The Internet, Amputation, and Worship

Like everyone in the UK currently I have spent the last few weeks in lockdown. Whilst it’s far from ideal it is a time of real blessing because I am spending so much more time with my family. Life has gotten smaller, more cohesive, and more community-minded. We leave gifts with our neighbours and exchange …

The case for a Catacomb

In the last two months, I’ve been to two funerals, one for my grandfather and one for a man who gave me my first bible of my own. I wrote a bit about grieving in the last piece and why I think burial should be the expected treatment of the dead by the church. In …

Death, Grief, Eschatology and Jeremy Taylor.

In December of last year, my Grandfather died. He had struggled with his health for a while, but he went into hospital fully expecting to make a recovery. Whilst not the most vocal member of our family he had been the patriarch in that traditional sense and his loss hit us all incredibly hard. He …

Summary of my views on Baptism alongside scripture and quotations from the earliest centuries of the Church

Those who have followed this blog for any period of time will know I've spent a lot of time reviewing and figuring out where I stand on Baptism. This was all provoked by the birth of my son coming up to two years ago now. What I've wanted to do for awhile, however, is jot …

Francis Chan and Holy Communion

A group I frequent online posted the below clip of the relatively well known US author pastor Francis Chan talking about the reason people gather for Church. I was amazed by his answer because, with some disagreements on the history of his answer, I otherwise found myself in total agreement with him. That the main …

We are fellow-workers with God

Over the last few years I’ve taken to reading patristics a good deal. I’ve detailed some of my reading here in terms of surveys on various topics on this blog but probably the biggest change is my soteriology. This isn’t a massive secret and perhaps is most explicit in my concluding part of my survey …

Ten reasons as to why I waited to baptise my Son

I recently saw an entry by the minister David Robertson on his reasons for the baptism of his infant Granddaughter. This wasn’t with the aim of reheating overdone debates, despite the piece being aimed particularly at Baptists. Yet it prompted me to go back to the reasons why my wife and I are waiting to …

Christianity and Relics. Part Five: Conclusion

In this series, I’ve tried to map out the development of the veneration of relics and more broadly the cult of the saints. I covered four areas of interest: The early practice of burial in the church for martyrsThe significance of martyrdom and martyrs to the churchBeliefs pertaining to martyrs and the influence of Greco-Roman …

Christianity and Relics. Part Four: The Public Cult

Introduction In my previous entries I outlined the initial early church practice to bury its dead in a mode similar to the culture around it. In my second I looked at the growing prestige of the martyr, in life and death, in the church who came to be seen as a type of individual set …

Christianity and Relics. Part Three: Spiritual Guides

Introduction In my initial entry on this series I had a look at the burial practices of the early church. Showing that up until the 4th century the normative practice was to bury the dead, this included the martyrs. In my second entry I chart how the martyrs themselves had come to be understood as …