15 Jul 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
So let's talk about effeminacy. This came up as final point of criticism in my Mere Orthodoxy critique of the gay Christianity of Revoice and Spiritual Friendship. Now, I knew that "going there" would upset a lot of people. It's basically touching the third rail to even say the word "effeminate" today....
Read more → 09 Jul 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
As we continue our thoughts on gay Christianity and “spiritual friendship,” we need to take an important detour. My original plan to was to move from concupiscence to the topic of effeminacy, but as I worked through Augustine’s writings on concupiscence, I was confronted with his peculiar theories...
Read more → 28 Jun 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
Picking up from my previous post on the problem of gay-but-chaste Christianity, I want to talk about concupiscence. Jack Bates criticizes me for introducing concupiscence into the discussion in an over-generalized and therefore simplistic way. Bates writes: Wedgeworth’s treatment of concupiscence...
Read more → 25 Jun 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
My essay over at Mere Orthodoxy on the Spiritual Friendship conversation has generated a fair amount of discussion these past few weeks. Much of it has been very good. Some of it was of the predictable online partisanship variety, which, while inevitable, is still too bad. There was a sort of blind partisanship...
Read more → 22 Jun 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
In his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, following his commentary on Q&A #7, Zacharius Ursinus enters into an extended discussion of sin. He gives a basic definition and then makes several distinctions between varying kinds of sins. The first is the common distinction between "original sin"...
Read more → 29 May 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
Athanasius of Alexandria's doctrine of the deity of Christ rest upon two basic concepts. These are that the divine nature is simple and incapable of division and that the Son is generated or begotten from the essence of the Father, that divine essence which is simple. When you combine these two concepts,...
Read more → 28 May 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
Athanasius of Alexandria actually has a lot to say about the divine nature. He says that it is fruitful. He says that its essence and its existence are identical. He says that it is simple and infinite. And yet, he also says that the divine nature is, in itself, unknowable to us. We have nothing with...
Read more → 25 May 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth
In an most interesting section of his Orations Against the Arians, Athanasius fields an objection against the eternal generation of the Son based on a parallel with creation. Athanasius has been arguing that certain divine names (Father, Wisdom, Word) show us that God must have always had a second hypostasis...
Read more → 20 May 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
For you, little child, Jesus Christ has come, he has fought, he has suffered. For you he entered the shadow of Gethsemane and the horror of Calvary. For you he uttered the cry, "It is finished!" For you he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and there he intercedes — for you, little child,...
Read more → 11 May 2018
Posted by Steven Wedgeworth 
Peter Hitchens has written a rather remarkable essay on the difference between the religious persecution carried out by Queen Elizabeth I and that done by Bloody Mary. What's more remarkable is that it was published by First Things. Mr. Hitchens' essay attempts a number of things, but its most important...
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