Feast of Luke the Evangelist Continuing a series on the church: The doctrine of the "body" in First read more

Feast of Luke the Evangelist Continuing a series on the church: The doctrine of the "body" in First Corinthians... is a picture of the local church, (which) is distinguished by a great variety of gifts, outlooks, and cultures. The various members belong organically to each other in Christ, and are to exhibit that harmony practically in their common life. The recognition of how they differ from each other, and are yet one, is to enrich their worship, inspire their ministry, and quicken their love. To divide the local church is... to witness to a divided Christ, or to a discipleship to lesser masters than Christ, such as Paul or Apollos. Both implications are equally unthinkable. There is no New Testament pattern of serving the one Christ, except in one local body, formed by the incorporation given in the one baptism, and the continued life sustained by breaking and sharing the one bread.

Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld, Hermit, Servant of the Poor, 1916 Race highlights the fact that in our read more

Commemoration of Charles de Foucauld, Hermit, Servant of the Poor, 1916 Race highlights the fact that in our congregational life we usually do not reflect the variety of cultures. There are Asian, West Indian, and Anglo-Saxon congregations worshiping and meeting close to each other. These groups meet at work and in school, but not always in church. If the church is middle-class and intellectual in the language of the services, in the music employed, in the life-style expected of Christians, in its leadership, and in the methods of presenting the gospel, then the whole atmosphere is such as to repel those who are not middle-class and intellectual. They feel out of place and unwanted, even if they are given a friendly greeting at the door. The life of the New Testament Church was evidence of the supernatural; God was in their midst. The power of Christ was a reality. The fellowship could not be explained in simple natural terms. A church divided on social and racial lines is not evidence for the supernatural, but for the simply human and social.

The rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous... read more

The rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous... never occurs. Now, I do not want here to discuss whether the miraculous is possible: I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question. Scholars, as scholars, speak on it with no more authority than anyone else. The canon, "If miraculous, unhistorical", is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it. If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the Biblical critics in the world counts for nothing. On this they speak simply as men -- men obviously influenced by, and perhaps insufficiently critical of, the spirit of the age they grew up in.

Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788 The cause of their decline was read more

Feast of John and Charles Wesley, Priests, Poets, Teachers, 1791 & 1788 The cause of their decline was not, as has been supposed, because there is no more need for [the charismatic gifts], "because all the world had become Christian". ... The real cause was: the love of many, of almost all Christians so called, was waxed cold; ... The real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit were no longer to be found in the Christian Church [was that] the Christians were turned heathen again, and had only a dead form left.

Feast of Thomas More, Scholar & Martyr, & John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr, 1535 Sorrow for sin and sorrow read more

Feast of Thomas More, Scholar & Martyr, & John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr, 1535 Sorrow for sin and sorrow for suffering are ofttimes so twisted and interwoven in the same person -- yea, in the same sigh and groan -- that sometimes it is impossible for the party himself so to separate and divide them in his own sense and feeling, as to know which proceeds from the one and which from the other. Only the all-seeing eye of an infinite God is able to discern and distinguish them.

Feast of Timothy and Titus, Companions of Paul Commemoration of Dorothy Kerin, Founder of the Burrswood Healing Community, 1963 read more

Feast of Timothy and Titus, Companions of Paul Commemoration of Dorothy Kerin, Founder of the Burrswood Healing Community, 1963 I do not think I am fanciful in discerning among some of those who most earnestly plead against the Christian social movement a feeling that there is something fundamentally intractable, inscrutable, mysterious about the world, and that no more can be hoped for than an heroic protest in the name of Christ, made in obedience but with no sort of hope that anything can come of it. I hope I am not wrong in saying that there is nothing Christian in such an attitude. It savours of the Paganism that saw behind the world a kind of ironical malice; that made Polycrates throw his ring into the sea, and called the Furies the Kindly Ones, if haply they might be so appeased. But we stand outside this world of darkness, for we have learnt that all things were created by the eternal Word, who is Christ Jesus. We know, in the Pauline phrase, that it is in Him that the whole universal order of things consists or holds together. Those who have come to know that, know in consequence that they are in their Father's house. It is a big house, and they have begun to explore only a little of it. It has great reaches, and some of them are still shadowy. But it is His house, all of it.

Prayer is the creator as well as the channel of devotion. The spirit of devotion is the spirit of prayer. read more

Prayer is the creator as well as the channel of devotion. The spirit of devotion is the spirit of prayer. Prayer and devotion are united as soul and body are united, as life and the heart are united. There is no real prayer without devotion, no devotion without prayer.

Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915 It is easy to read more

Commemoration of Richard Meux Benson, Founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, 1915 It is easy to throw angels and demons and the cosmic character and relevance of Christ's work upon the scrap heap of ancient superstition and mythology, and to consider them but a manner of speech that is utterly irrelevant for our space age. But if we should feel entitled to throw out one part of the witness of Ephesians to Christ, why not the rest of it also: for instance, Christ's Lordship over the church and in the heart? It is unfair and scarcely honest to consider the Bible or parts of it as a cake from which we can pick out merely the raisins we happen to like. Speaking the truth in love and witnessing to the biblical Christ may imply the necessity to speak also of some very strange things.

Beginning a short series on authenticity: A mere form of religion does upon some accounts bring a man read more

Beginning a short series on authenticity: A mere form of religion does upon some accounts bring a man under a heavier sentence than if he were openly profane and irreligious. He that makes a show of religion flatters God, but all the while he acts and designs against him; whereas the profane man deals plainly, and tho' he be a monstrous and unnatural rebel, yet he is a fair and open enemy. And the kisses of a false friend are more hateful than the wounds of an open enemy.