This is an amazing story! A true test of “pro-life.” This young lady chose to allow the providence of God to guide her life, when having to choose between certain and painful death for her baby or possible death for herself. She delivered the baby and died shortly after.
This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:12-13
Today is the Feast Day of King Charles I, father of nine children and the only post-reformation Saint of the Anglican Church. Charles was the King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1625 until his execution by parliament on January 30, 1649. He is considered a martyr by Anglicans due to his “Christian Kingship” and “defender of the Anglican faith.”
A few of King Charles’s last words, right as he placed his head on the guillotine-block were, “I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be.” This was the abolishment of the English Monarchy.
Charles appointed Laud as Bishop of the Church in an attempt to thwart Calvinism. Calvinistic doctrine could have taken the Church into a bold new world. The problem, though, was that most of the Calvinists of that time were Presbyterian in polity and government, and thier standard of worship included many Anabaptistic leanings. The king could not win the hearts of the newly formed Scottish and English Puritans. The Puritans went as far as creating their own confessions and catechisms (Westminster) in spite of the fact that the Prayer Book and 39 Articles of Religion (with Calvinistic theology included) had been established for almost a century.
After the execution, Oliver Cromwell, a very radical Puritan, assumed control over England and became “Lord Protector” of England. The puritan polity did not last long and the Monarchy proved its strength and historical momentum by re-establishing itself in 1660.
Roman Catholic spirituality differs from Protestant spirituality in a number of ways, including the obvious cases of ecclesiology and soteriology. But what else defines the spirituality of the Roman Church? I would like to draw the attention of my reader to that of the more mystical side of the Roman Church which includes monasticism, spiritual giftedness and other more mystical avenues of grace, in order to give a concise and positive outlook of Roman spirituality.
St. Andrews REC, participated in a Pro-Life rally this last Sunday. This is my son, Christian, doing his part. Below, you can see part of the crowd. I’m standing in the back (black and grey with hand on waist), behind the RC priest with the hat (I wonder if the hat is significant to some sort of interesting Order;) Special thanks to my CREC friend, Scott Bennion for the pics.
To obtain a humble and contrite heart one must lean on the external of humility itself. What this means is that doctrinal study and even prayer itself are not adequate measures, for these two matters are meant to lead to a greater plain within our lives: sacrifice. In order to be humble we must first be humbled. Metroplotitan Nafpaktos Hierotheos in Orthodox Psychotherapy (p. 180-189) quotes the Fathers :
Heartache is necessary because even the strictest ascetic life is bogus without it…Many people have worked and continue to work without pain, but because of its absence they are strangers to purity and out of communion with the Holy Spirit, because they have turned aside from the severity of suffering…’We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God’ (Acts 14, 220).’…Drench your cheeks with the weeping of your eyes…St. Neilos the Ascetic teaches us to pray first for the gift of tears. Likewise if we pray with tears all we ask will be heard…The Fathers teach that we are cleansed from the passions “either through voluntary sufferings of through involuntary misfortunes…When the voluntary ones come first, involuntary ones do not follow.”
The Lenten season is approaching us! It would be an honoring thing to begin to pray about just what we will be “giving up” for Lent. This is not some sort of sacrifice offered to God, rather it is a sacrifice offered unto our souls; a fast, in order that we may obtain a contrite heart.
Do you reward yourself with much luxury? Do you do it even in the name of God (using His name in vain) by claiming that this luxury that you have bought is for your family or ministry - ultimately blessing yourself? I pray that we would examine ourselves as to whether or not we are living our lives according to how St. Paul has instructed us: by presenting our bodies as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1). Through the pain of fasting we can find ourselves (through God, of course) and thus this pain eventually turns to joy (Psalm 126:6). Do you have no pain? If not, obtain it! Do you have pain? If so, rejoice in it! If we cannot find pain to purify us, God will certainly find some for us, and this is not likely to be a pleasant surprise. In fact, it will be gut-wrenching as we not only repent of our uncleanliness but also our unwillingness to become sacrificial.
