Prayer is an attitude of our hearts, an attitude of mind. Prayer is a definite attitude of our hearts toward God, an attitude which He in heaven immediately recognizes as prayer, as an appeal to His heart. Whether it takes the form of words or not, does not mean anything to God, only to ourselves.

What is this spiritual condition? What is that attitude of heart which God recognizes as prayer? I would mention two things.

1. In the first place, helplessness.

This is unquestionably the first and the surest indication of a praying heart. As far as I can see, prayer has been ordained only for the helpless. It is the last resort of the helpless. Indeed, the very last way out. We try everything before we finally resort to prayer. This is not only true of us before our conversion. Prayer is our last resort also throughout our whole Christian life. I know very well that we offer many and beautiful prayers, both privately and publicly, without helplessness as the impelling power. But I am not at all positive that this is prayer.

Prayer and helplessness are inseparable. Only he who is helpless can truly pray.

Listen to this, you who are often so helpless that you do not know what to do. At times you do not even know how to pray. Your mind seems full of sin and impurity. Your mind is preoccupied with what the Bible calls the world. God and eternal and holy things seem so distant and foreign to you that you feel that you add sin to sin by desiring to approach God in such a state of mind.

Now and then you must ask yourself the question, “Do I really desire to be set free from the luke-warmness of my heart and my worldly life? Is not my Christian life always lukewarm and half-hearted for the simple reason that deep down in my heart I desire it that way?”

Thus an honest soul struggles against the dishonesty of his own being. He feels himself so helplessly lost that his prayers freeze on his very lips.

Listen, my friend! Your helplessness is your best prayer. It calls from your heart to the heart of God with greater effect than all your uttered pleas. He hears it from the very moment that you are seized with helplessness, and He becomes actively engaged at once in hearing and answering the prayer of your helplessness. He hears today as He heard the helpless and wordless prayer of the man sick with the palsy.

–Ole Hallesby Prayer (Augsburg, 1931), Book One, read by yours truly in preparation for last weekend’s Saint Philip’s parish retreat on prayer

Last day of teaching at Norwegian School of Theology. I love having spiritual giant Ole Hallesby watching from the … pic.twitter.com/t4532dyBMQ

— Tony Watkins ✍🏻 (@tonywatkins_) February 5, 2016

If the gospels are comparable to other biographies in the Greco-Roman world of the first century, what does that tell us about their reliability as historical sources?

If we apply these genre expectations to the Gospels, we should affirm that, at least on average, most accounts in the Gospels reflect actual events in the life of Jesus. Now, those of us with theological commitments to the text may believe more than that, and those with ideological commitments against the text may affirm less than that, but at least this approach can get us all into the same historiographic ballpark. Most events and themes in the Gospels reflect relatively recent memory of Jesus. Thus the figure that we meet in the Gospels, despite different emphases from one Gospel to another, is the figure of Jesus.

How do we know that the gospels don’t fall into the category of mythology or a related fictional genre?

Novels and collections of mythography did not deal with real persons of the past generation or two. Most ancient novels are purely fictitious romances; the minority of novels that use historical characters are set in the distant past. Moreover, they do not cleave closely to their sources the way Matthew and Luke obviously do. Since the dependence of Matthew and Luke on prior sources shows that they clearly are interested in prior information, and since they use Mark with such confidence as a reliable source—Matthew tweaks Mark, but includes more than 90 percent of the events he reports—and since they wrote fairly soon after Mark, and were in a far better position to evaluate Mark’s reliability than are modern scholars, it seems clear that they are writing information-based works, quite different from ancient novels.

Read it all.

The gospels don’t fall into the category of mythology or a related fictional genre. Here’s how we knowhttps://t.co/v3vAXndFLQ

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) October 28, 2019

O God, we thank thee for the glorious company of the apostles, and especially on this day for Simon and Jude; and we pray thee that, as they were faithful and zealous in their mission, so we may with ardent devotion make known the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

28th October ~ Saint Simon the Zealot and Saint Jude Thaddeus
Apostles, Missionaries, Martyrs #PrayForUs pic.twitter.com/7taaTxSPaZ

— TrueHolyFace (@TrueHolyFace) October 28, 2016

The agony was caused by a vivid, bright, full, immediate view of the wrath of God. The Father, as it were, set the cup down before him…he now had a near view of that furnace into which he was about to be cast. He stood and viewed its raging flames and the glowing of its heat, that he might know where he was going and what he was about to suffer.

