Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672 Devotional poetry... has to do with devotedness, with read more

Feast of Chad, Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary, 672 Devotional poetry... has to do with devotedness, with trust merged into faith, with love's steadfastness. It finds men's worthwhileness deep laid in relationship to God's worthwhileness, and this devotion is expressed in communication. It finds this world precious insofar as it... symbolizes God's love and therefore it runs counter to our national sin of distrust in God. (And yet, how can we trust Him without knowing and living unto Him and loving Him?).

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.

Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: The critical scholar is not committed, within the area of read more

Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: The critical scholar is not committed, within the area of his research, to accepting the Church's presuppositions about Jesus, but he should not be committed to accepting naturalistic presuppositions either. If he does accept the latter, then the results of his research will in all probability contradict the beliefs of the Church, but this is because he has begged the question from the start. In examining, for instance, the evidence for the virginal conception [of Jesus], if he begins with the presupposition that such an event is impossible he will end with the same conclusion; if he begins with the presupposition that it is possible he may end with the conclusion that the evidence for it is good or that it is bad or that it is inconclusive. This is as far as scholarship can take him. The Christian will accept the virginal conception as part of the Church's faith. (Continued tomorrow).

In all our criticism and near-despair of the institutional Church, it should never be forgotten that many powers and possibilities read more

In all our criticism and near-despair of the institutional Church, it should never be forgotten that many powers and possibilities really exist in it, but often in captivity; they exist as frozen credits and dead capital.

Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church, 1093 Commemoration of Edmund Rich of Abingdon, Archbishop of read more

Feast of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church, 1093 Commemoration of Edmund Rich of Abingdon, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1240 We get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin with God. We are right when, and only when, we stand in a right position relative to God, and we are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other position.

Maundy Thursday We usually think of Jesus in the upper room as calmly and patiently preparing his disciples read more

Maundy Thursday We usually think of Jesus in the upper room as calmly and patiently preparing his disciples for their coming crisis; only in the garden are we shown his deep anguish over what lies ahead for himself. But if this verse ("'They hated me without a cause." Ps. 69:4) occurred to Jesus as describing his enemies, surely he was also identifying with the rest of [Psalm 69] with its vivid description of overwhelming troubles and importune cries to God for deliverance. What in the upper room was still under the surface was openly expressed in the garden.

Even in a day of overdone distinctions, one might point out that interpretations are not properly to be classified as read more

Even in a day of overdone distinctions, one might point out that interpretations are not properly to be classified as historical or dogmatic, but as true or false. If they are false, it does not matter whether they be called dogmatic or historical; and if they are true, they may quite well be both.

Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 He said to Judas when he betrayed Him: read more

Commemoration of Ini Kopuria, Founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood, 1945 He said to Judas when he betrayed Him: "Friend, wherefore art thou come?" Just as if He had said: "Thou hatest me, and art mine enemy, yet I love thee, and am thy friend." ... As though God in human nature were saying: "I am pure, simple goodness, and therefore I cannot will or desire or rejoice in, or do or give anything but goodness. If I am to reward thee for thy evil and wickedness, I must do it with goodness, for I am and have nothing else." ... Theologia Germanica June 7, 2002 Some will not believe in miracles because the laws of nature work uniformly. But their uniformity is undisturbed by human operations; the will of man wields, without cancelling, these mighty forces which surround us: and why may not the will of God do the same?

The power of God is the worship He inspires. That religion is strong which in its ritual and its modes read more

The power of God is the worship He inspires. That religion is strong which in its ritual and its modes of thought evokes an apprehension of the commanding vision. The worship of God is not a rule of safety: it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.