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Reflections and Meditation on Beauty in Church Buildings

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             Church beauty is hotly contested in the USA.   Evangelicals, megachurches, and home church folk argue that the Word, movement of the Spirit, sermons, and Holy Scripture is all you need.   Perhaps a modern band and a bongo drum.   With that, the location and the holiness or beauty is less relevant.   For anyone who has been to these types of churches, especially in a warehouse, strip mall, or theatre knows this is a fair representation.   It also matches their nervousness of anything too old or formal.              On the other end we have various traditional catholics and mainliners, who focus much more on Holiness, sanctity, sacraments, and tradition.   Chapels, Cathedrals, and sanctuaries should uplift the spirit, help one be in the mood to worship, and aid in approach of holiness.   Music should be reverent, and traditional. Some chant, some have an organs, and others an orchestra, with the goal of respectfully honoring God.   They counter that sanctified spac
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Reflections and Meditation On: Women’s Ordination – Power Principle

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           Women’s ordination feels wrong on the face of it.  Part of that is my traditionalist bent, part is because I know it is a 20 th century trend, and finally because I know history.  This is all before we get to the very specific Biblical prohibitions to women leading or speaking in church. Along with this, discussing the nature of spirituality and how the power argument is not biblical, which to me seems like the strongest argument against it.            The “It is 2020 (current year)” argument is popular right now, and directly tied to the power argument.  It relies on the claim that all historical people in the 1 st to 19 th century are bad to women, and that women need exact positional parity to men in everything as reparations. This is a leftist non-Christian argument, and it is wrong historically, ethically, and spiritually. Old is bad requires you to prove why it is evil (away from God) or does not work in a utilitarian way. Neither is often done here.  Power par
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Women against Women in Holy Orders

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This article by a former women priest  makes an unassailable traditionalist argument for the keeping of women out of Holy Orders (priesthood and ordination.) Since I have rejoined the church, the argument over whether women should be allowed to be priests is active, so much so that it has now even started to take place in the Roman Catholic Church.  I have some reflection of my own on this, but the short version (with the longer one to come) is basically that this is a feminist power move, and is all appeals to power and equality, 21st century argumentation.  There is basically no Biblical, traditional, or Apostolic warrant for it. It also in history has predicated the collapse of mainline churches.  It is hubris to pretend it will not happen to your denomination as well. There is an appropriate place for women, in Marian theology, parish life, and in monastic life. If you have been in any active parish, it is also commonly run by majority women. 
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This is why Anglicans need to be careful borrowing wholesale  from the Catholic Church. There is some great traditions, and some real poison in Vatican II church doctrine.  I even ran into de Chardin in an Episcopalian book on discernment.  The Church must discern when it borrows, otherwise we will get away from Christ and the Bible, and thusly stop being a church.
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Christmastide

The Anglican Liturgical Calendar and Christmastide  is a great feature of the tradition. This article is a slog, but it really demonstrates the features that are part of Anglicanism. The yearly repetition of the calendar, having a balance in our worship and the full aspects of God and Jesus and the Scripture is very healthy.
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China is also rewriting the Ten Commandments

China is also rewriting the Ten Commandments  and this is what would happen in any materialist society where progressives win. For other historical examples, see Korea under the Japanese, where they banned the Old Testament and Revelations, because of unpatriotic commentary.  I could pick any communist country in history to make the point as well.  Orthodox Christianity is a challenge to all forms of materialism. They have a theology too, its an anti-theology.
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Christianity Attacked in China

China goes after Christians  more and more often lately. Their hands off approach to unofficial and non party churches has been policy since the 1990s. It should be an obvious aside, but before that the Communists made it their full time job to kill, exile, and forcefully convert Christians. Now under President Xi, China is returning to classic isolationist East Asian policy. The Koreans in the last dynasty (Choson 1390s-1910) and Japan (Tokugawa 1600-1868) who both expelled and killed Christians because they fundamentally subvert the system. The Bible and Christ's message is subversive. Remember this in an age where materialist-progressiveness is rising in the West. Pray.
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