Fr. Ron Offringa

Paperback Catechisms just arrived. Looking forward to using these with our next round of Catechumens in July.

Lord of Life #Church #RanchoCucamonga #Fontana #Ontario #Upland #InlandEmpire #Jesus #Bible #Christianity #christianreels #anglican #churchplant #pentecost #holyspirit #spirit #nicenecreed

“The Census of Bethlehem” by Pieter Bruegel, The Elder. He was called “The Elder” in order to distinguish him from his son, also named Pieter, who was a very successful artist. Bet you didn’t know that! Neither did I until I Googled the crap out of it.

You Cannot Love What You Do Not Know #Church #RanchoCucamonga #Fontana #Ontario #Upland #InlandEmpire #Jesus #Bible #Christianity #christianreels #anglican #churchplant #religion #spirituality #reconstruction #questions #priest #love #knowledge

You Belong to One Another #Church #RanchoCucamonga #Fontana #Ontario #Upland #InlandEmpire #Jesus #Bible #Christianity #Sacraments #christianreels #anglican #churchplant #baptism #communion #religion #spirituality #reconstruction #questions #priest

@uncle_deluge I welcome a new edition, but to say they’re out of print and extremely expensive isn’t my experience. There is the Nashotah House Press version, which is a reprint of the 1852 edition (only $25). There is also Bray’s critical edition, which is $53.

The Anglican 39 Articles mention two "Books of Homilies" which are, hypothetically, the second most important source of authority in the entire Church of England. They've been out print in all but extremely expensive academic editions for like 150 years. They were, anyway

@monkofjustice @wandlearner Laity are subject to local church discipline, which is executed in consultation with the bishop. While it is unlikely that an article might rise to the level of discipline, it is possible, especially given its public nature.

The self-description is the topic, and the author made it so by choosing to describe himself that way - I don't believe that lay persons are "subject" to bishops and I think that this misconception lies at the heart of much that is wrong in ACNA today. Clergy are subject, and bishops are pastors of their people, but laity are not subject to discipline in ACNA. This is unhealthy.

Perhaps someone who describes himself "a layman of the ACNA under Bp. Dobbs, and a writer on theology," has a big misunderstanding of Anglican ecclesiology, and may be a symptom of a key challenge facing ACNA - dioceses or cults of personality?

@mugjudge @monkofjustice It is different, but I do think it’s important for lay people to know who their bishop is and recognize the authority he has over them. Over-association and “who is that guy in the purple?” are opposite extremes, but I’d take the former over the latter.

@monkofjustice I've always found it a bit odd when laymen overly associate themselves with their Bishop. The lay relationship is quite distinct from the clerical one.

@mrdavidrowe @eleysium substack.com/home/post/p-19…

@eleysium Where is this from?

On Bishop Lowenfeld:

@lambeth981 If that’s what McDermott means then I would disagree with him, too. As we argued in our article, Athanasius does not appeal to Nicaea to correct Arius, but to the Scriptures. Augustine himself does the same, calling Scripture alone that without error.

@RonOffringa There is a difference between consistency and norming. As I understand Gerald, he seems to think the scriptures are normed by patristic consensus. I think this undoes the central point of sola scriptura which is that scripture is the norm that norms every other norm

Man this is bad. I have respect for the author but no, Gafcon did not “split the communion,” and, no, we should not go back to Canterbury since Canterbury has departed from the Church and, no, we are not going to throw over sola scriptura for the strange and unnecessary “prima scriptura.” firstthings.com/anglicans-and-…

@lambeth981 I think the Jerusalem Declaration (Article 2), 39 Articles, and the Prefaces of the 1549 and 1662 BCPs commend to us the same hermeneutic, which is to seek consistency with those who delivered the faith to us all the while holding Scripture to be the only infallible authority.

I have since the beginning rejected the prima scriptura label as Dr. McDermott describes it. We’ve had him on Stand Firm to discuss it and it is not consistent with the sola scriptura of the magisterial reformers since it sets the “patristic consensus” as the norming agent of the scriptures rather than the scriptures as the norma normans of every other source of authority.