As we become sacrificial in our lives, we ultimately become “unsacrificial” in our attitudes. In other words, what we formally called sacrifice we will now call pleasure. The sacrifice is no longer sacrifice to our souls and thus we grow deeper in our sacrificial relationship with God. We are now strengthened to go deeper in battle without being maimed; or, as Jacob experienced: hip out of joint!
This leads us to the doctrine of penance, a post for another day.
This article, from Alastair Roberts, is absolutely outstanding. In the article, Roberts describes how the Bible is not so much a book as it is a continuing revelation from God; that the Bible is meant to be read aloud in the Church and experienced in this way, rather than just picking up whenever convenient and reading it within only your personal sphere. The title of his article is “HOW GUTENBURG TOOK THE BIBLE FROM US.” That statement is such a sharp perspective of just what we have come to as Christ’s Church. Technology has certainly gotten the best of us! Maybe he will write a post on how TV, Radio, and Internet has taken the Church. If we have all these things what then could we possibly need the church for?
If you are not a liturgical Christian who is in submission to a historical lectionary, I would like to urge you to run to the nearest continuing Anglican (or other) liturgical church and give yourself to its liturgy. At this point in your life, you have no idea what you are missing out on. If you cherish the Word of God and love to be guided by it, then go and do this! Hear the Word of God in its fullest context, where you are forced to sit (and stand, kneel and bow, for that matter) and give yourself entirely to the Word in an ancient and humble atmosphere of reverence and awe.
Below, you will find the main points of Alastair’s article.
I have found over the last few years I almost stop even talking about Calvinism. Yeah, I believe it but I started thinking about the role of the church and the role of people in salvation. I guess, in seed form I was becoming more catholic in my understanding of salvation. More of a corporate aspect than the individual aspect. More of the BODY and less of the middle toe aspect of things.”
This quote was from a recent dialog I had with a friend. It sums up the typical mind of a Christian that is outgrowing the Evangelical and even the Reformed faith.
Salvation has everything to do with the Church and how God uses the Church to bring us to Him and His eternity. Salvation does not come from nature, although God uses nature for His purpose. Salvation does not come from invisibleness of some sort, even in doctrinal format. “Salvation” comes from God transcending to His people in way of Covenant!
Some may say that that is “covenantal doctrine.” It is, but it is not the doctrine in and of itself that saves us. Yes, Paul says that faith comes by “hearing” the Word of God: God’s covenantal faithfulness and how we become a part of His plan, despite us being law-breakers. That is a humbling thing, but it is not our humility that saves us. Our humility is a result of our salvation rather than a cause. The real cause of our salvation is Christ’s willingness to die for His people!
Doctrine verifies what God is doing in our lives! Yes, in OUR lives, in the world He gave US. This great people that God has put together under the reign of His son gives us faith, which is necessary to be a part of this salvific plan. But it is God’s grace that brings us to this point; His mercy in action; His eschatological placement of us in an eternal plan, as opposed to the temporal plan of life on earth that results in death.
The preaching of the word, evangelistically speaking, verifies what God has already begun in the heart of the recipient. Our doctrine only points to a greater reality, a reality that cannot be summed up in “Five Points” or one or two sentences, or even sermons. Our doctrine is merely a tug on the garment to turn around and look at the bigger picture of what God has already been doing. This is something that I have been convicted of through the past couple years. I came to a point in my studies, as a Presbyterian, to where I could really go no further, doctrinally speaking. Certainly there was a point of arrogance there, too: that I had arrived. Then the catholic reality hit me! I could study doctrine my whole life but miss the main point of God and His people. After all, didn’t Christ say that the real summary of His entire Law was to “love thy neighbor?” My Christian brother is my neighbor, in the fullest sense.
