Healing from God
A wonderful sermon which helps us distinguish between God-ordained healing and the rote incantations of individualistic religious magic.
Audio Sermon - Be Thou My Vision; The Rev. Dr. Michael VanHorn
Thursday, August 8, 2019
WWJD? or maybe not.
"What was the cause of their relentless hostility to Christ? Neither his messianic claims nor his occasional Jewish unorthodoxies, it seems to me, account for the bitter resentment he aroused in them. There were others at that time in Judea, each of whom claimed to be the Messiah, and for the most part, Christ conducted himself like a strict and pious Jew."
"No, as I see it, Christ's real crime was simply that he spoke the truth, which is intolerable to all forms of authority--but especially ecclesiastical. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free, Christ said. In the eyes of Caiaphas and his associates, as later in the eyes of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov, Christ had to die because the truth he spoke and the freedom he offered undermined the authority other men claimed and exercised."
Malcome Muggeridge (1903-1990), Jesus Rediscovered.
Saturday, August 3, 2019
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
An Informing Tradition and the Illumination of the Holy Spirit
To my evangelical, congregational, and non-denominational brothers and sisters in Christ, the suggestion of this book is that every American person and church has an informing tradition. “No Creed but Christ” is and has always been an illusion that cannot be maintained. When believers have laid aside the ecumenical creeds as valid representations of their faith, they have – and always will – replace them with more current and highly informed “statements of beliefs” and other kinds of theologies. No one has, and no one ever will read or understand the scriptures inside an individualistic vacuum. It is impossible for us to act in such a way because we are created and made for community. Like it or not, we humans are always dependent on networks of people regarding the way we think and live.
All Christians read the scriptures with some kind of directing spectacles informed by our church history (or lack of one), church culture, and the society in general that we live in. Can we identify our spectacles, and if we can, are the spectacles worth retaining? The illuminating work of the Holy Spirit will not automatically erase our blind spots or be unhindered by our spiritual, intellectual, and historical laziness.
(WJE, Pages 17-18).
See also the below:
https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2018/06/19/the-optional-bishop/
Friday, May 17, 2019
How Do We Carry the Body of Christ's Death in our Bodies?
N.T. Wright commenting on Paul's phrase in 2 Corinthians 4:10 about "carrying the death of Jesus in our bodies": If you want to see resurrection at work here and now, in your own life, you have to be prepared to see crucifixion at work as well. And if the Corinthians want an apostle who is living the gospel he proclaims - Paul isn't sure that they do want this, but they ought to! - then they must look for these signs."
"Don't look in other words, for a showy, flashy rhetorical presentation which leaves the problems and sufferings of the world to someone else. Look for someone who is being given over to death for the sake of Jesus, so that Jesus' life may be revealed even in their mortal humanity.""2nd Corinthians for Everyone", pg. 45
Friday, May 10, 2019
The FIRST THINGS as Grounded by Historic Precedence
The reality is that Protestants can claim no authority for the New Testament as Holy Scripture without Apostolic and Patristic credibility, care, and precedence, yet we feel so free to make up our interpretations of Christianity as we see fit as if the Bible was penned outside of a context. God breaks into space and time, but he engages it and uses it. The Holy Scriptures were not written in a Gnostic and esoteric vacuum chamber.
We Anglicans spend so much of our time over-reacting to Roman Catholicism, that we end up throwing out the very foundations of our discernment regarding our history and theology.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/francis-decision-women-deacons-cannot-be-made-without-historical-foundation?clickSource=email
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Healthy Relationships or Divided Allegiance?
Thy Kingdom come...Matthew 6:10
As God is everywhere, so is His kingdom everywhere. But there are tracts and territories that are not under the domination of their rightful King, and that is what is meant by sin. Men are always trying to find satisfaction in creatures, but where they give their first allegiance to created beings the result is an inevitable disappointment, and that disappointment is a symptom of their disloyalty or their divided allegiance.
