Crumbs from the Table

The first half of the 1700s in England was a tumultuous time.  In the wake of the religious toleration proclaimed in 1689, many once strong churches drifted from their doctrinal moorings and began to question the deity of Christ, aspects of his atoning work, and the veracity of his Word. This was true, for example, of the General Baptists, and of the Presbyterian Church. This happened against a wider backdrop of national disdain towards the Christian faith, especially under the rule of George I. Many were addicted to gin. Of the higher classes in England the French Enlightenment man, Montesquieu, observed, "Whenever anyone refers to religion, everybody starts laughing." It was into this dark decline that the light of the gospel shone through the ministry of a cohort of fine men in the Church of England, including Howell Harris (in Wales), George Whitefield, the Wesley brothers, Ingham, and others. The Evangelical Revival began around 1735, and continued until about 1750.  The...

The following post is a response to an article by John Stevens published in "Foundations" in 2015, and currently featured on the Affinity website. This is not intended as a personal attack on John Stevens, who is National Director of the FIEC, and a lovely Christian man and brother. The purpose of the blog post below is to stand for the historic Reformation teaching on the Lord's Supper in response to what I consider to be a novel view which is not supported by the Bible.  The Lord's Supper, the monthly or weekly celebration of the bread and the cup, has always been at the heart of the Christian faith and church life. Instituted by Christ himself, the Lord's Supper has been practised by Christians across the world and by all traditions (with very few exceptions) for over twenty centuries.   Today, for the first time, I came across a theological/Biblical articulation of what I will call the "communal meal" view of the Lord's Supper. My source for this...

Anselm of Canterbury, also known as Anselm of Bec, was born in the Val D'Aosta in northern Italy in 1033. After the death of his mother, his relationship with his father was strained, and he spent many years wandering around what is now France until he settled at the abbey of Bec in Normandy, where he became a Benedictine monk at the age of 27 (1060). The monastery had only been in existence for 25 years and its original abbot, Herluin, was still there. Anselm was taught by Lanfranc (1005-1089). When Lanfranc moved on, Anselm became the main teacher at the abbey, and later, in 1078, abbot.  Anselm was involved in controversies with Gaunilo (over arguments used by Anselm in his work Proslogion), and with Roscelin (over Trinitarian heresy) The Bec monastery was in Normandy, which at the time had strong connections with England, which had been conquered by the Normans in 1066. Anselm was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093. Anselm stood up for the rights of the church against t...

The short answer is: yes we do. (Although I should clarify that it is by the Holy Spirit, and inwardly through faith.)  I am writing as an Evangelical Protestant Christian, a Grace Baptist pastor, and a church historian. I can assure you that we, that is to say, Protestants/Evangelicals believe (and have always believed) it to be the case that when we take communion we partake of Christ's body and blood .  This post is mainly written for my fellow Evangelical brothers and sisters who struggle with this truth, and perhaps suspect that it is a throwback to a medieval Roman Catholic, or High Church Anglican past. It isn't. At the time of the Reformation in the 1500s, Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, Menno Simmons, and later John Calvin challenged many teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.  On the subject of communion, the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation teaches (wrongly) that, during the communion service, the bread and cup at communion are changed i...

If you are old enough (or, young enough) to get the reference, the title of this blog post is a line from a 1970 song . The next line is, "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot." This is a post about things that we have as Evangelical Christians, but perhaps have failed to cherish and value. These are reasons to stay Evangelical - even if other Christian traditions might at times seem appealing, tempting even. Evangelical Christianity is the faith I have received, the form of Christianity I was born into spiritually, and which has been my home since 1991. At least in this post, my concern is not to question the legitimacy of other Christian traditions, such as Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, or the faith of those brought up in those traditions, so much as to value my own tradition, and to encourage my fellow evangelicals to "stick with it" and "dig deeper" rather than going elsewhere. This blog is dedicated to a couple of dear friends who i...

This is not a post about Brexit. But I am going to use the 2016 Brexit referendum in the UK as an analogy.  To refresh your memory, in 2016 a referendum was held in the UK on whether or not to stay in the European Union. This had been a longstanding issue for debate ever since the UK first joined in 1971. In the event, to the surprise of most pundits, the vote was 52% to leave the EU. This led to the immediate resignation of the Prime Minister, David Cameron, and later to the resignation of his successor, Theresa May, in 2019. For months and years, the British parliament, the House of Commons was "blocked" - unable either to implement the referendum or to vote to hold a second referendum (effectively, to reject the result of the first). Finally, under Boris Johnson, a deal was reached and the UK left the EU in 2020. This was followed by years of wrangling over issues such as goods crossing the land border between Northern Ireland (part of the UK) and the Republic of Ireland (...