@lambeth981 Thank you, Fr. Kennedy. In the article he is critiquing what Gerald McDermott calls “the Sola Scriptura of liberal Protestantism,” which he, you, and I would all reject. Instead he affirms Sola Scriptura as Hooker, our Formularies, and the Jerusalem Declaration understand it.

@RonOffringa Has he said he doesn’t want to get rid of sola scriptura? It sounds like he does to me. I’ll definitely add an addendum to the OP about Canterbury when I get home

Come Back to Church #Church #RanchoCucamonga #Fontana #Ontario #Upland #InlandEmpire #Jesus #Bible #Christianity #Sacraments #christianreels #anglican #churchplant #baptism #communion #religion #spirituality #reconstruction #questions #priest

Adjusting terminology for theological and rhetorical clarity is Patristic: the language of Nicaea I was adjusted and clarified in Constantinople I. If one says 'Sola' and is consistently misunderstood to mean Nuda, Prima is a helpful clarifier.

@discipulusjesu I wrote a longer article about his views on the descent and purgatory to try to resolve some of these issues (for Dr. Price's Augustine class). Perhaps I should publish it on substack.

@discipulusjesu Right - I think this gets at his hesitancy around using 1 Cor 3 as a defense of post-mortem purgation. That's the only hesitancy I've seen in him - not doctrinal, but text specific.

Re: the claim that St. Augustine "clearly teaches Purgatory." In Enchiridion 69 (produced below), what's clear to me is that the doctrine is speculative in his mind ("it is not impossible"), and that it is not "of the faith" (it "may be ... either ascertained or left doubtful")

@GodRemembrancer Said author was an editor of this piece on Scripture which clearly defends Sola Scriptura, rightly understood. We can disagree about the rhetorical efficaciousness of Prima vs Sola, but in terms of meaning there is clear agreement. commentary.anglican.center/jd-article-2/

While I certainly sympathize with the author of the latest First Things essay on Anglicanism. Using a straw-man definition of “Sola Scriptura”, which amounts to something like “private interpretation gone wild”, is simply historically inaccurate. “Sola Scriptura”, as traditionally held by Anglicans, is not about hermeneutics (interpretation) but authority, so it is unnecessary to create a new slogan like “Prima Scriptura” to combat those who ignorantly misuse the term to mean that Scripture is to be interpreted outside of the church's witness. Hooker and many other Anglican divines argue so much more elegantly against the radical misuse of God’s Word and see no need to jettison Article XX and its clear distinctives. From Article XX we see two realities in necessary concert: 1. “The church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies and authority in controversies of faith” 2. “…it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s word written, neither may it expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore although the church be a witness and a keeper of holy writ, yet, as it out not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.” The answer to the problem of illicit ordinations is not to jettison the formularies and the theological work of those Anglicans who came before us, but to embrace them and use their work to offer real prescriptions for healing the communion rather than trying to copy the notes of other traditions.

@lambeth981 Critiques of his approach and rhetoric are fair, but I don't think it is fair to leave your original tweet uncorrected. If he really is a priest you respect, an ally, clarifying that he did not call for a return to Canterbury or the overthrow of Sola Scriptura is warranted.

@RonOffringa I think that purpose would have been better served by treating this as a friendly disagreement among allies. That is not at all how it comes across. And then pushing the novel prima scriptura thing only alienates a huge swath of people who might otherwise lend a sympatheitc ear

@discipulusjesu Perhaps, although Augustine does elsewhere speak of the two different fires corresponding to Hades and Gehenna (De Civ.21.10). He does the same in Gn. litt. 12.61 where he speaks of Hades as spiritual, but Gehenna as physical and spiritual.

@RonOffringa Add to that the "concremantem ignem transitoriae tribulationis"—the consuming fire of transitory tribulation—possibly experienced by these departed spirits, where the fire is seemingly metaphorical for the tribulation

@FrMatkin @SwannHnesce Again, Fr. Thomas is opposed to WO and affirms the traditional view of marriage.

@SwannHnesce @RonOffringa If men and women are sacramentally interchangeable for Holy Orders, why not for Holy Matrimony too?

Except for the last sentence, this is spot on. You cannot be inconsistent in making doctrine up for grabs on the one hand and while asserting that doctrine is clear and unchangeable on the other. We have no right to change any doctrine, ever. firstthings.com/anglicans-and-…