Fr Andrew - Meditations, pg. 298
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Do a Few Things and Do the Well (Part 2)
So what are those “few things” right now that God wants St. Peter and St. Paul to be (and DO!)? Well, in part this question still needs to be worked out together in tangible ways, however, I think that there are some things that we all need to think and pray about.
It is my belief that the scriptures teach that there are key characteristics that a healthy church will exhibit (making the main things, the main things). These identification markers should include:
ñ the worship of the triune God in discipline and sacramental mystery
ñ the effective communication of the Holy Scriptures
ñ the development of Biblical family
ñ the centrality of prayer (liturgy and free)
ñ the training of people in their ministry gifts
ñ a life-long approach to reaching out to others with the love and Gospel of Jesus Christ.
God calls the church to engage these things as a gathered “body” of Christ, and individually[1] out in the world.
As we have heard the Holy Scriptures preached and taught over the years, we have engaged each of the above listed characteristics (we will also continue to do so). If we as a church body want God to bless, and if we indeed want to encourage a real season of “growth” (spiritually and numerically) then what can we do to prepare for it?
While we are a family together, we are also unique individuals, given gifts by Christ to serve his church and thus, the world. How does God want to use you? Yes, I am talking to you (insert your name here:___________________________).
First of all, do you believe that he wants to use you? You are the one who has to believe that God wants to use you right where you are, at your age, in your circumstance, and in your financial situation. Do you believe it? We close off the power of the Holy Spirit when we lay aside God’s promises and callings due to our own inferiority or excuses.
Secondly, are you asking him to use you in any way that he chooses? We are not the lords of our own lives, HE is. So are you willing to submit to this? This might mean that you will be called by God to involve yourself in attempting things that you have never attempted before. This may mean that you may need to STOP doing other good things in the church (or in your life), so you can do what God is calling you to do FIRST OF ALL. Open your heart to him in regular prayer and ask HIM how he wants to use you. He promises to answer us.
Thirdly, are you praying for others in our body, that God would use them? Yep, more prayer (grin). Sometimes we are so busy doing, that we don't take the time to stop to listen and communicate with our Lord. Through the resurrection power of the Spirit, we can change this. Don't beat yourself up, or put unrealistic expectations on yourself, but make time during the week to pray for yourself and others so that we as a body will be truly led by him. It is his strength and guidance that we must have.
Fourthly, do you love those you know who are unchurched? Are you praying regularly for these same people? Who are those people in your life? Start (or continue) praying for them, that God would soften their hearts to the Gospel and use our church (starting with you [insert your name here:___________]) to lead them to Jesus Christ. You don’t need to be anybody else to lead someone to consider Jesus as their savior and Lord. The Lord wants to you use you with your gifts, personality, and background.
Lastly, prepare yourself through prayer and meditation for UNCOMFORTABLE CHANGE as our church grows. NO, this does not mean that the pastor has any crazy ideas that he is going to surprise you with...what it means is that if a church is going to choose to love one another and love the world outside, then we must embrace that there is no real love without sacrifice.
As a body grows numerically, the dynamics of that body will also change...the relationships and warmth don't have to change...but you might find God using you (or those you know now) to spend time with other newer people in our church that need to be served. He might call you to do different things...which means YOU (meaning all of us) may have to give up your control over what God wants to do in our church.
He might answer our prayers by bringing (who others may see as) “undesirables” to our church (remember Jesus and the Leper?). Embrace this pain, don't run away from it! Through prayer and seeking God with all your heart, prepare yourself now to be what he wants you (and all of us at SP & SP) to be.
Father Tom
Remember, the Lord is already in the future waiting for us. We have nothing to fear.
Saturday, January 12, 2019
Do a Few Things and Do Them Well (Part 1)
God is intricately involved in his created universe, and he never becomes tired or overwhelmed. This is a mind-numbing thought for we humans (who often get tired AND overwhelmed), and this reality should encourage us that we do not have a “Clark Kent/Superman” kind of God, but a God, while comprehended in part, is none-the-less, incomprehensible. Not only are there things that we do not understand about him and his ways, there will always be a vast gap between the creator and his creation. If it were not so, then we would have a God that is more like the mythological and pagan gods of old; more super-human and maniacal than truly god-like in character and power.
