On the Priesthood of All Believers

I’d seen in my blog’s tracking stats, that a three-year-old post, Open Theism and the Essence-Energy Distinction, has been getting a bit of traffic recently, so I re-read it, and while doing so it occurred to me that definitional divine simplicity impacts the biblical doctrine of the priesthood of all believers creating a distortion that [...]

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The Christian Catacombs of Rome

Nice site over all. This page–The Christian Catacombs of Rome–deals with the liturgy and theology of the catacombs.

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What House Churches Were Really Like

This’ll rock yer world if you think house churches were all about sitting around in the first-century equivalent of jeans and tee-shirts, groovin’ to some guitar-strummin’ praise songs, and just chillin’ fer Jeeezuss.
Architecture of the Ancient House Church [H/T: kevinburt]

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Dr David Bradshaw’s Home Page

Please visit Dr. David Bradshaw’s homepage which contain some extremely intelligent and useful essays (particular a couple of papers on the term energeia, or, in English, “energies”).
You will not be disappointed.

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Why Social Justice is Not a Category of Ecclesial Thought

It’s an intentionally provocative title, so let me clarify what is and isn’t meant. But first let me say that this post will not explore in any great detail the relationship between the Church and the state, though such talk will nonetheless be inescapable. I will not here entertain acceptance of or defend [...]

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Differences

As a Protestant, one of the key mental operators one has is the opposition to Rome. Depending upon the Protestant group, though I have in mind here and throughout this reflection evangelical Protestants, one more or less defines oneself over against Rome. This, of course, results in a distortion of Roman doctrine and [...]

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Reinventing the Wheel, of Sorts

From my friend Tripp, comes this link to an article by The Alban Institute: “Church for the 21st Century”. Tripp cites the paragraphs from the article indicating (though giving no statistics) a similar sort of growth among progressive churches as among the more conservative evangelical and fundamentalist churches and megachurches. I continue to [...]

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Is Peter the Rock?

T. R. Valentine: Is Peter the Rock? A Look at Matthew 16

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More on the Dialectic of Opposition: Some Practical Comments Regarding Scripture and Tradition

First of all, I failed to make clear in my earlier post linking to the dialectic of opposition comments at All Saints Forum, my indebtedness to Perry Robinson and Joseph Farrell’s book, Free Choice in Saint Maximus the Confessor, for highlighting this dynamic for me. It’s definitely not an original thought on my part. [...]

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The Body of Christ

The Church is Christ’s Body.  Yes, this image is a metaphor, and so we must be careful of literalizing the image beyond what the metaphor carries.
That said, a human body is not just the aggregate sum of its parts.  You don’t just pile a bunch of organs and limbs on a table and say: There’s a [...]

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