Faith and Honor

What does it mean to be a "friend of God"? Does it mean being chums? Pen-pals? Back-slapping buddies? Or are these more informal manifestations of friendship insufficient to describe what the Bible means when it talks about being a friend of God? Join Fr. Brian and Fr. Bart as they try to discern what friendship of God is and how to get it.

Why does God want ceremony and not just sincerity? Doesn't the Lord just want us to be "authentic" in our worship and to avoid rites that fall into rote, empty worship? Isn't liturgical worship just a form of phariseeism? And shouldn't the funds that go into beautiful church buildings and vestments go to the poor and other pressing needs of ministry instead? In this episode, Fr. Brian Oldfied and Fr. Bart Gingerich offer a response to these objections to ceremony. Both reason and Scripture have a lot to say on this issue. As this episode hopefully makes clear, the Church's worship customs, traditions, and expectations did not spring from nothing.

Some Christians will often talk of "assurance of salvation." Basically, how does the Christian know he is saved--that he will enjoy eternity with Christ? While the Church has a historic method or emphases to handle such concerns, there are newer and possibly more destructive ways of doing so. Dcn. Bart and Fr. Brian talk about what Anglicanism has to say about this important issue.

We live in an era where important doctrines fall on hard times. Baptismal regeneration may be just one of those teachings. Rejected by most Puritans and by a lot of American evangelicals, baptismal regeneration is actually an important cornerstone of historic classical Anglicanism. Join Fr. Brian and Dcn. Bart as they discuss baptism, regeneration, conversion, and justification.

The Anglican liturgy has always received much attention, as one of the major focal points of the Anglican tradition. However in recent decades it has been uniquely attacked by revisionist historians as an entry point into discarding the historic liturgy altogether. And yet despite claims to having scholarship, there has been little comment on one of the most important elements of the Anglican Rite of Holy Communion.


We speak with Fr. Gavin Dunbar, who has written a brand new study of the theology of Holy Communion as embedded in the classical Anglican Prayer Books, such as the 1662 and the 1928 (American). He helps dispel the wrong-minded revisionism of the 20th century critics, and uncover an incredible tapestry that lay at the root of the Rite that had been penned by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, in the timeless tradition of the universal church. 

What is the epiclesis? And why do some classical prayer books have one (like the 1928 American) while others (like the 1662 English) do not? Fr. Brian and Dcn. Bart discuss the history of the epiclesis in Anglicanism, and what it means for our worship today.

Few topics have brought contention and division in our world today to the extent that the so-called conflict between science and faith had. No one seems to doubt that such a conflict exists, from the pop-science atheists in the media, to the Christians locked away in their bunker. However we seek to get beyond the pop headlines and the manufactured answers. In this episode we unravel the tissue of assumptions that surround this question. We look at some of the central Christians of history who were scientists, and the greatest scientists of history who were Christian, to discover the astounding truth that not only are faith and science not in conflict, but they cannot be, for they describe the same reality. Even further, they require each other to function correctly, leading to the grand synthesis of human knowledge that seeks after God and the ultimate understanding.

C.S. Lewis once said, "Christianity is either incredibly important or not important at all; one thing it can't be is somewhat important." How do we understand and interpret what Christianity says or teaches? It has been a vexing topic for centuries, and the stakes could not be any higher. New doctrines are multiplying, and new interpretations are now created nearly every day. Are those new doctrines correct or not? Can new doctrines even be possible in the Anglican worldview? In this podcast, our guest Bishop Chandler Jones discusses a key tenet of the Anglican tradition which unlocks this door, and solves these centuries-old problems: the reading of Scripture with the Fathers. We cover topics like the consensus patricum, the interpretative Canon of Vincent of Lerins, the classical Anglican sources promoting the reading of Scripture with the Fathers, and the application of this principle throughout history, from the old historic clashes with Roman Catholics and Puritans, to the new idea of the Ordination of Women. You don't want to miss this one!

Philosophy traditionally has been seen as the study of the highest natural principles, such as logic, ethics, and the structure of reality, which secondary fields like science depend on to form their conclusions. In recent times philosophy has become a contested field with countless competing understandings, schools of thought, constructions, deconstructions, and opinions which mutually contradict each other. But it was not always so. In this episode we discuss the idea of one single philosophy (since there is only one reality), namely a single well-defined field of formal study, like science, with a unified system of foundations, principles, and conclusions, and having practical applications to today's questions. We trace the history of this One Philosophy, which has been termed the "perennial philosophy," from its birth in antiquity with Plato, his student Aristotle, and culminating in the thought of Plotinus; subsequently in the major Islamic and Jewish philosophers such as Avicenna and Maimonides, before returning to the West in the thought of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas (sometimes wrongly ascribed as its originator, rather than recipient and student). This single school of thought then continues up to Leibniz, in the 18th century, before slowly becoming lost and obscured in the chaos of modernity. In tracing this history we challenge the modern understanding of philosophy as a field with no unity of meaning, and discuss what for thousands of years has been seen as THE philosophy, analogous to ONE THEOLOGY, from the basis of there being one truth.

Jane Austen, the famed author of beloved period novels and romances set in nineteenth century England had an aspect largely unknown today -- she was a devoted and pious Anglican. The themes of religion, clergy, God, and providence frequently appear in Austen's novels, yet scholars in analyzing such themes have not drawn much attention to Austen's own religious beliefs they were informed by. We speak with Dr. Laura Mooneyham White on this vital yet omitted aspect of Austen's identity. Dr. White has written an essential and fascinating work on the subject of Austen's pious identity. What did Austen think of natural law? Where did she stand on providence of an ordered universe? Did she view clergy with favor or disfavor? (Hint: those who only know her through the movies may be surprised!). Join us for this fascinating episode and learn about Jane Austen's moral center: her Anglicanism.