30 November 2022

A Trilha de Cantuária: culto e reforma

My recent post on The Canterbury Trail: worship and reformation has been translated into Portuguese and posted at Lecionário: A Trilha de Cantuária: culto e reforma. An excerpt follows the Portuguese translation immediately below.

Meu post recente sobre The Canterbury Trail: worship and reformation foi traduzido para o português e postado no Lecionário: A Trilha de Cantuária: culto e reforma. Um trecho:

Webber não me levou ao anglicanismo per se, muito menos a uma comunhão anglicana, uma invenção de meados do século XIX. Mas ler seus livros me ajudou a entender que até alguns dos reformadores do século 16 erraram, especialmente no que diz respeito às liturgias históricas da Igreja. Em qualquer esforço para reformar a igreja, os pretensos reformadores devem diferenciar entre o que pertence legitimamente à tradição da qual são herdeiros e o que são acréscimos antibíblicos. Isso requer conhecimento de como era a igreja antiga e como ela adorava o Deus trino. Infelizmente, os reformadores não tiveram acesso às fontes mais antigas que conhecemos hoje.

Leia o artigo inteiro aqui.

24 November 2022

Nondenominational churches and the liberal narrative

This month Christianity Today reports that ‘Nondenominational’ Is Now the Largest Segment of American Protestants. Although I have no memory of being part of such a nondenominational congregation, my parents had me dedicated as an infant at the Wheaton Bible Church in Wheaton, Illinois, although a year and a half later I would be baptized in an Orthodox Presbyterian congregation near Chicago. Back in the day, WBC was a flourishing congregation just north of downtown. Although the man who presided at my parents' wedding was an ordained Presbyterian minister, he attended this church along with his family. Decades later it is a nondenominational megachurch, having attracted members from other neighbouring congregations, one of which recently closed.

14 November 2022

November newsletter posted

My latest Global Scholars newsletter is now posted online: November 2022 newsletter. Among the news to report: my shoulder pain appears to be improving slowly, and I have received a second grant from the Reid Trust. Thanks for your continued prayers and financial support for my work.

04 November 2022

A new Carolingian era

Christian Courier has posted my latest column: A new Carolingian era, with this subtitle: "Three reasons to believe that King Charles is off to a good start." Here is the second reason:

[A]lthough King Charles has not been as beloved a figure as his late mother, he is heir to a legacy of considerable good will and admiration that she earned during her seven decades of service to her country and to the Commonwealth. Sad to say, the media are not as respectful of the royal office as they were in 1952, yet I believe that our new monarch will rise to the occasion, taking every opportunity to connect with his people on a personal level. He may not be a gregarious person, but neither was his late grandfather, who endeared himself to his people through his courage and dedication during the war.

 Read the first and third reasons here.

03 November 2022

The Canterbury Trail: Liturgy and Reformation

Kuyperian Commentary has published my post, titled, The Canterbury Trail: Liturgy and Reformation. I wrote it in response to a post by Gillis Harp: Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Reflections on the Pilgrimage to Anglicanism Nearly 40 Years After Webber’s Classic. An excerpt:

A close examination of the Apostolic Tradition [of Hyppolytus] and similar early documents indicates that many of the Reformers unduly disposed of much that should have been retained, rejecting some of the substance of the tradition along with the accretions. . . . If the Apostolic Tradition was lost to the Reformers, its liturgical rubrics and texts survived in both the western and eastern rites of the historic church and were thus available to the Reformers of the 16th century in that form. Indeed, Cranmer and Luther retained much of the ordinary of the mass, removing its accretions, translating it into their respective vernacular languages, and prescribing it for use in the churches for which they were responsible.

This is cross posted to my Genevan Psalter blog as well.

02 November 2022

Dooyeweerd and the inadequacy of conservatism and progressivism

One of Abraham Kuyper's philosophical heirs was Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), whose prolific writings are increasingly being translated into English, Portuguese, and other languages. One of his lesser known works is his Encyclopedia of the Science of Law, of which two volumes have thus far been published in English. Although Dooyeweerd was also an heir of Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801-1876), whose analysis of the French Revolution owed much to that of Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Dooyeweerd was severely critical of conservatism in its many manifestations. This is from volume one of the Encyclopedia: