Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Virtue, Bad News, and No Grub

We've followed Virtue at www.virtueonline.org for years and years. It gets more dreary to read him by the day. This scribbler assumed something good might emerge in the Anglican barnyard. One dreary dropping after another.

Then, we read the rubbish from his clique and club of commentators, moderated by Mr. Robert Weber and the very Rev. Mr. Paul Taylor, LL.M, one an alleged evangelical and the other an alleged "moderate" Anglo-Catholic. More dreary droppings in the pasture. Our goodly, Confessional Lutheran brethren, if truly Lutheran and following Luther, would be more "graphic" and "crude." You get the point.

One might expect the pasture would produce some green grass. There is no grass, just mud--among other things. Droppings for breakfast, lunch and dinner--day after day after day.

Let me switch the metaphor to the Navy or Marines, e.g. food. Nothing like a warm meal and a good canteen of hot coffee in mountain snows of Norway. Or some food in the rear with the gear under the shade of a tent while in the desert. Or, aboard a ship, in an air-conditioned wardroom for officers while serving afloat perhaps in the Indian Ocean near the equator. Given varied climes, food and drink are much appreciated by hard-working Marines and Sailors.

One goes to Virtue, daily, looking for some Anglican food. There is none. No food. No Grub.

Virtue likes to post that he is "theologically trained." Ahem, those from the Reformed tradition, schooled in it from youth, won't fall for that.

Their leaders aren't producing anything public or substantial. They operate without transparency, consistency, and with a totalitarian perspective (e.g. Laud Leo Riches).

Virtue, bad news and no grub. Again, we wish it were otherwise. We've looked in vain for years. With re-adjusted expectations, it is a matter of further analysis. Why?

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