Ascension Day: A Rookie Anglican Guide
Ascension Day commemorates Jesus’ Ascension from earth to heaven on the 40th day after his Resurrection.
Today in the Spirit: Easter 7A (Sunday After Ascension)
The Sunday after Ascension Day is the seventh Sunday of the Easter season (just as Pentecost Sunday is the eighth Sunday of Easter). Titling the Sunday as such in the BCP 2019 is a return to the tradition of earlier Anglican Prayer Books, which distinguished Ascensiontide (the ten-day period from Ascension Day to Pentecost) from…
The Dignity and Cross of Motherhood
Motherhood is holy and adorned as such by God in his Word. It is a cross of sorrows. It is a sacrifice made for others in communion with Christ.
Book Review: Sextinction
In her book, Sextinction: The Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy. Dr. Soh takes the reader on a journey through the research to better understand the truth of the sexual recession
Confessing the Faith: Protestant Articles of Religion
In the previous essay, I examined the development of doctrine, especially as it pertains to the Councils and Creeds of the first five centuries.
Today in the Spirit: Easter 6A
Easter 6 Sunday is the last before Ascensiontide, the ten-day period between the remembrance of Jesus’ ascension on the Thursday following this Sunday and Pentecost Sunday. From earlier prayer books, the BCP 2019 has restored the title “Rogation Sunday” to this day. Rogation comes from the Latin rogatio which means “asking.” This Sunday precedes the…
Sola Scriptura: Why the Bible is Our Highest Authority
Sola Scriptura is the doctrine that the Bible is the highest authority in matters of faith and morals. The phrase is Latin for “scripture alone” and indicates that scripture is the final authority to which we can appeal in matters of the faith.
O, The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus: Carried By His Current
Before I understood theology, I understood this: the love of Christ was not something I had to reach for. It was something I was already being held within. We do not learn the love of Christ by mastering it, but by receiving it.
First Clement: A Church Father’s Love of Scripture and Grace
If one were to believe certain corners of the internet, the Apostolic Fathers exist primarily as Catholic bait. The claim is simple: read them honestly, and you will inevitably discover that Protestantism is a tragic misunderstanding foisted upon the Church sometime between Constantine and Luther. The Fathers, we are told, clearly believed in a sacerdotal…
Daily Office Booklet 2026: May–August
Good news! We’ve completed the latest edition of the Daily Office Booklet. Beginning to pray the Daily Office is a great way to start the New Year. This edition will guide you through Morning and Evening Prayer, using the lectionary readings from May through August 2026. As always, we’ve rendered PDFs for you to print in both booklet and…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 5A
By Easter 5A, we have noticed in our Sunday worship that this year the church is leading us through a series of the “I am” statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John. In fact, five of the seven “I am” statements in John are contained in the assigned Gospel readings over nine weeks from…
Book Review: In Defense of Christian Patriotism
Daniel Darling. In Defense of Christian Patriotism. Broadside Books, 2025. 288 pp. Only a marginal minority of Americans has embraced the term “Christian Nationalist.” According to a 2023 Neighborly Faith report, only five percent of respondents self-identified as Christian Nationalists or sympathized with the movement. In most public discourse today, it is a pejorative that…
Patriotism or Nationalism: A Distinction that Makes a Difference
A while back, I had a parishioner ask me, “What is the difference between patriotism and nationalism?” Intuitively, I knew there was a difference, but I struggled to articulate it. Over time, and as the idea of “Christian Nationalism” gained momentum, I continued to ponder the question. Personally, I’m very uncomfortable with the way our political leaders are interpreting…
Hymn Guide: The King of Love My Shepherd Is
If Psalm 23 had been written by Saint Peter rather than King David, the result would be something like “The King of Love My Shepherd Is.”
Today in the Spirit: Easter 4A (Good Shepherd)
Easter 4 is Good Shepherd Sunday every year. The collect and most of the readings through the three-year cycle on this day make explicit reference to God as the shepherd of his people. The assigned Gospel readings for Easter 4 over the three years take us sequentially through most of John 10. Ironically, while we…
Batter My Heart, Three-Person’d God: A Reading of John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV
“Batter My Heart, Three-Person’d God,” also known as Holy Sonnet XIV, is the 17th-century poet-priest John Donne’s brilliant and controversial poem on the primacy of God’s grace in our salvation. Using both martial and marital metaphors, Donne calls God to action, pleading for rescue from our spiritual enemy. Theologically, the poem reflects the reformed principle…
The Anglican Poet-Priests
Anglicanism’s beautiful use of language has shaped the many Christian believers it has discipled. There should be no surprise, then, that the Anglican tradition has produced centuries of poets among its adherents—even its very clergy.
Book Review: That Blessed Liberty
Miles Smith, IV, and Adam Carrington. That Blessed Liberty: Episcopal Bishops and the Development of the American Republic, 1789–1860. Prolego Press, 2025. 179 pp. Between the surrender at Yorktown and the first shots at Sumter, the United States did more than construct a constitutional order. It also quietly and often anxiously reshaped its religious life….
