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The final question related to God the Son acts as a kind of pivot point for the Catechism. The rest of the Catechism serves as a kind of exposition of this answer, with it taking the position that the Christian life inaugurated at Baptism is indeed participation in, rather than merely anticipation or an earning of, Christ’s victory.
The Apostles’ and Athanasian Creeds both affirm that after being crucified Christ descended to the dead—or even into Hell if you go with older translations. While such an affirmation can seem an easy one to gloss over, this article of faith actually offers us that hope that there is truly no place that is too far gone to receive the power of God’s love and the possibility of redemption.
Along with the death of Jesus, the resurrection forms the core of the Gospel proclamation from the earliest days of the Church. This post explores the contours of the Christian claim about Jesus’ resurrection and conquering of death—as well as its implications for the rest of creation—while affirming the limits of our capacity to provide a detailed positive description of resurrection life.
The most universally recognized sign of the Christian faith—the cross—has also been, since its inception, one of the greatest sources of scandal. However, the centrality of the cross and the scandal it generates is unavoidable, emblematic of the scandal of Grace, of a perfectly just God unwilling to abandon God’s creation. Through the cross, God both takes on the penalty of all of humanity’s turning away from God all while condemning those humans who will wield the forces of Death to oppress and harm.
The Ascension is both elevated a central tenet of the faith, central in the Creeds, Catechism, and commemorations of the Church, while also seemingly being one of the more eyebrow-raising, seemingly mythic events described in the New Testament. This post looks into the underlying significance of Jesus departing to fully inhabit the New Creation after his resurrection as well as how we may, even while remaining adherents to a modern cosmology, affirm the possibility of a historical Ascension as described in the Bible.
Explore the reason why the Catechism looks at the incarnation primarily through the lens of facilitating our adoption as children of God, a premise with much richer and more expansive connotations in the first-century mediterranean vision of adoption.
The Catechism moves from Christ as Icon of God to talking about his being born of a virgin. It is necessary to look at this doctrine often neglected and uncomfortable for many modern Christians to see the importance of the Virgin Birth not to indicate disgust at sexuality, but to see the radicality of the new humanity pioneered by Christ.
The section on God the Son begins with an explanation of how Jesus is the perfect icon or image of God and how this reveals God’s character as above all love. This post turns to how this is profoundly true and deceptively simple in its explanation.
Affirmation of Jesus as the Messiah or anointed one of Israel was central to the faith of early Christians, but the rendering of this title using the Greek word Christ or christos (rather than a translation) may prevent modern Christians from seeing how all pervasive that ascription was. This installment in commentary on the 1979 Catechism offers background and insight in the significance of understanding Jesus as the Messiah.
Turning from the problem of Sin, the Catechism begins to look at the solution of redemption. This next reflection and explanation of the Catechism looks at why the term “redemption” may have been chosen and why it may need some filling out in order to reflect the larger set of images for God’s help to us in the New Testament and in other parts of the Book of Common Prayer.
Sin got discussed when talking about human nature, but now the Catechism turns specifically to Sin and what redemption from Sin looks like. Having discussed the nature of Sin and sins earlier, this post looks at the effects of Sin on human life.
Having described the content of the Law, the Catechism turns to the purposes of the Law. Far from being a religion in which we are freed from the Law, the Catechism makes clear, in line with the mainstream early Protestant position, that we are in fact freed for the Law.
The Commandments themselves are considered along with their connection to Jesus’ exposition of the Greatest Commandment. Rather than being the basis of a universal ethic that can be gleaned from any of the major religions or philosophies, the particularity inherent in the prologue to these Commandments brings our focus to the God who specifically acted in history to bring Israel out of bondage.
Moving to the fourth section of the 1979 Catechism, we arrive at the Ten Commandments. These are the foundation of Christian life together, and, indeed the hoped for foundation of all flourishing human community. This post gives and overview of the significance of the Ten Commandments seen as a whole in the Christian tradition.
The 1979 Catechism’s section on the Old Covenant concludes with where this covenant is found and how to best know God’s will. This post turns to why language of the Old Testament is still appropriate for the location of the Old Covenant and why the Ten Commandments are the clearest explanation of God’s will to us.
The questions and answers in the 1979 Catechism about the Old Covenant continue with a discussion of what God has promised and what is expected of people. This post looks at the particular way of construing the Old Covenant from the Catechism makes use of a distinctly prophetic interpretation and how that connects to Jesus for Christians.
Our exploration of the Catechism comes to the third section dealing with the Old Covenant. This first entry in this section talks about the multiple covenants presented in the Old Testament as well as the different kinds of covenants represented throughout the Bible.
The last question from the 1979 Catechism dealing with God the Father explores where revelation takes place. In this post, the focus is on the covenant communities that stand behind the Bible and the Bible's emerging from the experiences of God in history by these communities.
The Catechism expands on what it means for God to be creator with a discussion of our responsibilities as part of that creation. Here is discussed the importance of Christians caring for the non-human world both for its own sake and because of what it offers us. Then follows a discussion of the special care and concern that should be given to other humans as bearers of the Image of God.
Turning to the second section of the Catechism, on God the Father, we look at the first two questions which deal with God as creator. This post looks at the background of Christian monotheism and why this is important for affirming the possibility of universal redemption and restoration of creation.
The final two questions of the section from the 1979 Catechism offer greater insight into the purpose of this first section on human nature. In particular, the final question implies both the effects of Sin on our knowledge of God as well as how God can be known by humans under the conditions of Sin.
This entry on the 1979 Catechism brings us to the question of why humans beings, created in the image of God, do not live as we were created to. Looking at the two questions and answers about human nature related to Sin, this post looks at how it is that it is possible for humans to misuse their freedom and why all of us in fact do.
The 1979 Catechism places human nature in the context of the image of God. It sees the image of God in line with the classic understanding of Augustine as related to specific human cognitive capabilities. In this post, we explore where this sits in the larger Anglican consideration of the image of God and what problems this construal may raise for our understanding of our relationship to God as humans.
Here’s a chance to enter into the 1979 Book of Common Prayer’s first section of the catechism on human nature. Included is an explanation of why human nature may be the first section as well as a description of what it means that human beings are part of creation.
Worship is hard in the stimulation saturated world we live in. But this, and the possibility of boredom it entails, is precisely why it’s so important for us to attend to have our desires reformed so that we can be disposed to the worship of God—because that’s a lot of what our hope is oriented toward.
John 12:8 and Matthew 26:11 are often deployed to argue for Christian inaction on poverty, but I think the more faithful reading is to see these as instances where the exception proves the rule that Christians should be hyper-vigilant about prioritizing care for the poor.
Many of us find starting habits like daily Bible reading or prayer daunting—but James Clear in Atomic Habits may offer a way to ease into such habits in such a way that they can become permanent features of our lives.
The church often offers SMART goals as an effective way to help get things done and move you closer to your ultimate purpose—but for me, they often don’t actually end up yielding any results. I offer a different goal-setting acronym (USE PACT) that offers the best of SMART goals while correcting their inability to look at best-practice systems or their undue focus on uncontrollable outcomes.