Christ was going to be cast into a dreadful furnace of wrath, and it was not proper that he should plunge himself into it blindfold, as not knowing how dreadful the furnace was. Therefore, that he might not do so, God first brought him and set him at the mouth of the furnace, that he might look in, and stand and view its fierce and raging flames, and might see where he was going, and might voluntarily enter into it and bear it for sinners, as knowing what it was. This view Christ had in his agony…Then he acted as knowing what he did; then his taking that cup, and bearing such dreadful sufferings, was properly his own act by an explicit choice; and so his love to sinners was the more wonderful, as also his obedience to God in it.

If just the taste and glimpse of these sufferings were enough to throw the eternal Son of God into shock, and to nearly kill him in the anticipation of them, what was the actual, full experience of those sufferings on the cross really like?

–From his remarkable sermon Christ’s Agony and quoted by yours truly in the morning sermon (my emphasis)

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, 1584 https://t.co/bevbNegrsu #paoloveronese #mannerism pic.twitter.com/GqKEqOQgP5

— Paolo Veronese (@ArtistVeronese) October 27, 2019

Most Holy God, whose servant Tabitha thou didst raise from the dead to display thy power and confirm thy message that thy Son is Lord; grant unto us thy grace, that aided by her prayers and example, we may be given a new life in thy Spirit to do works pleasing in thy sight; Through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord; who livest and reignest with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

“Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity.” – Acts 9:36 @ESVBible pic.twitter.com/XEEq1aoatG

— Joshua Rystedt (@JoshuaRystedt) October 25, 2017

Grant, we beseech thee, O God, that after the example of thy servant James the Just, brother of our Lord, thy Church may give itself continually to prayer and to the reconciliation of all who are at variance and enmity; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.

#October23 Feast Day of Saint James of Jerusalem. pic.twitter.com/D0boshdaM2

— JoS. S. Laughon (@paleomexicano) October 24, 2016

It is a common misconception that Christianity first came to Africa via white missionaries in the colonial era. In the New Testament, we meet a highly educated African man who became a follower of Jesus centuries before Christianity penetrated Britain or America. In Acts 8, God directs the apostle Philip to the chariot of an Ethiopian eunuch. The man was “a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure” (Acts 8:27, ESV). Philip hears the Ethiopian reading from the Book of Isaiah and explains that Isaiah was prophesying about Jesus. The Ethiopian immediately embraces Christ and asks to be baptized (Acts 8:26–40).

We don’t know how people responded when the Ethiopian eunuch took the gospel home. But we do know that in the fourth century, two slave brothers precipitated the Christianization of Ethiopia and Eritrea, which led to the founding of the second officially Christian state in the world. We also know that Christianity took root in Egypt in the first century and spread by the second century to Tunisia, the Sudan, and other parts of Africa.

Furthermore, Africa spawned several of the early church fathers, including one of the most influential theologians in Christian history: the fourth-century scholar Augustine of Hippo. Likewise, until they were all but decimated by persecution, Iraq was home to one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world. And returning to Sengmei’s homeland, far from only being reached in the colonial era, the church in India claims a lineage going back to the first century. While this is impossible to verify, leading scholar Robert Eric Frykenberg concludes, “It seems certain that there were well-established communities of Christians in South India no later than the third and fourth centuries, and perhaps much earlier.” Thus, Christianity likely took root in India centuries before the Christianization of Britain.

Many of us associate Christianity with white, Western imperialism. There are reasons for this—some quite ugly, regrettable reasons. But most of the world’s Christians are neither white nor Western, and Christianity is getting less white and less Western by the day.

Read it all.

Many of us associate Christianity with white, Western imperialism. There are reasons for this—some quite ugly reasons.

But most of the world’s Christians are neither white nor Western, and Christianity is getting less white and less Western by the dayhttps://t.co/NTYOFQquZl

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) October 20, 2019

O God of the nations, who didst give to thy faithful servant Henry Martyn a brilliant mind, a loving heart, and a gift for languages, that he might translate the Scriptures and other holy writings for the peoples of India and Persia: Inspire in us, we beseech thee, a love like his, eager to commit both life and talents to thee who gavest them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Henry Martyn (1781–1812) lived a short, lonely but fruitful life as a Christian missionary & scholar. He become chaplain to the East India Company in Bengal, ending up translating the New Testament & the Book of Common Prayer into Hindustani & Farsi – https://t.co/DGSl5mx3o6. pic.twitter.com/stOts3KkyC

— Peterborough Cathedral (@pborocathedral) October 19, 2019

It is surprising to learn, therefore, that Lewis himself thought that his gifts for evangelism were rather limited. During World War II, he was asked to speak to pilots from the Royal Air Force. His early talks were such a complete failure that he began to ask RAF chaplains for help. Lewis would present intellectual arguments for the truth of Christianity, and then the chaplain would invite the men to put their faith in Jesus Christ.

