Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby you have given us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. —Book of Common Prayer Greetings to our faithful and new readers. We invite you to look over the essays from

In most Christian circles, the simple statement that “Christians interpret the Bible in a different way than they interpret the Constitution” would probably be largely uncontroversial. The intuitive objection to juxtaposing the documents in this way–that the Bible is the Word of God, while the Constitution is man’s words–does not directly address the interesting paradox: why do many political and theological conservatives use interpretively “liberal” language (“underlying purpose,” “culturally specific,” “not literal”) in their interpretation

Happy Weekend, Dear Readers! Below is a selection of theological and current events articles from around the internet this week. Rather than providing the final word on a given topic, we hope these articles will serve to spark friendly, yet thoughtful conversations. Consider this your welcome to join (or kick off) those conversations in the comments below! Conciliar Post Finding Yourself in Communion, Part One by TJ Humphrey By the Waters of Babylon by Kenneth O’Shaughnessy

Welcome back to our ongoing series following the thoughts of John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. If you are joining the conversation for the first time, you might want to take a moment to read the first paragraph of the first post in the series. Otherwise, I hope you find the ideas as irresistible as I do. When we last looked at Calvin’s thought, we examined the relationship between knowledge of self

“We will always make lives—we are not free from that inevitability—and they will always be specific, focused, and limited. Through making them, we develop powers of agency and powers of relation, powers that can help guide others through the inevitable project of life-fashioning.”1 Individualism: Am I my brother’s keeper?  Such a question can only be answered in the affirmative. We are, in fact, our brother’s keeper. Just as Adam was given the responsibility to tame,

I’ve been enjoying a collaborative book titled “Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism,” a book full of meaningful dialogue across Christian traditions. In it, Bradley Nassif offers the perspective that Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism are highly compatible. Nassif is Eastern Orthodox and appears to bear the approval of Antiochian Eastern Orthodox hierarchy (even though he does not enjoy unanimous agreement among all of the Eastern Orthodox). Within his broader argument1 for compatibility between these two

If I’ve learned anything from college over the past four years it’s that once you begin learning something you quickly realize how little you actually know. My time here at Conciliar Post has been no different. At first starting to write for this website arguing for a particular version of Christianity, I soon learned how little I actually knew, both about my own tradition and of the traditions of others. Having been sufficiently disoriented as

Since we are eager for those things which are better, all our activity and our entire life being dedicated to God and we wish to have all our activity as the firstfruits of many firstfruits . . . what more excellent activity ought there be . . . than the careful examination of the gospel. -Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John Conciliar Post: DREW MCINTYRE: IS SPRINKLING THE BEST WAY TO BAPTIZE? JOHN EHRETT: DEADPOOL

“This trouble is from the Lord! Why should I wait for the Lord any longer?”1 As 2 Kings 6 wraps up, the despair is evident. Samaria is under a siege that has lasted long enough that some of the inhabitants have resorted to cannibalism. Faced with a situation outside of his control, with no apparent hope of rescue, Jehoram (king of Israel) sends a messenger to kill Elisha. As the messenger relays the kings words,

Here in the Bible Belt, sacramental Christians sometimes feel like the nerdy kid on the playground when it comes to explaining our practices of baptism.  In many Baptist, Pentecostal, and nondenominational congregations, baptism is only done “as John the Baptist did it.” That means getting dunked like an early morning cruller in hot coffee. For many in my part of the world, baptism means one thing: immersion. United Methodists actually aren’t against immersion (which is

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent; Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we,worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness. may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.   —The Lenten Collect The Book of Common Prayer (1928) It is with heavy hearts that we

Questions of an ethical nature dominate headlines, classrooms, and pulpits across the world. In an era where formulations of morality often spring from what “feels right” rather than any sort of foundational principles, many commentators have rightly noted the necessity of carefully considered ethics.1 For contemporary Christians, ethical thought remains clouded by ongoing disagreements about from where our moral systems arise and how authoritative those sources are in a technologically advanced world of complexity and

Happy Weekend Dear Readers! Below is a selection of theological and current events articles from around the internet this week. Rather than providing the final word on a given topic, we hope these articles will serve to spark friendly, yet thoughtful conversations. Consider this your welcome to join (or kick off) those conversations in the comments below!   Conciliar Post A Conversation on the Saving Work of Jesus by Ben Cabe and Ben Winter Fasting by

The Golden Rule: Do to others what you would want them to do to you. For those whose childhood memories contain mornings spent in Sunday school, this moral rule is impossible to forget. Taught by Jesus in the first century, the Golden Rule has shaped the moral outlook of the Christian West for centuries. (After all, if God incarnate highlights one foundational moral rule, you should probably observe it.) The Golden Rule is simple, concise,

Happy Weekend and Happy February Dear Readers! Below is this week’s selection of theology and current events articles from around the internet. If you read a thought-provoking or well-written article that did not make this list, feel free to share the link in the comments section below. Happy reading! Conciliar Post Does Conciliar Post Exist? by George Aldhizer On Our True Fairytale by Chris Casberg On the Boringness of Church Services by Joseph Green Mark

I vividly remember tattooed punk rocker Joy Whitlock’s1 words. At Highpoint Church in Memphis, Joy gave her testimony before being baptized. She spoke repeatedly of “the new Joy” as opposed to “the old Joy.” Her own father baptized her and told us in a few words how great a change had happened. She and he said God had radically changed her; but I submit that mainstream Christianity fails to truly embrace the basic doctrine of

Or, Why Denominations Matter Among those Americans who felt the brunt of the 2008 financial crisis, many were infuriated when the Wall Street bankers involved–many of whom had engaged in high-risk trading behaviors–faced virtually no consequences. Instead, many walked away with multimillion-dollar “golden parachutes” and cycled into new professional pursuits. The message sent was intolerable to many victims of the crash: within the financial sector’s privileged caste, reckless and dubiously-legal behavior does indeed pay off

Perhaps the greatest excuse given for a Christian’s lack of regular Church attendance and involvement, which I have often heard as an aversion to the liturgical richness of the Orthodox Church, is the repetitive and abysmally boring nature of the services. Why is it that liturgy and repeated traditions are such a difficult obstacle for so many, especially in the modernized West? Why are we made to feel restless and obligated to attend, rather than

In my previous article, I stated there are only two stories (or two worldviews) that are internally consistent enough to be lived. The first is nihilism. The second is Christianity. In today’s article, I describe the second story in the form of a fairytale. Once upon a time, in the very place we now sit, was nothing. There was no ground to stand on, no air to breathe. There was neither light to see nor

This nerdy niche that we’ve carved out on the internet for ourselves called “Conciliar Post” is a pretty neat place. Here we tell stories about how to live as a Christian in this world, theologize about the historical distinctions between liturgical and low-church worship, write poetry about how worthy the God-Man is of our worship, and debate the schisms and skirmishes of Christianity’s past. Some of us have more professional credentials to be doing this