Doctrine is necessary to protect God’s people from heresy and to free their minds to be “lead by the Spirit,” as Paul says in Galatians 5:25. Doctrine gives us the ability to crucify the flesh so that we can walk in the Spirit. It does not give us a mental library so that we can show God at the end of our days all the knowledge we have stored. In fact, St. Paul says that knowledge puffs up (1 Cor. 8:1). This does not mean that we learn doctrine and then purposefully forget about it. This means that we learn doctrine and then purposefully move on to love our neighbor.
If, for instance, you are not a part of Christ Church then you do not love your neighbor. In fact, you hate them! Jesus says that a there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for his friend (John 15:13). If you have been in a scuffle with a person at church and you have fallen away from Christ’s Church because of that, then you hate that person (not to mention Christ). You should “lay down your life” for that person by doing everything possible to help them, even if it means dying.
This type of Anglican theology reminds me of the movie The Mission. The first part of the movie shows a priest floating down a river to his death because he chose to love those that were called to the kingdom. This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ! You can take your Bible and worship it all you want, and you can hang your theological degrees on your front porch, but you are nothing if you are not laying your life down for your neighbor (Church - visible or invisible).
Here is a great example of Anglican theology. Dr. Peter Leithart, (currently) a Presbyterian that has been heavily influenced by Eastern Orthodoxy, and has even been caught teaching in Anglican establishments, writes this in his book Against Christianity:
“Paul did not agree that the gospel would be true even if no one lived out the gospel. Paul’s gospel had an empirical test built into it; if no one was transformed, then the message that announced the transformation could not possibly be true. The first and chief defense of the gospel, the first “letter of commendation” not only for Paul but for Jesus, is not an argument but the life of the Church conformed to Christ by the Spirit in service and suffering. A community of sinners whose corporate life resembles Christ - that is the Church’s first apologetic. The very existence of such a city is our main “argument.”
What does salvation actually look like? It looks like the people of God conforming to Christ’s image [I took the word obedience out so I would not stumble those that are nervous about RC and Arminian theology]! Salvation is not the Bible, nor is it the vocabulary in the Bible. It is not a one time emotional experience. Salvation is God’s good grace: His mercy in action. It is what God has done and is doing for His people - changing their lives and producing life. Salvation is eschatological; it revolves around the very foundation of the creative order and its redemption, and the time that it takes to redeem this creative order. Salvation is completely inclusive to God working in history and making His elect a part of this redemptive history! His plan did not start in the 60’s Jesus movement. It did not start in the Reformation. God’s plan of salvation started in the Garden of Eden and extended through creation from there. From the birth of Seth, God’s people “began to call upon the name of the Lord.”
How is this Via Media? This theology is Via Media because it describes not just an institution in and of itself as salvific, but it describes an entire people, including but not limited to ages of people such as the Reformation. This theology is both ecclesiastical as well as spiritual, and symbolic as well as doctrinal. Anglican theology is (or should be) influenced from both sides: Roman/Eastern, as well as “American” (Catholic/Orthodox as well as Protestant). It is, as my mentor/pastor says, “the best of both worlds.”
Contents:
- Background of The Apocrypha
- Canonical Development of The Apocrypha
- Historical Development of The Apocrypha
- Anglicanism and The Apocrypha
- Conclusion
Rick Santorum, a former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and a known and dedicated defender of the family, has written an important article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on a change in focus on the issue of life in some recent Hollywood movies. In a number of recent popular films, a woman is faced with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy and chooses to have the baby. While some of these films are awash in the cultural ills of contemporary Western society, there is a techtonic shift on how the entire abortion issue is handled.Even with some questionable conduct on the part of the characters, the movies show young people grappling with the issue devoid of the usual caricatures provided by Hollywood. For example, in the much praised film Juno, the mian character has a warm and positive interaction with another girl in her high-school who is a pro-life advocate and encourages her to have the baby. This stands in stark contrast to the portrayals of pro-life advocates by the mainstream media.