One of the chaplains remembers Lewis saying to him: “Haddon, I wish I could do the heart stuff. I can’t. I wish I could. I wish I could press home to these boys just how much they need Christ… . Haddon, you do the heart stuff and I’ll do the head stuff” (Bishop A. W. Goodwin-Hudson, Audio Interview, Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College, IL).

That is a sensible approach to evangelism. Lewis recognized that evangelism is a team sport. He knew that he couldn’t do it all, but he was willing to do as much as he could, and then let others do the rest. Afterwards, he liked to quote Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Cor. 3:6-7).

Read it all.

Thank you, C.S. Lewis ✨ #NarniaDay pic.twitter.com/OIAn2H7eE3

— Once A Narnian 🦁 (@OnceANarnian) October 17, 2019

Almighty God, who didst inspire thy servant Luke the physician to set forth in the Gospel the love and healing power of thy Son: Graciously continue in thy Church the like love and power to heal, to the praise and glory of thy Name; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Today we celebrate the Feast of Saint Luke, Evangelist and Physician. We give thanks for for the work of the @NHSuk and pray for all physicians and healthcare professionals. Saint Luke, pray for them @EastLancsHosp pic.twitter.com/MmOUgfXwMx

— Father Roger Parker (@SCathsParsonage) October 18, 2018

I share Dr. Moore’s love for books and movies which tell inspiring true stories of faith. They always contain the element of struggle and hardship overcome by courage and great effort. Each story is unique, with the common denominator being the individual’s relationship with God. Some of my favorites titles are Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Diebler Rose, God’s Smuggler by Brother Andrew with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, and Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot. All are stories of people who leave their own countries, like Gladys Aylward did, to go to another country to spread the gospel.

But what about another kind of calling, one in which one’s mission field is right where they are? How do we recognize that call? Jesus says to us, “Follow me.” How do we know where he is leading?

In Gladys Aylward’s story and many other missionary stories, there is usually a strong desire to do something. In Catherine Marshall’s classic autobiography, Beyond Ourselves, there were dramatic changes to her life’s circumstances that caused her to fervently seek the Lord out of a strong need for guidance (she went on to be a celebrated Christian writer, and her books have played an important role in discipling me). For many of us, we may feel a sense of dissatisfaction with our lives, a longing for something more (also one of Catherine Marshall’s book titles).

In any case, out of love, Jesus calls each of us with the voice of his Holy Spirit, to let us know that the Father has written a compelling story for our lives. As we learn to quiet our thoughts, ask for the Spirit’s leading, and listen for His voice, our unique stories truly begin to be written.

Read it all.

St. Philip’s Church: Charleston, SC Jesus is Always Calling https://t.co/aqeR4ai3yJ ‘Like any good story, our kingdom story will include challenges. But the Kingdom life is a call to a life that overcomes’ #anglican #churchhistory

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 17, 2019

Ignatius offers a fascinating insight into the heart of a true man of God given over to His will. It is tempting to want to leap from his example and vision of episcopacy to its practice within our own Church at this time, but such a leap needs great care. A bishop in the first decade of the second century cannot fairly be compared even to one of 250 years later let alone in the Church of today. The three-fold ministry was still in an early stage of its development. Even though Lightfoot has cogently argued that a case can be made for regarding episcopacy as being of Apostolic direction, and therefore possessing Divine sanction, long years of evolution and growth lay before it. At this stage too the Church across the Roman Empire faced the daily possibility of considerable persecution and martyrdom. That demanded a particular kind of shepherding and witness.

On the other hand a bishop at the beginning of the third millennium might profitably and properly ask (or be asked) whether endless committees and synods are really the way in which their lives are to be laid down for their flock? An institution requires administration, but in the New Testament list of charisms, administrators are quite low in the order of priorities, and of its pastors at this time the Church has other, more pressing, needs. Rather than imposing upon an already disheartened clergy systems of appraisal (mostly copied from secular models of management) it would be good for parish priests to experience bishops as those who were around so much that they could afford regularly to ”˜drop in’ and just be with them. It is hard to expect the parish clergy to make visiting a priority if their fathers in God do not set an example.

