St. Thomas Becket, pray for us!

This is a translated and expanded version of what I wrote in 2010 and in 2013. Today marks the feast day of St. Thomas Becket, bishop and martyr. Thomas was born c.1119 in Cheapside, London, on 21 December, the feast day of St. Thomas the Apostle, and died as a martyr in Canterbury Cathedral, 29

Why I didn’t enjoy evensong at Durham Cathedral

I went to Choral Evensong at Durham Cathedral a few days ago. It was very beautiful, sure, but I felt that the choir stole the whole service from me, including – horribly enough – the Lord’s prayer(!) and the Magnificat (which just feels weird to take away from the people, considering its content). Here is

Why I am not, and will never call myself, a ‘Protestant’

I am very often called a ‘Protestant,’ mainly by American Evangelicals, Pentecostals, or Roman Catholics. But I have always rejected the term, and that is often perplexing to them. Since I am now a bit tired of explaining why, I have decided, after being encouraged, to just write a post about it. Some (and mainly

Conformitas Christi and Imitatio Christi

A while back I talked to a fellow Lutheran priest and and we talked, amongst other things, about some traditional differences between Lutheran and Roman Catholic views on our relation to Christ, and about the difference between imitatio Christi, which is a traditional emphasis in Roman Catholic theology, with an emphasis on our imitation of