The commercial success of these films is perhaps an indication that even among those who publicly accept abortion as a “choice”, personally it is a very wrong choice. There seems to be a growing sense that as the generation that “liberated” us from traditional morality passes, we are in need of being liberated from the tyranny of our liberators.
At the heart of the political struggle between Western and Eastern Christians in Russia and other portions of Eastern Europe today are sharply competing theologies of mission. Some of those missiological differences reflect more general differences in theological emphasis. Eastern Orthodox tend to emphasize the altar over the pulpit, the liturgy over the homily, the mystery of faith over its rational disputation, the priestly office of the clergy over the devotional tasks of the litany. Western Christians generally reverse these priorities - and sometimes accuse the Orthodox of idolatry, introversion, and invasion of the believer’s personal relationship with God.[There are vast differences in the theology of mission work here.] Western Evangelicals, in particular, assume that, in order to be saved, every person must make a personal, conscious commitment to Christ - to be born again, to convert. Any person who has not been born again, or who once reborn now leads a nominal life, is a legitimate object of evangelism - regardless of whether and where a person has been baptized. The principle means of reaching that person is through proclamation of the gospel, rational demonstration of its truth, and personal exemplification of its efficacy. Any region of the world…is a “mission field” - regardless of whether the region might have another Christian church in place. Under this definition of mission, Russia and its people are prime targets of Evangelical witness.The Russian Orthodox Church, too, believes that each person must come into a personal relationship with Christ in order to be saved. But such a relationship with Christ comes more through birth than rebirth, and more through regular sacramental living than a one-time conversion. A person that has been born into the church has by definition started “theosis” - the process of becoming acceptable to God and ultimately coming into eternal communion with him…Proclamation of the gospel is certainly an important means of aiding the process of theosis - and is especially effective in reaching those not born or baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church. But, for the Russian Orthodox, mission work is designed not to transmit rational truths, but to incorporate persons into communion with Christ and fellow believers.
This theology leads the Russian Orthodox to a quite different understanding of the proper venue and object of evangelism. The territory of Russia is hardly an open “mission field” which Evangelicals are free to harvest. To the contrary, much of the territory and population of Russia are under the spiritual protectorate of the Russian Orthodox Church. Any person who has been baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church is no longer a legitimate object of evangelism - regardless of whether that person leads a nominal Christian life….Only of that person actively spurns the Orthodox Church is he or she a legitimate target of the evangelism of others.
The Patriarch [of the Orthodox Church] is not only complaining about improper methods of evangelism - the bribery, blackmail, coercion, and material inducements used by some groups; the garish carnivals, billboards, and media blitzed used by others. The Patriarch is also complaining about the improper presence of missionaries - those who have not come to aid the Orthodox Church for its own souls on its own territory. The Patriarch takes seriously the statement of St. Paul, who wrote: “It is my ambition to bring the Gospel to places where the very name of Christ has not been heard, for I do not want to build on another man’s foundation” (Rom 15:20).
- John Witte Jr., The Local Church In A Global Era, p. 182
Most Americans are not aware of what really caused us to rebel against England in the Revolutionary War, and to what authority we did so. Many believe that we fought against a mob of Nazi-like soldiers and a “tyrant” of a king. I have even heard this from great teachers of the faith, that we fought the tyranny of King George and the persecutors of religion so that we could have freedom! There are very serious problems with this belief. It is clear to me that the rebellion of the Colonists was motivated by greed, and even a distortion of Calvinistic theology (but more on the theological aspect in a future post). The proof of the greed is obvious, especially when the ethics and actions of the Colonists is contrasted with the ethics and actions of today’s people (church). Was it really a terrible thing to pay taxes to a government for tea and paper, even if it was an unfair taxation (I do not believe that it was unfair)? If so, then why is America (and the Church in support) now paying taxes to a government that supports abortion as well as a HOST of other atrocities?