In some dioceses the more obviously pastoral role has sometimes been exercised by a suffragan but as more and more diocesan bishops, at least within the Church of England, are being selected from the ranks of the suffragans the temptation is for those who are ambitious to prove their worth more as potential managers than those given to the ‘Word of God and prayer’ (Acts 6.2). If the communities within which the bishops are to exercise their ministry of unity and care are too large for them to do their work has not the time come to press for smaller dioceses and for bishops to strip themselves of the remnants of the grandeur their office once held and be found, above all, with their clergy and amongst the people, drawing them together into the unity for which Christ gave himself?

Read it all.

“We have not only to be called Christians,
but to be Christians.”

-St. Ignatius of Antioch- pic.twitter.com/U48GdrugvU

— FrDavid AbernethyCO (@pghoratory) October 17, 2019

Almighty God, we praise thy name for thy bishop and martyr Ignatius of Antioch, who offered himself as grain to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts that he might present unto thee the pure bread of sacrifice. Accept, we pray thee, the willing tribute of our lives, and give us a share in the pure and spotless offering of thy Son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Ah, ohlala, que je souffre, oh, c’est terrible !
Cesare Fracanzano – Martyrdom of Saint Ignatius of Antioch. N.d., XVIIth century pic.twitter.com/qbVbKSFkrg

— Corentin (@Atogadp) September 28, 2016

As long as Christians assume we are still living in Christendom, the church will continue to decline in the West, no matter how ferociously Christians fight to maintain power and privilege. If anything, the harder Christians fight, the more precipitous the decline will be, for cultural power and privilege will come at an increasingly high price. Christians will either accommodate until the faith becomes almost unrecognizable, or they will isolate until their faith becomes virtually invisible.

Nothing short of a change of church culture will suffice—from a culture of entertainment, politics, personality, and program to a culture of discipleship. Such a radical change will require patience, steadiness, and purposefulness.

The good news is, we are not alone, and the story of early Christianity reminds us of this fact. Faithful Christians have gone before us, bearing witness to the truth of Christianity, the power of the gospel, and the high calling of discipleship. Calling out across the centuries, they tell us that it is possible now, as it was then, to live as faithful followers of Jesus the Lord in a culture that does not approve of it or reward it.

Two millennia ago, Jesus Christ—his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension—set in motion a movement that turned the world upside down. He is the same Lord today. It can happen again.

Read it all.

The early church’s survival and growth against all odds should encourage and challenge us Christians today https://t.co/vTgW2icWbp

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) October 16, 2019

Keep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness, after the examples of thy servants Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer; that we may live in thy fear, die in thy favor, and rest in thy peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

On this day in 1555, Latimer and Ridley were burned for their evangelical faith in Oxford. The candle they lit in England has still not gone out. #semperreformanda pic.twitter.com/WZLRfEhgpn

— Union (@UnionTheology) October 16, 2018

Dan Hitchens recently described Newman as “a literary and theological genius.” That he certainly was. For years, I have told students who want to improve their prose that they need to read three great English writers: William Hazlitt, George Orwell, and Cardinal Newman. No less a connoisseur of literary elegance than James Joyce, speaking through Stephen Dedalus, declared Newman to be the greatest of all English prose stylists.

But for all of the dazzling brilliance of the sermons and the Apologia, his writings do vary dramatically in quality. His novels are mediocre, replete with cardboard characters and dreary, didactic speechifying. Callista has some curiosity value as a Christian novel set in the third century, but only Loss and Gain has remained consistently in print; and that, I suspect, is not because of its literary merit but because of its trite apologetic for Rome. As for Newman’s theology, the Development and the Grammar certainly represent serious and influential contributions to religious thought. Yet Tract XC remains one of the most self-serving and embarrassing pieces of historical and theological tosh ever penned by an otherwise intelligent person. Not even the author found his arguments cogent or persuasive—why should anyone else do so?

Yet Protestants, as I have written elsewhere, should read Newman and take him seriously, particularly his thoughts on doctrinal development and on Christianity as a dogmatic faith. But there are other reasons to study his work. While it may seem paradoxical to say this, his very lack of originality is also one of his great contributions to the Christian faith.

Read it all.

