Archive

A chronology of the Christian church — the councils and the deserts, the missionaries east before west, the great tearings and the great awakenings — from the Mount of Olives to the global church of today.

An analysis of the traditional Calvinist doctrine of TULIP, petal by petal — each of the five points stated fairly in its strongest form, its proof-texts gathered, and the passages that strain against it heard with equal care.

A study of intercession in Scripture — Christ the one intercessor, the prayers of the righteous, the incense of the saints — and the contested question of whether the saints in heaven pray for the church on earth, and may be asked to.

Eight centuries of reported stigmata indexed — the canonized, the medically examined, and the frauds the Inquisition caught — with what each investigation actually found, and the fact that the Church has never once declared any of it supernatural.

The believers Scripture places inside powers they had no hand in choosing — Joseph and the midwives, Obadiah in Ahab’s household, Naaman in the house of Rimmon, Daniel, Esther, Nehemiah, the dissenters on the council, Caesar’s household — gathered against the counterweight of “come out of her, my people.” No verdict.

The reference table: the key differences between Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestant theology — authority, canon, salvation, the Eucharist, the saints — set side by side, with the doctrine pages, the liturgies, and the ten plates of the hesychast tradition behind it.