I continue to be encouraged with how well we are able to accomplish a helpful and sharp presentation regarding our worship and church life. We are small in number and resources, but our way of doing things reflects a desire to do things well. For example, our banners are tasteful and first rate. Our worship space is simple but communicates an appreciation of historic symbol and the importance of art in worship. We are led musically in worship by people who take their craft seriously, yet do not want worship to be hindered by an attitude of “performance.” We present a wonderful newsletter, missal, and are meticulous in our Council and committee notes to be truthful and accurate. Led by the building and grounds committees past and present, we have a well-maintained and beautiful church building and property that enhances our ability to worship and minister to people. Our many volunteers are doing a wonderful job keeping our facilities clean and presentable.
All that said, however, we are still limited according to God’s design. We are often driven by many things in our lives, that if not reflected on (and changed by the Word and Spirit) end up driving us. We all have insecurities and hurts that need healing and that can make us feel inadequate; we have self-imposed requirements on ourselves that are often unrealistic; we at times take a “blasie-someone-else-can-do-that attitude” (that puts the burden on too few); we are tempted to put our glory and control in front of the glory of Jesus; and we have to fight a constant need to “do God's job for him” if we don't like the way he is choosing to work in someone's life or our church as a whole.
Listen to the wise words of Eugene Peterson:
“It was a favorite them of C.S. Lewis that only lazy people work hard. By lazily abdicating the essential work of deciding and directing, establishing values and setting goals, other people do it for us; then we find ourselves frantically, at the last minute, trying to satisfy a half dozen different demands on our time, none of which is essential to our vocation, to stave off the disaster of disappointing someone.”
“But if I vainly crowd my day with conspicuous activity or let others fill my day with imperious demands, I don’t have time to do my proper work, the work to which I have been called.”
I think that God has much for us in 2019 and beyond. However, like his process in our sanctification, he does not give us everything at once to handle. He gives us our responsibilities and callings gradually. When we follow his timing and are PATIENT (not irresponsible or unresponsive), we find his moving and power is PERFECT. When we run ahead of his timing, we are usually pushy, anxious, and potentially divisive.
How can we balance the limits of our finiteness while being faithful stewards seeking to be disciplined and effective in our “ministry” to the people God has called us to love? Well, the scriptures tell us that we are to do so meditatively (evaluating ourselves and our motives), prayerfully (realizing it is only the Holy Spirit that can break through our blindness and hardness), patiently (moving TOGETHER in the Spirit while possibly having differing applications and specific ministries in our faithfulness), and sacrificially, modeling the Christ who came that the world might have lasting life and light.
Father Tom
Friday, January 11, 2019
Review: Theology: The Basics
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Read in the hope of using this tome for the training and teaching of parishioners. Have read multiple of his books before, but was disappointed with the usual Evangelical Pietistic Anglican approach to treating the core Patristic Church fathers as “Mascots” in CORE AREAS to be read and interpreted through, Luther, Calvin, and current modern theological lenses. Most Protestants, however, will have fewer qualms.
I.e., while I am a fan in many ways of Karl Barth's theology (especially his Doctrine of God), he is almost helpless regarding his views on the sacraments as they have been historically understood. McGrath jumps all over this and continues to fuel the limits of Reformational myopia when it comes to an ecclesiological application of the mystery of God's work in the sacraments and within his Covenant Community as a whole (this also crops up in multiple ways in McGraths "Historical Theology", but in far less obvious ways). McGrath's Genevan Reformed bias is evident in his treatment of tradition, Holy Scripture, the sacraments, and the church.
