Douglas Knight

If it is true that, as Tertullian said, ‘one Christian is no Christian’, then by the same token we should be able to say, ‘one bishop is no bishop’, and so ‘one local church alone is no church ‘. A bishop is not an individual who ‘represents’ the local church as if he is empowered [...]

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Praise be to the High Priest of our faith Jesus Christ, the Devout and Holy Sacrifice, Who performed purification of our sins by His own Person and cleansed the world by His sacrifice, the Good One to Whom is due glory, honor and dominion with His Father and with his Holy Spirit at this time [...]

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Today we celebrate Saint Irenaeus

‘So also by the obedience of one man, righteousness having been reintroduced, shall cause life to fructify in those persons who in times past were dead…so did he who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling him to gather up Adam (into himself) from Mary.’ (3.21.10)
‘Luke [...]

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What is economics about? It describes from one angle what people do all day. Jesus (of all people) once noted that since the days of Noah and Lot and until the end of the world, humans have been doing and will be doing four kinds of things. He gave these examples: “planting and building,” “buying [...]

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A contributing factor to post-abortion trauma is silence from the Church. The common reluctance to preach on the matter because there are some women in the Church who have had abortions and it will hurt them is misguided and harmful. There is a crying need to acknowledge the grief of abortion – silence pushes this [...]

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The Society for the Study of Christian Ethics 2008 2008 Annual Conference is 5th-7th September at Westcott House, Cambridge. The conference theme is The Sermon on the Mount
Rt Hon John Battle – MP, Leeds, Former Faith Advisor to the Prime Minister
Richard Bauckham – Professor Emeritus of New Testament, University of St Andrews
Carolyn Muessig – [...]

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Last weekend, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a wonderfully concise and eloquent statement on embryonic stem cell research. When printed out, it comes to barely more than six double-spaced typewritten pages, but within that relatively small compass may be found all of the elements essential to a well-formed Catholic conscience on this [...]

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A member of President Sarkozy’s Cabinet once told me that France – as the “eldest daughter of the Church” – could never lose the faith. I suggested to her that she visit Ephesus. The Holy Mother spent her last days there and was assumed from there into Heaven. Ephesus was one of the ancient churches [...]

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Karl Barth Church Dogmatics III.4 3.

1. When marriage is seen in the light of the divine command it is surely evident that the decision for the way of marriage is for some, as the choice of the unmarried state is for others, the matter of the supremely particular divine vocation. (p.183) [...]

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Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the “liberalism” that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of [...]

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Again, we commemorate those who have gone before, fallen asleep in holiness, and are at rest among the saints; those who have kept the one apostolic faith without blemish and entrusted it to us. We proclaim the three sacred and holy Ecumenical Synods of Nicaea, of Constantinople and of Ephesus. We also remember our glorious [...]

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Know your saints. Today, June 22, is Saint Alban’s day. Saint Alban was the first British martyr. He is in good company and there is room for more.

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His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI is a pastor. He preaches and teaches around the Church year, his homily at every feast telling us something about Christ and something about us. Through his Easter and Corpus Christi homilies in particular he teaches us how to relate the passion, crucifixion, resurrection, the eucharist and body of Christ. [...]

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Let us dwell on only two points. The first is the journey towards “the maturity of Christ”, as the Italian text says, simplifying it slightly. More precisely, in accordance with the Greek text, we should speak of the “measure of the fullness of Christ” that we are called to attain if we are to be [...]

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This essay represents what might be called a radical friendly amendment to the revisionists by exploring a hitherto unexamined logical leap in the famous story line. To be fancy about it for a moment, what secularization theory assumes is that religious belief comes ontologically first for people and that it goes on to determine or [...]

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Not only do we have an entirely novel definition of marriage that excludes procreation from its purview. That would be dramatic enough, since it shifts the focus of our most basic social institute from inter-generational concerns to those of present personal gratification, and in doing so eliminates many of the responsibilities that belong to marriage. [...]

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To You, O Lord, both heaven, which is the throne of Your Majesty, and the earth, which is the footstool under Your feet, sing praise. The earth glorifies Your Holy Name in this church that chants the sound of glory to You from the mouth of her children; by the succession of the prophets, the [...]

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For a host of historical and theological reasons Anglicans have routinely overplayed an understanding of visibility which associates it too strictly with ordered externality, and underplayed what that stout ecumenist Karl Barth called the ‘very special visibility’ of the Church. By that, Barth did not intend to deny that the Church of Jesus Christ [...]

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This is a piece for a volume on eschatology edited by John Manoussakis and Neal Deroo to be published by Ashgate in 2009
The Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas is most often associated with the Christian doctrine of the person. The concept of the person holds together the two issues of communion and freedom. Zizioulas argues that [...]

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Anastasia de Waal argues that while Labour thinks it is being liberal, its position on the family is actually highly conservative. Its policy is currently determined not by its own priorities, but by Conservative policy and past notions of the repressive ‘traditional’ family. Labour therefore considers family structure to be solely Conservative moralising territory and [...]

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