The Lord’s Supper. Part Two: The Early Church, 1st-3rd Century

In my first entry I looked at practices in scripture around the Lord’s Supper. In this entry we’ll be looking at what the earliest Father’s of the church believed on the subject.  In the 17th century the Primate of Ireland James Ussher publicly wrote in response to a Jesuit Polemicist on the subject of the …

Confirmation: One Lord, One Faith… One Baptism?

In the early centuries of the church, there were several debates surrounding the baptism of heretics and its efficacy. A church council under Cyprian of Carthage on this topic stated in the 3rd century: Primus of Misgirpa said: I decide, that every man who comes to us from heresy must be baptized. For in vain …

Christianity and Relics. Part Two: Martyrdom

Introduction In my first entry on this series on relics I looked at several examples of how the early church treated its dead. Three of the four examples of burial I looked at were the aftermath of martyrdom. To be martyred was to be more than a confessor of the faith, it was a position …

Abuse, Ecclesiology, and the Eucharist

When news of the abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church was popular news I became really interested in how the laity responded to what was unfolding. A reoccurring theme was that many laity were sick of the practices of many of the clergy but had nowhere to go because of their beliefs around apostolic …

On Baptism and it’s timing. Part Two: Witness of the Early Church

In the first part of this endeavour, I took a brief top-level view at the passages that had been raised by others, from scripture, during my discussions and reading on the topic on the timing of baptism. What I hope to subsequently address in this next, albeit not final part of my exploration is the …