Newman’s doctrine of God and his Christology were unoriginal; but his rhetoric has few equals in the history of the church.https://t.co/fo723VxNVg

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) October 9, 2019

O God, who by thy Holy Spirit didst move Teresa of Avila to manifest to thy Church the way of perfection: Grant us, we beseech thee, to be nourished by her excellent teaching, and enkindle within us a lively and unquenchable longing for true holiness; through Jesus Christ, the joy of loving hearts, who with thee and the same Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever.

St Teresa of Avila’s Bookmark:

Let nothing trouble you
Let nothing frighten you
All is passing
God alone is unchanging
Patience obtains everything
Whoever has God
Lacks nothing
God alone suffices.#MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/DpIwj1UckY

— Carmelite Nuns GB (@carmelnunsgb) October 14, 2019

“My hunch is that if people know anything about St Augustine, their picture is probably overwhelmingly negative,” Professor James K. A. Smith says, occupying a booth in the foyer of a South Kensington hotel. He suspects that they think of the fourth-century Bishop of Hippo as “the inventor of the doctrine of Original Sin . . . the champion of celibacy, and the generator of a particularly narrow doctrine of sexual ethics”.

If there is one misconception that he hopes that his new book will correct, it is the idea of an angry dogmatist: “When you really spend time with Augustine he is remarkably vulnerable, humble, and very much imagines himself as a co-pilgrim with people, rather than sitting up on this dais, sort of announcing and denouncing.”

Augustine is, he writes, less a judge than an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor.

With a titular nod to Kerouac, On the Road with Saint Augustine offers the reader “an invitation to journey with an ancient African who will surprise you by the extent to which he knows you”.

Read it all.

At @ChurchTimes, @james_ka_smith and Madeleine Davies had a lovely conversation about Augustine and why the theologian might have something vital to say to our present age.https://t.co/5nMrBxgN6f pic.twitter.com/ZRbGFR29Zw

— Brazos Press (@BrazosPress) October 14, 2019

Family, friends, honor, and integrity: These are natural loves. Throughout history, men and women have been willing to die for these loves. As Christians, though, we claim to be animated—first and foremost—by a supernatural love: love for God as our Creator and Jesus Christ as his Son. St. Polycarp, for all his caution and prudence, eventually did choose martyrdom rather than repudiate his Christian faith.

The issue at hand is this: Are we really willing to do the same; and if so, how must we live in a way that proves it? These aren’t theoretical questions. They’re brutally real. Right now Christians in many countries around the world are facing the choice of Jesus Christ or death. Last year the German novelist Martin Mosebach published an account of the 21 migrant workers in Libya who were kidnapped by Muslim extremists and executed for their faith. Twenty were Coptic Christians from Egypt. One was another African who refused to separate himself from his brothers in the faith.

The murder of those 21 Christians is captured on video. It’s hard to watch—not just because the act is barbaric, but also because, in our hearts, we fear that, faced with the same choice, we might betray our faith in order to save our lives. Put frankly, the martyrs, both ancient and modern, frighten us as much as they inspire us. And maybe this reaction makes perfect sense. Maybe it’s a version of the biblical principle that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of martyrdom is the beginning of an honest appraisal of our spiritual mediocrity.

So I think we should consider this fear for a moment, rather than repressing it, as we so often do.

The Christian men beheaded on the Libyan beach are not really so remote from us. The worry we naturally feel, that we might fail a similar test, is a concrete and urgent version of the anxiety we rightly feel when we think about coming before the judgment of God. If we’re honest about ourselves, we know that we’re likely to fail that test too. After all, we’re barely able to live up to the basic demands of the Ten Commandments. Many of us have trouble following even the minimal norms of a Catholic life: regular confession and Mass attendance, kindness to others, and a few minutes of daily prayer. If those very simple things are struggles, how can we possibly have the spiritual strength to face martyrdom? Or the judgment of a just God?

Read it all.

Chaput: “It’s a good thing, a vital thing, to consider what we’re willing to die for. What do we love more than life? To even ask that question is an act of rebellion against a loveless age. And to answer it with conviction is to become a revolutionary…” https://t.co/E0bibJYVC5

— Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanTAnd) October 14, 2019

On October 15, 1906, Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, the Jewish-born, rabbinical school-trained, former Anglican bishop of Shanghai, died in Tokyo, after a lengthy illness, at age 75. Apart from the novelty interest of a converted Jew becoming a church official and serving in the exotic East, Schereschewsky is remembered for having produced a much-respected translation into Mandarin Chinese of the Hebrew Bible, among other sacred texts, which became the standard 20th-century translation.

