15 May 2021

Atlantic Interconnections and the Origins of Brazilian Protestantism

Today, much of the discussion on Brazilian Christianity focuses on the charismatic movement within the Catholic church and the growth of neo-pentecostal churches such as the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus. As I have discussed in an earlier article, the Brazilian pentecostal movement is over a century old today, and it owes its origins to a variety of transnational and Brazilian actors. However, the emergence of Protestantism itself in this predominantly Catholic country (70%

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13 Nov 2020

Double Polarity: Baptism, Eschatology, and the Christian Life

One of the principal debates between Catholics and Protestants in the Reformation pertained to the issue of whether Christ’s righteousness is imputed or imparted to the Christian. The Protestant doctrine of imputation occurs within a legal framework: sinful humanity cannot meet the demand of God’s perfect righteousness. In becoming Incarnate and dying on the cross, Jesus does what humans could not do by satisfying that demand. Imputation, then, is the “legal (or forensic) crediting of

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14 Aug 2020

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anglo-Catholicism: Defining a Movement and Its Continued Place in the Church

Those new to Anglicanism cannot be blamed for finding its present-day landscape overly complicated. Even for those who have been part of the tradition for years, there remains some confusion and debate about Anglicanism’s identity. Since its tumultuous formation, the Church of England has consisted of a dynamic tension between Catholic and Reformed factions which makes it what it is: at various times in her history, the Anglican Church has adapted to whichever group gained

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16 Mar 2018

Keeping the “Anglican” in “Anglo-Catholic”

From its beginning, Anglicanism has struggled to establish a stable identity. Over the history of the Church of England, there have been many attempts to articulate a consistent expression of Anglicanism around a variety of movements, whether Reformed, Evangelical, or catholic in flavor. In the mid-1800s, a group at Oriel College, Oxford established a movement to restore a more catholic understanding of the faith based on the primitive and undivided Church. Members of this Oxford

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13 Jan 2017

In Defense of Passing the Collection Plate

When I was in high school, I really started to get serious at my faith because of a Calvary Chapel church in my area. While as an Anglo-Catholic my faith is quite different now, I greatly appreciate my brief sojourn with Calvary Chapel. I was reminiscing about those days recently and was reminded that one of the major distinctives of Calvary Chapel churches is that they do not pass a collection plate. Instead, churchgoers are

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