As an Anglican Priest, I found this book too often showing forth the individualism as birthed by the enlightenment and modernity. That said, there is much to commend the book for in its basic assertions, and the attempt by the author to expose the reader to core thinkers and theologians of every age. McGrath is a top-notch Christian thinker and scholar. Until I find something more integrative with a Patristic Covenantal understanding of conversion and ecclesiology, I will use this book with my parishioners.
View all my reviews
Review: Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A helpful introduction to many of the key periods of the church and some of the theological developments today. Only read up through the Medieval period, but found his treatment of key theologians and the development of theology fair and helpful. Will continue to use this work as a reference.
I have read and have used much of McGrath's writing for my study and use in my ministry over the years. He is a top-notch scholar with a Protestant/Evangelical bent when it comes to his Anglicanism. In this book, he addresses the importance of tradition (more than many Protestants will do), but still functions theologically as if the Reformation is the true birth of the Church. His Genevan Reformed bias is often clear to see for those with a nominal understanding of the Reformation.
View all my reviews
Monday, January 7, 2019
Monday, December 24, 2018
Review: Against the Protestant Gnostics
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
An excellent and important read for discerning the creational disdain and Gnostic influence in Western Society and in Protestantism in particular. Without a good Creator who cares about all of his creation, we have no New Heavens and New Earth. Without a communal salvation, we have no individual salvation, and salvation is not found within our individualistic sin-ridden self, but outside of ourselves in the objective work of Christ. We have a personal faith, but it is a creational, personal, and communal faith. This is orthodox Christianity and salvation.
2nd Reading of certain sections for use in the writing of my second book.
View all my reviews
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Review: The Meaning is in the Waiting: The Spirit of Advent
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Used it for a 5-week Advent study in my parish. Good scholarship and application. I would use Paula Gooder again in a heartbeat.
View all my reviews
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Review: Against Heresies
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A foundational book for understanding Patristic and Eastern theology and ecclesiology. Some of the earlier books are mind-numbingly detailed about many or the heresies contained in the various Gnostic groups and heresies. Will try to add to this review in specifics at a later date.
View all my reviews
Friday, August 24, 2018
Review: Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers: Focusing Concern and Action
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Very thoughtful and good introduction to the Church Fathers especially written for those from a Protestant and Individualistic Christian background. Unfortunately, most clergy and parishioners will likely give up too early on this book before understanding the benefits awaiting them. I would recommend this book to anyone, but I would encourage you to read the final chapter first (chapter 8) so as to bolster your resolve in your discipline to understand and benefit from this book.
Christopher Hall has a strong grasp of the audience that he is writing to and does a nice job preparing them not only to be introduced to some of the central Western and Eastern Patristic Fathers but also to the importance of the Fathers for belief and life today.
The last chapter alone is worth the purchase of the book especially for American Christians who value their Christianity and their "personal relationship with the Lord" as the center of their universe because they believe themselves (and God's interest in them) to be what really matters in life. Not only will the truths in this book potentially ground a teachable heart to the Word, Scriptures, it might also save some from turning away from Christianity and/or the church.
Too often, people not grounded in the core foundations of their faith (and how their beliefs have been handed down from the faithful Covenant People of God) will begin to be disillusioned with Jesus and his church when the church disappoints them, or when Jesus doesn't show up on their timetable. When questioning their faith, and while the world around them offers them so many options, a foundational "big picture" and the greatness of God in the past, present, and future can help stabilize them as they navigate life.
My criticism of the book also comes from statements in the last chapter which reveal the "Protestant Angst" that comes in admitting that we all have informing traditions. The writer (quoting another Evangelical Scholar) talks of the need for different traditions not to "shove their traditions on others". Valid point, but that said, the phrase should be "shove SOME of their traditions" on others. The one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, DOES have quite a bit of core tradition that MUST be insisted upon, and no cross-reference verse in scripture is going to clear it up for us outside of communal interpretation.