Samuel Schereschewsky was born on May 6, 1831, in Tauroggen, a Jewish shtetl in the Russian empire, in what is today southwest Lithuania. Both of his parents ”“ the former Rosa Salvatha, of Sephardi-Jewish heritage, and Samuel Joseph Schereschewsky ”“ died when he was very young. Samuel was apparently raised by a much older half-brother, a timber merchant who was the product of his father’s first marriage.

At age 15, he left his brother’s home, and held jobs as a glazier and as a Hebrew tutor before entering the rabbinical seminary in Zhytomir, in Ukraine.

Read it all.

Monday we remember Samuel Isaac Joseph Scherechewsky, Bishop of Shanghai, 1906. Schereschewsky completed his translation of the Bible, typing some 2,000 pages with the middle finger of his partially crippled hand. pic.twitter.com/89I8eVkFSm

— Louisville Cathedral (@ChristChurchLou) October 13, 2019

O God, who in thy providence didst call Joseph Schereschewsky from his home in Eastern Europe to the ministry of this Church, and didst send him as a missionary to China, upholding him in his infirmity, that he might translate the holy Scriptures into languages of that land: Lead us, we pray thee, to commit our lives and talents to thee, in the confidence that when thou givest thy servants any work to do, thou dost also supply the strength to do it; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Episcopal Church today commemorates Joseph Schereschewsky, Bishop, Scholar 1906 pic.twitter.com/DAqLUedpyw

— Anglican Church SPB (@anglicanspb) October 14, 2014

What is the significance of the Anglican Communion including John Henry Newman on its liturgical calendar?

John Henry Newman has been commemorated in the liturgical calendar of the Church of England for a number of years. There is no central sanctorale for the entire Anglican Communion, but he is also commemorated in the calendars of other provinces, among them the U.S., Canada and Australia. The Churches of the Anglican Communion do not have a tradition of canonization as it is understood in the Catholic Church, but they do have liturgical calendars that mark and honor the lives and legacy of holy men and women, including many from the period after the Reformation.

As someone who was an important figure in the development of the life of the Church of England in the 19th century, as well as a figure of prayer, holiness and dedication to Christ, Newman is an example of godly life. As is most common with commemorations of holy men and women the date of his commemoration in the Church of England calendar is Aug. 11, the date of his death.

Read it all.

“It is important to remember that there are not two Newmans—one Anglican and one Catholic— but one.” https://t.co/avir46QWhB

— America Magazine (@americamag) October 13, 2019

I spend a lot of time with young adults in my job, and the results don’t surprise me. I often observe young couples out on dates, looking at their cellphones rather than each other. I see students walking while wearing earbuds, oblivious to passersby. Others spend hours alone watching movies on Netflix or playing videogames. The digital culture in which young people live pushes them toward a kind of solipsism that must contribute to their loneliness.

“No one, man nor woman, can stand alone; we are so constituted by nature,” Newman writes, noting our need to cultivate genuine relations of friendship. Social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter connect people, but it’s a different sort of connection than friendship. The self one presents on Facebook is inauthentic, someone living an idealized life unlike one’s daily reality. Interaction online is more akin to Kabuki theater than genuine human relations.

When young people do connect face to face, it’s often superficial, thanks in part to dating and hookup apps like Tinder and Bumble. Cigna’s study found that 43% of participants feel their relationships are not meaningful. Little wonder, if relationships are formed when two people decide to swipe right on their phones.

Cardinal Newman never married, but warm, sincere, and lasting friendships—the kind that we so seldom form through digital interactions—gave his life richness. He cultivated them with his neighbors in Oxford and, after his conversion to Catholicism, at the Birmingham Oratory. He sustained them in his correspondence, some 20,000 letters filling 32 volumes.

Read it all.

The rise of the internet and digital entertainment has made Cardinal John Henry Newman’s writings on friendship more relevant than ever, writes John Garvey https://t.co/xHGqzfLr1E

— WSJ Editorial Page (@WSJopinion) October 11, 2019

Darby also originated a brand of eschatology call Dispensationalism, which holds that true Christians shall be raptured before the events leading up to the Second Coming and Last Judgment. He preached his Gospel throughout Britain, the United States, Canada, and even Australia and New Zealand.

