Several years ago I was invited to address a group in Phoenix on the difference between Catholics and Protestants. After affirming my agreement with them on many things, I told them that I couldn’t ever become Catholic because of “justification.”

It is the greatest curiosity that some Anglicans hold a functionally Roman view - that the substance of the bread and wine of Holy Communion change into the body, blood, and soul of our Lord when magic words are spoken over them by a fancy-dressed priest.

I am praying for Michael Nazir-Ali this morning that God will use him to show the folks in the Ordinariate the beauty and freedom of the gospel of salvation by grace alone.

Cranmer included an epiclesis in his first Book of Common Prayer (1549), but it was a mistake that he soon regretted and changed.

Simul justus et peccator is incredibly good news that explains how a holy God can relate to sinners like us.

The last few months I have searched various Anglican and Episcopal Church websites to find out what is being taught in adult SS classes and new member classes. It is actually shocking how shallow (and factually wrong!) are many of the things that are being taught! Early in my ministry I received a very generous postcard with the famous portrait of Thomas Cranmer from Bishop Fitz Allison thanking me for something I wrote. He concluded his card with: “Please don’t stop teaching the Articles of Religion to your folks!” Fitz was right, and for 40 years I have tried to teach Reformation Anglicanism. Here are my notes for an introductory class on Reformation Anglicanism. Please feel free to use them, change them, or dump them as you find helpful.

The 16th century Protestants understood the Christian gospel to simply say that we do nothing; God does everything. We add nothing to the sufficiency of God’s saving work, not even our faith. “Just lift your sorry heads and look at the bronze serpent held high in the crowd of sick and dying people and you will be saved” (Nu 21:6-9)! Five hundred years ago, when they began to read the Bible, the original ad fontes source, they quickly discovered the Bible’s central teaching: justification by faith. What this means, of course, is justification by Grace received by faith.