Always Reforming

Grace. God's grace.  Give me grace.  Grace alone.   We use this word so often, but what does it actually mean?  What is grace (aside from my cute, feisty 11-year-old daughter)?   How we answer that question will impact a variety of other theological topics, including soteriology, sanctification, and the sacraments.  It is the last subject that I want to highlight today.   The Reformed Tradition commonly refers to the sacraments (Baptism and the Lord's Supper) as means of grace .  The Westminster Confession Faith makes it clear that they are "holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace." (27:1)  The Belgic Confession insists that "they are not empty and hollow signs to fool and deceive us," but, as the 39 Articles  says, they are "effectual signs of grace."  The Reformers rejected the Roman Catholic view of the sacraments (not simply Transubstantiation, but the sacerdotal, meritorious system as a whole), but they r...

I am currently plodding through  The Shape of the Liturgy by Dom Gregory Dix.  Having consumed about 100 pages, my initial reaction is that our modern conception (by which I mean that of American Evangelical Protestants) of the worship of the Early Church is highly skewed.  The study I have done over the past few years has convinced me that any attempt to become more Biblical or to imitate the Early Church requires one to become more, not less, liturgical.  American Protestants are often mystified and/or horrified by the smells and bells of the liturgical traditions (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, etc.), but the harsh truth is that those traditions are far closer to the worship of the Primitive Church than the concerts put on each Sunday at your local mega-church. But I digress... What I would like to do today is highlight one of Dix's emphases, which he in turn draws from the writings of the Pre-Nicene Fathers.  This emphasis ...

I recently shared my journey to Anglicanism, or, more accurately, as I am still on my journey to Anglicanism, my journey to St. John's Anglican Church.  Our family is not looking for another church body, but we are still relatively new to this particular Christian tradition, so we are still exploring its history, theology, and practice.  Anyone who has ever made such a significant change in their religious life knows that this is, or at least ought to be, an exciting and sometimes confusing process.  As I explained in my previous post, I shared this journey primarily for personal catharsis and journaling.  Blogging is a way that I organize my thoughts and develop the ideas that are bouncing around in my head.  Today I am going to begin a series called Things I Like about Anglicanism .  As I explore this rich tradition, I am finding much that is similar to the tradition in which I was raised (Presbyterianism), but I am also finding much that is different....