Could we be reaping what we have sown? Our resistance to the Anglican Church of England and her ministers (including King George) in the 1700’s has given us nothing but pain and turmoil. We work almost half of our days paying taxes for a Unitarian government, only to be shoved into a life of debt and constant religious harassment and heresy within our Church. Our country is nearly being taken over by other countries that do not hold to the same religious values as us, and Islamic terrorism is at an all time high.
But, we did not want the protection from the king or ANY government, for that matter, against heresy and modern Hellenization. We thought that a country that promoted the ancient Greek philosophy of government, as well as the ancient Greek philosophy of religion, trade, and culture at large, would give us the kingdom on earth that people have always longed for. This philosophy, coupled with the Colonial Presbyterian theology, that God had called them (the Puritans) to smash the “Canaanites” (the biblical reference of what they called the Indians) and create the “Promise Land” that God had given them, would create the largest Secular empire in the world. Little did they know that God had already given us, not one nation (America) to take dominion over under “God,” as they say (a Unitarian god), but God has given us the whole world through more catholic means of the Church universal.
Many documents began to be produced after the war, declaring that America was a “free” nation. Besides the Declaration of Independence as the leading document of independence, American Presbyterians altered the Westminster Confession of Faith in order to exclude all reference to the State protecting the Church from heresy (see this post, as well as this post).
The result of the Colonial Calvinists and their union with the Colonial Secularists and Unitarians such as Thomas Jefferson, created an ethos of greed and secular capitalism. And at the right moment, when they had a chance to bring forth the scapegoat, to hide their sin for the sake of their prosperity, they did. They accused King George of being a tyrant.
Facts Regarding the King
1. King George was no tyrant. He was a devout Christian man who loved his family and country. King George was not “insane” as many Americans claim he was. He became ill with porphyria, and lost much of his mental faculties later in life. He died of this disease on January 29, 1820.
2. King George simply wanted the colonies to help pay the expenses for the war against the French. England Defended the colonies (America) against the French and was in need of financial help to pay for the expense. Much of England was living in poverty because of the war, while the Americans were living in luxury. America had been a very wealthy nation for quite some time, and had even built their Calvinistic theology around this desire for wealth (despite the fact that Calvin did not teach us to live in material wealth).
3. King George instituted the Stamp Act to help pay for the war. The Colonists complained and Parliament repealed the law, and later narrowed the taxes down to imported glass, paper, lead, and tea. This was called The Townsend Act of 1767. The colonists complained again, and the English gave in again, narrowing the tax to tea, only. This is when the Americans began to rebel, thus creating the “Boston Tea Party,” throwing (fits) the tea into the harbor. The King wrote to Lord North, “the truth is that the too great lenience of this country increased their pride and encouraged them to rebel.”
4. To influence the Americans against England the Reformers published the Geneva Bible with the phrase “tyrant” in place of where “king” was supposed to be placed. Being the Reformed people that they were, the Americans began to call the King a tyrant.
5. Many Americans, such as Samuel Seabury, the first Bishop of the American Episcopal (Anglican) Church, refused to rebel against England and were thus marked as “Loyalists” (loyal to the crown). George Washington’s mother was a Loyalist and also a devout Anglican. Loyalists were treated very harshly during the Revolutionary times. Their homes were vandalized and many of them were tarred and feathered. Bishop Seabury said, “If I must be enslaved let it be by a King at least, and not by a parcel of upstart lawless Committeemen. If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin.” (Seabury, Letters of a Westchester Farmer, 1774–1775 (1970) p 61.).
Now what? You ask! We repent, as Christians, for the sin we have committed and continue to commit by supporting the very same ideals and theology of the Continentals! Study Anglicanism and find out that, before Continental Reformed theology, there was a theology and life of Kingdom authority that was inaugurated by the the Apostles and their disciples. We must return to this kingdom mindset that was brought over to America by the Anglican Church, mend our relationship with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church, and live in peace and spiritual prosperity that the Anglican Reformers once desired. Fragmentation and division into modern sects must be repented of, and the taking up of the ancient theologies of the Fathers must prevail!