Earth & Altar Journal
St. Andrew's Journal
Earth & Altar: a religious blog on Anglican life and worship
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GIVING UP: ONLY BY FASTING AND PRAYER
By the Rev’d Bradley Cunningham It has been a pleasure these past (almost) 30 years to exercise the disciplines of Lent. Each year I learn more and recover more of the Church’s wisdom from Lent, and implement these pearls of wisdom into my life, and now into the lives of my …
ASH WEDNESDAY DEVOTIONAL
By the Rev’d Dr. Charles Erlandson Matthew 6:16-21 If you’re following along with the 1928 Prayer Book lectionary, you’ll have noticed that I’m meditating on the lesson from the Gospel Proper lesson and not the 2nd lesson from Morning Prayer (if not, then you probably won’t have a clue what …
RISE UP AMONG US: THE SEASON OF ADVENT
By the Rev’d Dr. Derrick Hassert Lex orandi, lex credendi. The law of prayer is the law of belief. This is a hallmark of classical Anglican Christianity. It oftentimes seems that Anglicans cling to a Prayer Book out of step with the modern age, a Prayer Book that has undergone …
WAKE, AWAKE, FOR NIGHT IS FLYING
By the Rev’d Dr. Charles Erlandson Advent is God’s cosmic alarm clock. Since we humans are creatures bound by time and we will have calendars, we will observe hours and days and times and seasons. We will set alarm clocks and timers so that we don’t miss something important. Many …
THE PURPLE HAZE OF ADVENT
Advent as the Little Lent Step into an Anglican church this time of year and you will most likely find a profusion of purple—purple banners, purple Bible markers, purple vestments. More than just a color choice, purple is a symbol that marks the character or flavor of the season of …
BEING GRATEFUL
There’s an old joke that identifies the favorite holiday movie of agnostics as a heart-warming story called “Coincidence on 34th Street.” I don’t know if radical skeptics wrestle with the problem of goodness and joy as much as orthodox Christians have agonized with the problem of evil and suffering, but …
COMMON CORE MISSES THE MARK
Mr. Martin Cothran was interviewed by David Kern of the Circe Institute regarding the Common Core State Standards Initiative in American Education, known as “Common Core.” Cothran begins: The Common Core standards are important because of the number of children that will be affected by national standards which are eliminating content …
THE SCRIPTURE GOSPEL
Scripture puts the “outward, objective, historical view of the Gospel…before every other.” M. F. Sadler, Church Doctrine—Bible Truth Imagine a group of believers coming together to write up the ideal presentation of the Gospel. What might it sound like? Maybe there would be discussion on where to begin—with Scripture? with …
A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS
In contemporary Christian culture, we hear much talk about having a “personal relationship” with Jesus. Though not the only way to speak of it, this is a reasonable way to describe the covenant our triune God makes with us. Yet, it is important to understand how that relationship is manifested. I …