Even the Devils Believe

Fr. Jim links to an Amy Welborn post about East-facing celebration of the Mass. (Fr. Jim also has his own post on the subject here.) For those who aren’t aware of this Vatican II change, it is the change from the priest facing East (and therefore the altar) along with the people to [...]

I spent yesterday evening reading the Gospel of Judas, which was released recently. I should be honest and say that I am not very sympathetic to the gnosticism condemned by the early church (as found in the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas, etc.). I find it unacceptably anti-body and quite exclusionary; a [...]

Over at Velveteen Rabbi Rachel has posted her theology distilled to a paragraph as part of her reflections on her CPE experience. I was very, very tempted to just “ditto” her paragraph—she gets at the important stuff in a very clear way. Instead, though, I will try to build on what she has [...]

Rachel has posted the draft schedule for the Progressive Faith Blog Con coming up July 14-16 in New Jersey. In addition to the expected panels and breakout sessions — which will be awesome — we have planned a number of ecumenical worship services and meditations from several traditions progressive bloggers of faith come from. [...]

As someone with a strong interest in refiguring the clerical collar as an emblem of servanthood (like the “yoke” of the stole) rather than a power-symbol perquisite of ordained ministry, I found this article by a collar-wearing Buddhist fascinating. I’ve heard a number of stories about non-Christian clergy wearing collars as a recognizable symbol [...]

LutheranChik has a great post up called Is Our Good News Good? in which she explores whether the gospel preached by the church really gets at some good, enriching truth about the world or not. (Spoilers: She suggests that if what’s being preached is bad news then, surprise, it isn’t gospel!)
The gospel certainly requires [...]

My good friend Virginia, who is also a peer minister of the campus group I work for, has written a wonderful meditation on the priesthood from a Protestant perspective. I’m pleased to be able to share this with you.

Chris asked me to write some reflections on the priesthood. I am not Catholic, Roman [...]

One of Ben’s acquaintances got in touch with me a while back as a follow-up to my post on ikons. She asked me whether I knew of any ikons of married bishops, and unfortunately I couldn’t think of any.
Well, she kept looking, and eventually turned up this ikon of St. Peter and his wife, [...]

From the excellent blog Whispers in the Loggia comes news of an Anglican Irish priest concelebrating a Mass with a Roman priest on Easter. The Belfast Telegraph article asks, “But with Catholics and Anglicans in England regularly attending each others’ services, is it part of a growing movement?”
I think the answer is definitely yes. [...]

I mentioned Bishop Alexis’s post yesterday responding to my concerns with the European model. I agree with a number of his concerns, especially with the “paper-universities” used by many jurisdictions. There is an understandable desire to confer the kind of credentials more mainstream churches do through their accredited seminaries and divinity schools, but [...]