God has no gender. The Persons of the Holy Trinity have no gender. The Christian tradition of praying to the First Person, in and through the Second Person, in the unity and power of the Third Person of the Trinity is able to be done in a gender-inclusive way; even in a complementary-language way. This
Trinitarian Inclusiveness Read More »
In the mongrel/platypus phenomenon that is Anglicanism, the via media is not half-way between catholic and protestant – it is both catholic and protestant; protestant software running on catholic hardware. It is unsurprising, then, that a catholic celebration such as The Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of our Lord has some, possibly hidden,
The Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary Read More »
Doing the social-media rounds is the recent Guardian editorial on disappearing Christianity: suppose it’s gone for ever? It reflects on the British Social Attitudes data and says, The study also shows that Christianity is extremely bad at either making converts or retaining cradle believers. The two big denominations, the Catholics and the Church of England,
End of the Anglican Church (part 2)? Read More »
To my mind, one of the most significant decisions made at the meeting of General Synod Te Hinota Whanui (GSTHW2016) of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia was the alteration to our Constitution which put one of the final nails into the coffin of our common prayer. An obvious consequence is also
Anglicans Abandon Common Prayer
and Allow Blessing Same-Sex Couples Read More »
Want to rile many an English teacher? Point out that there is no central authority for the “rules” they fondly promote. How to spell a word (sulphur, sulfur), where to put a comma, ending a sentence with a preposition, when to use a capital letter, what a word means (“decimate”, “aggravate”) – and so on,
How Anglican is English? Read More »
In an age in which “reason” is regularly contrasted with “religion” in our infotainment-driven media, it has been encouraging to find a couple of articles in the last week or so that firmly put reason with religious faith, not against it. My friend, Rev. Ron Hay (we trained together for the priesthood), has been in
My e-friend and commenter here, Rev. Joshua Bovis, has a blog post essentially on the value of liturgical repetition in a vibrant church life. He reproduces an article by Mark Brolly (in TMA) reflecting on a lecture at Ridley College by retired Bishop of North Sydney, Bishop Paul Barnett. The primary value of his post,
Remember to Survive Read More »
If there is a spectrum – from those who treat communion as the reward for good behaviour to those who see it as one of God’s gifts to fix our human sinfulness – then I’m firmly at the latter end of that spectrum. So I pray the rumours are correct, and may Pope Francis work
Church changes marriage rules? Read More »