The concepts of a slowly gathered Biblical Cannon developed over thousands of years IN AND WITH THE COVENANT COMMUNITY OF CHRIST (both old and new covenants) insists that there is core tradition that we DO require, no matter what Christian group it is. There was a relationship with a Covenant Communal People and our Lord before a word of Scripture was penned (both Old and New Testaments). Through the Holy Spirit, He used the faithful people of God in Community to pen, gather, assemble and disseminate our Holy Cannon. He used the Councils to clarify the Incarnation of Christ, and the Triune beliefs about our saving covenant God (neither of the words " Incarnate" or "Trinity" appear in scripture). This means that the Spirit DOES establish and insist on good and non-optional tradition, no matter the tensions and mystery involved. Supra-scriptura, YES; Sola-scriptura has NEVER been true.
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Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Review: The Catcher in the Rye
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I decided to read this book after watching an extensive documentary on the life and writing of J.D. Salinger. Of course, I first heard about the book because it is still required reading in schools across the country to this day. It is a book that continues to sell very well and it is seen as an American Classic.
As a Christian (and a pastor), I also believe it important to understand and interact intelligently with literary forms which reflect or influence today's art and culture.
I am not sure if this is the most influential book regarding the "stream of consciousness" approach to writing, but it certainly engages the style in a profound way. On the one hand, the author is trying to represent an adolescent who is seemingly more introspective, thoughtful, and resentful than most of his peers. On the other, the writing seems to purposely revel in dialogue which often seems to have little purpose, coherence, or direction. The style seems purposeful so as to communicate a disdain for the key subject matters (shallowness, phoniness, and greed) coupled with a pretentious obsession to critique and morally rise above them.
It may be that this book resonated so deeply in the American culture in its day (and now) because Holden Caufield is such a contradictory, narcissistic, moralistic and hypocritical character while finding people with similar characteristics (and especially the older generations) "goddamn" unbearable. Holden has little hesitation in playing judge, jury, and executioner for whoever he finds as an irritant. Few escape his scrutiny, and most people he meets wear the tag phony, largely, it seems, because they do not share his acidic resentments and simplistic unnuanced judgments. And yet, Holden DOES see legitimate patterns of hypocrisy and phoniness; shallowness and greed; selfishness and brutality. However, he seems to see little value in constructive and sacrificial ways of approaching these challenges or problems.
While Holden may be written to reflect a spoiled middle-class teen with profound resentments and cynicism, his characteristics seem celebrated not critiqued. This seems to reflect on Salinger's upbringing, life, and his intolerance of others. Holden Caulfield in the quintessential individualist who makes himself both his own deity and self-destroyer at once.
Could it be that this book resonated (and still resonates) with an American audience because it reflects the hypocrisy and pain so many have experienced as they were reared in families, institutions, and places of worship that they have encountered? Does it resonate with them because of the frustration, boredom, and emptiness of the expected directions that they have felt entombed to fulfill? Does it reflect our own struggle with our empty individualism, narcissism, hypocrisy, and greed; our own search for our own kind of moral superiority? I think so.
I didn't care much for Holden until the end of the book, where he finds himself challenged and softened by the love of a child. To his credit, he allowed it to happen.
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Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Reflections on the Beginning of a New Era
Wonderful article. May the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul be one of those small parishes. May we truly be used to unify and invigorate Christ's "one holy catholic and apostolic church."
https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2018/07/18/reflections-on-the-beginning-of-a-new-era/
Toward Vocation
So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three-thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Acts 2:41-42
Often, we think of ourselves first of all in relation to the way that we provide for our and our family’s needs. We might hear some appreciative wife state that her husband “is a good provider.” While, certainly, this is a good thing, is this the starting place for our values? How does our Lord Christ think of us? Does what we do in our professions truly make us who we are?
We must pray that our religion may never drop into being occupation or profession, but that the occupation and profession and the whole of life may be lifted to the level of vocation, that God’s Holy Spirit ‘may in all things direct and rule our hearts.’ (Father Andrew, Meditations, pg. 257)
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2018/06/19/the-optional-bishop/