Bart Gingerich ⚓

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.

Justification gets you out of Egypt, but sanctification gets Egypt out of you.

The man gets tenure at Hillsdale College and this is how he decides to use it.

We must not cow in fear from prayer, and, just as importantly and more frequently, we must not take the great honor and privilege of prayer for granted. youtube.com/live/QhFnATPx9…

"Ten thousand thousand are their texts, but their sermons are all one," as some wise chap (allegedly Spurgeon) once quipped. This happens nowadays when the "gospel-centered" preacher's eagerness to preach Christ—which is right (John 5:39; Col. 1:28)—is combined with his rejection of moralism (which is also good) without attention to the particular details of the passage itself. The result is that every sermon becomes the same, saying very little besides "You're a sinner, and Christ is your Savior." That's true, and vitally important, but the Bible says a lot more than this. (Indeed, if that were all that God had wanted to say, he could have done so a lot more concisely. Yet, as James Jordan once said, "The Holy Spirit never wastes his breath." And that means the details matter.) On top of making every sermon virtually identical, two other unhappy effects are produced: 1. Biblical imperatives are rarely, if ever, preached. And if/when they are, the commands are used almost exclusively to cite our inability to obey the Lord and the necessity of Christ's death. Again, this is true, but it completely obscures the other (two) uses of moral laws in God's world. 2. Biblical figures are never used as examples. This is an effect of the "You're not David!" emphasis of the last generation. This sounds good to those who imagine that moralism is the only way to miss Christ, but it's a significant departure from the Bible's own teaching. Christians are repeatedly called to consider both positive (Luke 10:37; Rom. 15:4; Heb. 11; ) and negative examples (1 Cor. 10:6–11; Heb. 12:16; 1 John 3:12), imitating the one and rejecting the other. The way forward is to preach ten thousand thousand texts with one saving Lord (i.e., the whole Christ) as the central focus without diminishing the ten thousand thousand implications of his fullness.

Bind them for a sign upon thine hand and as frontlets between thine eyes. The "choose your own adventure" liturgies of the 20th century and following are tremendous liabilities that often also threw out important doctrines and practices that we need to navigate our chaotic world.

As James Kunstler observed, the American manmade landscape is a house of cards built on one thing: dirt cheap oil. One real disruption, and crisis ensues.

@extrasalt513 Scorsese's Silence

Marriage Story

Pls pray for me and my family. My daughter Kim passed away yesterday. She was just 42, struggling with a bout of the flu, and her passing was very unexpected. Please pray especially for Isobel, her 7-yr-old daughter, who discovered her mom "asleep" as she prepared for school. Minimal posting for a while. 😢

The fact that there is no scriptural basis for this aside, it is interesting that it takes the “prayer to saints is basically accommodating the pre-Christian religious instinct toward pantheon” and saying, “well, yes.”

I've said it before and I'll say it again, one of the great benefits of the Book of Common Prayer is protection of the laity against the bright ideas of bishops and presbyters (deacons usually aren't in a position to be as dangerous).

Is Jesus Lord of all creation, or just some of it? Service begins at 9:30 AM Eastern. youtube.com/live/9G85Ik7NZ…

Speaking as someone who writes a fair amount for public consumption: in the last 3-5 years, there’s been an observable collapse in readers’ ability to follow and engage an argument. Most notably, people will raise “counterarguments” addressed in the text of the piece itself (1/x)

Mark Fowler explaining that when everyone has "their truth," the only thing left to fight over is power.

Just had a long-time coworker in his early 60s come and share some deep stuff with me about his life. Was baptized as a kid, wandered away, and he senses God drawing him back. Please say a prayer for J, that he would answer God's call and would not be hindered by the enemy.

@IVMiles @GShaneMorris @johnehrett And I can get stuck in my own ecclesiastical community in terms of dynamics and such, which isn't necessarily reflective of the wider landscape. Like, at all. I saw what you were talking about in the OP all the time in DC/NOVA.

@GShaneMorris @bjgingerich @johnehrett Fwiw, and I think this is important: my tweet really wasn’t about intellectual life perse.

Opinions may vary, but I guess I’ve never experienced this feeling; I’ve never thought the point of hearing preaching was to be dazzled by a feat of intellect, but rather reminded of first principles. So I’ve never expected virtuosity. Maybe this is a Lutheran thing?

The dying, if they died well, preached a sermon no eulogy could replace."

It assumed that a person who has not genuinely reckoned with their mortality is not yet fully awake to their life. Dying was understood as a spiritual discipline, perhaps the final and most important act of Christian witness—a gift to the whole community...

@jamesrwoodtheo on @BenSasse wng.org/opinions/a-cal… "Sasse is a living heir of that tradition, largely lost in the contemporary church—the art of dying well, exemplified in works like Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Dying...