Researchers at Goldsmiths College in London discovered that dogs may respond more to our emotions than any other species, including our own. Read more

Luther took his dog to be a lesson in single-minded prayer. Read more

I once had a Ivy League PhD colleague, trained in New Testament, who refused to talk about “early Christianity.”  Instead, for this scholar, there was only a multiplicity of early Christianities.  This colleague seemed to regard talk of early church consensus as naive–ignorant of all the variant views and practices of the first-century followers of Jesus. This colleague was trained by scholars who refused to speak of early orthodoxy, or if they used the word, it referred to “the winners” who... Read more

Has Bradshaw shown that Dix was fundamentally wrong in his depiction of early Christian worship? I don't think so. Read more

The letters of Ignatius (early 2nd c.) provide the earliest clear evidence for the threefold order of deacon, priest, bishop. By the end of the 2nd c., that threefold ministry gained pre-eminence everywhere. Read more

What is "Evangelicals and Catholics Together"? Read more

Daily prayer at 4th-century cathedrals was twice a day and quite ecclesial: here was the Church gathered for prayer, exercising its royal priesthood by a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving on behalf of all creation and interceding for the salvation of the world. Read more

Paul F. Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship The evolution of Eucharistic rites 119 Bradshaw says that since the Didache has prayers after the cup and then the bread, and then another prayer “after being filled,” with prophets being allowed to give thanks as they wished, “it was of a very different kind from those otherwise known from Christian antiquity.” He assumes that because there is no prayer of institution mentioned, there was none. [Is this really... Read more

Many liberals should be able to agree with conservatives that in the last trimester, when most of the unborn are viable, the state has a compelling interest in protecting life. Even if some are uncertain of the personhood of the fetus at this late stage, it seems reasonable and right to give it the benefit of the doubt. Read more

I remember studying form and source criticism at the University of Chicago Divinity School back in the early 1970s. I was struck by how the critics often disagreed with one another, and yet each thought he (almost all were men) got it right. Read more