Fathers to tend the desert

One of my refrains to God in prayer, over the last few years, has been something along the lines of Psalm 63: “You, God, are my God, I earnestly seek you … in this dry and weary land where there is no water.” It has been thrown into sharp relief recently by the weather in …

The dangers of reading theology

It’s been a while since my last post and whilst a big part of that is down to moving, I no longer live in London, the real reason is that I’ve been at something of a low ebb since then. Moving took me out of my church and forced me to attempt to find a …

The Lord’s Supper. Part Three: The Early Church, 4th-5th Century

I previously wrote on the summary of Christian views on the Lord’s Supper dating from the 1st to the 3rd century. I couched this from the outset with the choice offered by the Anglican prelate James Ussher to consider whether the fathers not only taught that bread becomes Christ to us or that we might …

The Body of Christ

In my last post I wrote up a reflection I had on the Nicene Creed and I've been continuing to have a think about what it is I believe and attempting to put this in writing. I've since gone away and had a go at writing up my views on the church as it stands. …

Reflection on the Nicene Creed

Over the last while I've been feeling challenged to try and articulate what it is I believe in writing. This isn't because it's necessarily changed but because I'm trying to figure out how to articulate it in a robust way and the act of writing can help make my thinking clearer. What I've found tricky …

Is Liturgy a Means? Or an End?

I grew up in a fairly low liturgical environment, it was liturgical but in the sense that there was a shared structure and framework that I recognised when I went to other churches from the same tradition. It did, however, avoid a lot of the trappings and paraphernalia one tends to think of in a …

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 …

Christianity as the urban religion

I'm currently reading David Frye's good book entitled "Walls: A History of Civilisation in Blood and Brick" and he uses the construction of walls to demarcate between 'civilisation' on one side and the 'wilderness' on the other. This got me thinking about the disposition and historic residence of the Church along these lines. Walls create …

What I have changed, what I retain, what I wish for more in practice

I don’t know how appropriate this is but with my recent reflections I’ve been wrestling with some of the cognitive dissonances I’ve been feeling about my place in the Church. Becoming a Father has raised a lot for me and prompted me to examine what I believe on a range of issues. I've also been …

On Baptism and it’s timing. Part Four: Conclusion

Introduction Having looked at Baptism I am left with a number of impressions. On the one hand we hear everyone who is saved is baptised. On the other hand not everyone who is baptised is saved. What is more is that baptism takes a panoply of forms. It can be in the ark of Noah, …