While Darby’s views on ecclesiology gained few followers in America, his Dispensationalism has been a big hit among Evangelicals ever since, among other things injecting the whole idea of “the Rapture” into American pop culture and spawning the Left Behind series of novels and films. Alas, before he died the movement broke into two sections – one of which he chose and remained in until he died.

Read it all.

Picture of John Nelson Darby, 19th C Brethren leader. Feel that Peter Capaldi would be ideal casting for a biopic: pic.twitter.com/SDFI0I76aa

— Andrew Crome (@Andrew_Crome) October 22, 2014

Almost half of Aberdeen’s churches are being considered for sale as part of a “once in a generation” review.

The 10-year plan recommends 15 buildings for disposal, with 15 being retained and the future of a further three under consideration.

The Church of Scotland report said it aimed “to reshape the church estate”.

Rev Scott Rennie, planning convener for the Presbytery, said there were “many more” church buildings than needed and that “difficult choices” lay ahead.

Read it all.

“We will have to make some difficult choices”: Church of Scotland considers selling almost half Aberdeen’s churches https://t.co/ETU1VuJW5j @churchscotland

— BBC North East Scot (@BBCNorthEast) October 9, 2019

Holy God, no one is excluded from thy love; and thy truth transformeth the minds of all who seek thee: As thy servant Philip was led to embrace the fullness of thy salvation and to bring the stranger to Baptism, so grant unto us all the grace to be heralds of the Gospel, proclaiming thy love in Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Feast of St Philip the Deacon today in @churchofireland sanctoral pic.twitter.com/UppTfm5Yar

— laudablePractice (@cath_cov) October 11, 2014

As Augustine put it in a sermon in 404, “he took flesh from the lump of our mortality, yes, and he too took to himself the death which was the penalty for sin, but didn’t take the sin; instead with the merciful intention of delivering us from sin, he handed over that flesh of his to death.” God doesn’t abstractly solve a problem; God condescends to inhabit and absorb the mess we’ve made of the world. God “has not abandoned humanity in its mortal condition.”

This, Augustine encourages his listeners, should serve as a source of hope in the face of fears and sorrows: “So he handed over this flesh to be slain, so that you wouldn’t be afraid of anything that could happen to your flesh. He showed you, in his resurrection after three days, what you ought to be hoping for at the end of this age. So he is leading you along, because he has become your hope.”

The appeal here is not to the greater good, the free choice of the will, or the constitutive nothingness of creation that corrodes the good. Augustine the pastor and preacher avoids such abstractions. Instead, he appeals to the mystery at the heart of the Christian faith: a humble God who endured evil in order to overcome it. The point isn’t that God has a plan; the point is that God wins. We shall overcome because of what the Son has undergone in our stead.

This isn’t an answer to evil; it is a response. Hope is found not in intellectual mastery but in divine solidarity.

Read it all.

Saint Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, died aged 76 on August 28, 430 in Hippo, while the Vandals were besieging his Episcopal city. He wrote about 230 books and treatises. More of Saint Augustine’s words survive than those of any other writer of antiquity.https://t.co/Yn02yu8tV7 pic.twitter.com/pjUHKYdjg5

— Trivia Encyclopedia (@edpearce080759) August 28, 2019

If the prophecies concerning the increase of Christ’s kingdom be true, and if what has been advanced, concerning the commission given by him to his disciples being obligatory on us, be just, it must be inferred that all Christians ought heartily to concur with God in promoting his glorious designs, for he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

One of the first, and most important of those duties which are incumbent upon us, is fervent and united prayer. However the influence of the Holy Spirit may be set at nought, and run down by many, it will be found upon trial, that all means which we can use, without it, will be ineffectual. If a temple is raised for God in the heathen world, it will not be by might, nor by power, nor by the authority of the magistrate, or the eloquence of the orator; “but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts.” We must therefore be in real earnest in supplicating His blessing upon our labors.

[He employs an obscure passage relating to Jewish repentance after Christ’s return to show the effects of prayer]

The most glorious works of grace that have ever took place, have been in answer to prayer; and it is in this way, we have the greatest reason to suppose, that the glorious outpouring of the Spirit, which we expect at last, will be bestowed.

[He gives examples of the power of prayer]

Read it all.

OTD in 1843 William Carey died at age 72. He had been a missionary to India. His essay, “An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens”, led to the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society in England. pic.twitter.com/8xjg8Tq0GZ

— SBC History (@SBCHistory) June 9, 2019