Pre-Existence
Nothing is impossible for God. He created this universe out of nothing but His words. We also understand that around 2000 years ago, God chose Mary, a godly Jewish young woman who was a virgin, and caused her to conceive and later to deliver the Christ child to the world.
Read moreIn his letter to the church in Philippi which he wrote in prison, the Apostle Paul clearly indicated that he had discovered the secret to contentment: "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." (Phil 4:11-12).
Read moreIn every generation error is seen to abound within the Christian religion and it requires immediate countering and correction from the earnest efforts of the faithful. Inaccuracies occur in the form of gradual and stealthy subtle tweaking of the word of God that does not initially arouse instant alarm, all the way through to outright, even brazen heresy that leads unfortunate adherents far from the possibility of salvation.
Read moreCarlyon sent a copy of her book to her bishop, Richard Condie, and sought his views. He invited her to a meeting on November 2 and informed Condie that she would be banished from churches in the diocese if she did not recant the teaching in her book and destroy her copies of it.
In remarks she made to Matthew Denholm of The Australian, who broke the news that she has been banished, Carlyon implied that Jesus was not God incarnate during the rest of his life.
Read moreRecent scholarship in both the ancient church and sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestantism have exposed an unfortunate problem with large swathes of the conservative, and especially evangelical, Protestant world. Much good work was done over the last century in both articulating a high view of the authority of Scripture and developing more self-conscious and sophisticated theological approaches to biblical interpretation.
Read moreSome say that Seabury liked the dignity and status of his office too much, signing his first letter to the Connecticut clergy, "Samuel, by divine permission, Bishop of Connecticut," and other letters "Bishop of All America" (imitating "The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of All England"). He stubbornly opposed any "lay" involvement in church leadership (General Conventions), until he finally conceded this point for the sake of church unity.
Read moreIt describes spiritual exercises that are meant to lead people to Christ, reminiscent of much popular spiritual disciplines literature today and the message of most preachers who fuss at their congregations week after week for not getting better and doing more. George Whitefield thought the book was so bad that he once caught an orphan with a copy of it and made him throw it into a fire.
Read moreAs Dr. Jim Packer informs us the Westminster Confession was an Anglican document on loan to the Presbyterian communion: "My frequent quoting of the Westminster Confession may raise some eyebrows, since I am an Anglican and not a Presbyterian.
Read moreAt the first Gafcon conference in Jerusalem in 2008, the Rt. Rev. John Hewitt Rodgers, Jr., in whose beloved memory this new, annual lecture series is now held, gave a landmark address entitled Where do we go from here? In his Zoom Memoirs, recorded with the Rev. Dr. Stephen Noll, who is with us tonight, John commented that he considered this address to be the high point of his ministry in the wider Anglican Communion after retirement.
Read moreHooker was, in fact, neither of these. He fully embraced the Reformation Anglicanism of Thomas Cranmer and the other reformers on all the central doctrinal tenets of the Anglican formularies.
Alister McGrath points out that Hooker's primary argument with the Roman church is their core teaching that righteousness is inherent and infused incrementally over time, that eventually renders Christians worthy of salvation.
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