Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury and chief architect of the Anglican formularies. Real or imagined crises are often the catalyst for the formulation, promulgation and revision of creeds and confessions. During the brief period during which the New Testament writings were being composed, a “trinitarian” confessional pattern emerged that shaped later credal formularies. …
To creed or not to creed
Matthias Stom, “The Evangelists St Mark and St Luke,” c.1635. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain. As I said in the first post in this series, none of the churches I attended as a child affirmed creeds or confessions of faith. The Bible alone was said to be our rule of faith. While I remain grateful for the spiritual …
The church’s one foundation
A sermon by Rod Benson What books and movies did you love as a child? I seem to have spent a large part of my childhood in books. Among my favourites were The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis, the Tom Swift science fiction series, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, mystery …
A candid friend of historiography
A short commentary on the method employed in Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years “Of making surveys of Christian history, there is no end,” Diarmaid MacCulloch observes in his 1161-page book, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Yet he suggests that his approach stands out as more daunting than certain other notable contemporary accounts.[1] As a historian, MacCulloch …
iDigress 