This essay is the second in a series entitled “Catholicism: What You’d Expect.” The previous essay can be found here. In the first post, I lay out an argument that Christian distinctives find their fulfillment uniquely within the Catholic paradigm. I also argue that the first Christian distinctive, its incarnational theology and practice, is an ultimately Catholic attribute. This essay concerns the second distinctive which I listed: the authoritative nature of Christian theology. In all

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

In the first article of this series, I emphasized the importance for the Christian life of imitating moral exemplars, following the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians to “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Cor. 11:1) Top of the list for Christian moral exemplars, aside from Jesus himself, are those who were closest to him, hence my devotional exploration of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. Up next in this survey