Tag Archives: denomination

Trinity: Perhaps the JW’s believe it?

Trinity: Have the JW’s withdrawn their objection? I’ve given Roman Catholic theology a few critiques, so it’s only fair that I publish something different. I recently wrote this essay to refute the 1989 Jehovah’s Witness tract entitled, “Trinity: Should you believe it?” My overall answer is that the tract was badly misleading and inaccurate. It […]

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What is a “Statement of Beliefs”, anyway?

“What we believe…” – Is that a creed? Is it a doctrine? Or is it just “What we could agree on at the meeting”? In this article I’m examining one specific article in one particular “Statement of Beliefs” to see what function it fills. I’ve been bothered by both the presence and the absence of […]

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Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Booval

Visiting Sacred Heart I have attended Mass at the Sacred Heart church in Booval three times, now. For someone who’s church experience is predominantly in Protestant churches, I found a few things to notice with interest. High Church I might start by saying that, although “high church” traditions such as the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and […]

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Has the Eucharist been redefined?

Does the Roman Catholic Church still hold to Transubstantiation as a doctrine? I attended Midnight Mass at the beautiful St Mary’s Church in Ipswich on Christmas Eve 2011. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and will do it again this year. A couple of things caught my attention, and in my interest as a student of the […]

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One Church, Across all Time

If there is “One Church”, and there always has been only one, then surely it’s the same Church…? I stumbled across a wonderful expression of the “One Church” phenomenon in a theological textbook. I gladly receive it and add it to the wonderfully compelling image of “One Church”: we are part of the same church […]

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Ecumenism in Roman Catholic theology: Lumen Gentium analysed for Ecumenism.

Summary – Lumen Gentium as an Ecumenical document Lumen Gentium, (“Light of Nations”, Vatican II, 1964) changed nothing in the ecclesiology of the Roman Catholic Church, and it was designed that way. But the whole process of Vatican II, including this document, did prove to be a catalyst for ecumenical dialogue in many ways. Again, this […]

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How many churches are there?

Why are there so many denominations in the Christian faith? What’s the difference? Does it matter? I was wonderfully confronted by the living God in a little Anglican church, and came to faith. Since that time I have been quite involved in a Salvation Army church, a Churches of Christ church, a Pentecostal church, and a church that […]

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The Salvation Army and the Sacraments

Is the Salvation Army a Church? Originally, no. The Salvation Army originally denied that it was a church (“we are not professing to be a church” – Catherine Booth, War Cry, 2 January 1883). It came in for criticism because for a long time it did not enter into the debates between Christian denominations concerning the “Sacraments” […]

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Roman Catholic Decree on Ecumenism: “Unitatis Redintegratio”

The Roman Catholic Church… a Decree on Ecumenism… Really? In the 1960’s, the Roman Catholic church made a big effort in an attempt to begin to reverse the 400-year rift between herself and the Protestant churches, even acknowledging that there was fault on both sides. She made a range of statements demonstrating that she understood […]

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