PART 54 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this video Dr. Kevin Hart teaches on John 20:19-31. Click on the picture.

PART 53 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this video Dr. Kevin Hart opens for us John 20:1-18. Click on the picture below.

THE THEOLOGY OF FORGIVENESS

From this sermon you will learn why you cannot receive forgiveness if you do not forgive others. Fr. Robert Hart explains. Click on the picture below.

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY 2025

PART 52 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this video Dr. Kevin Hart opens for us John 19:31-42. Click on the picture.

SPIRITUAL WARFARE (TRINITY XXI, 2025)

To hear the sermon click on the icon below.

PART 51 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this installment Dr. Kevin Hart opens for us John 19:23-30. Click on the picture below.

PART 50 GOSPEL OF JOHN

Dr. Kevin Hart discusses John 19:1-22 in this video. Click or tap the picture below.

THE CONTINUUM AN ANGLICAN BLOG

ALL SAINTS DAY NOV. 1, 2025

Click on the icon for the video with a sermon preached on All Saints Day, Nov. 1, 2025

THE CONTINUUM AN ANGLICAN BLOG

PART 49 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this video Dr. Kevin Hart opens John 18:25-40. Click on the picture to go to the video.

THE SIGN OF HEALING

Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity 2025, Preached Saturday afternoon at the SSCF Mass, October 25, 2025. Click on the icon to take you to the video.

HOW CHRIST IS THE SON OF DAVID

CLICK ON THE ICON TO GO TO THE VIDEO (COLLECT, EPISTLE, GOSPEL, SERMON).

EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY 2025 Fr. Robert Hart Preached at the Startford SCF Saturday afternoon Mass on Oct. 18, 2025

PART 48 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this installment Dr. Kevin Hart opens John 18:15-24. Click on the picture below.

ACA and ACC Reunited

The wall has been removed that separated the respective Provincial Synods of the Anglican Church in America and the Anglican Catholic Church. That is symbolic and real because the wall of separation is officially removed in every way.

PART FORTY-SEVEN GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this installment Dr. Kevin Hart discusses John 18:1-14. Click on the picture.

God's Will and God's Commandments as Inseparable

The very phrase “Doctrinal Development” carries with it two opposite realities. One is that the Church has clarified true doctrine, often due to disputes with conflicting teaching; the other is that a lot of baggage comes with every quotation of scripture. The very reason I am using for this article the New Testament translation by David Bentley Hart (though it may seem unwise to highlight that fact so early on) is not because he is my brother, but because we finally have an English translation such as we have always needed: A translation free of the very religious traditions – both good and bad – that prevent the English reader from hearing the New Testament writers in much the same way as first century Greek speaking readers of their own time. 

          A very unfortunate doctrinal development that is popular among many modern Christians has a direct effect first on Eschatology (as well as a related and distorted understanding of predestination). In studying matters related to the end of this age, a deeper problem has become quite apparent. Somewhere, perhaps in the Middle Ages (or so I would argue), a tendency entered into the thinking of the Church, especially in the West, to emphasize, among the revealed attributes of God, will and power above love. The result on eschatological reasoning has been to make a clear separation between matters having to do with “God’s plan” – so to speak -from serious theological principles, especially anything to do with the unchanging nature of God. As people collect various ideas about fulfillment of predictive prophecy, pulling facts from history just a little here and there, or from current events (with heavy speculation about seemingly inevitable future developments), they create an entire system of biblical interpretation and doctrine in which unchanging and eternal principles of theology have no place. And, before you might dismiss this as a problem that exists only among the lesser educated masses, the fact is that it can be found just as readily in the strongholds of ecclesiastical academe.

          Closely related, and rooted in the same emphasis of divine will and power over divine love, is the dichotomy that such a doctrinal emphasis creates between the will of God and the commandments of God. This can be traced back through many centuries. It must be seen clearly for what it is: It is a destructive problem that often corrupts the minds of Christians about God and about all matters of ethics and morality. It is thoroughly interwoven into many systems of theology that have achieved the utmost respectability. Let us see, for example how it distorts basic truths of the Gospel itself.

          Can it be denied that Jesus, in all four of the Gospel books, sees His death on the cross as the will of God? Can it be denied that He quite willingly pursues that very death because it is His Father’s will? Indeed, He does. The cross for him, in his human nature, is the crowning act of obedience to God (Phil. 2 :1-11). And, in His divine nature, it is no less his own will as the Logos and only begotten Son of the Father (due to divine love, Gal.2:20).

          Right at this point we come to a crossroads (no pun intended). One of two interpretations must govern how we understand the cross, and thereby how we understand the will of God, and thereby how we think of God, and thereby how we understand every moral and ethical question. Also, at this point we must get the answer right, or else we may never be able to attain to the highest of all virtues, charity (I Cor. 13:13). We simply cannot afford to misinterpret this.

          If, indeed, the famous “Love Chapter,” that thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, speaks of the ultimate good to which we are called to attain, the love of God that only the Holy Spirit can create and nurture within the human heart, we must face this simple sentence for all that it means: “[Love] does not rejoice in injustice, but rejoices with the truth (v.6).” In terms of consistent theological principle, and what has been revealed to be the unchanging nature of God as himself the revealed abiding reality of that love (“God is love” I John 4:8, 16), we have to be clear in our thinking as to what that means concerning the details of the crucifixion of our Lord. In what way was the betrayal of Judas, the false condemnation by the Sanhedrin, the cruelty of the Roman soldiers, etc., the will of God?

          “For in truth both Herod and Pilate, along with the gentiles and peoples of Israel, conspired in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do what your hand and your counsel designated should happen in advance…(Acts 26:27, 28).” That echoes the words of the patriarch Joseph, concerning the callous sin of his own brothers who had sold him many years earlier into slavery in Egypt: “And Joseph said unto them, ‘Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones.’ And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them (Gen. 50:19, 20 KJV).”

          In both the crucifixion of Christ, that is the details of how it happened, and in the sin of Joseph’s brothers, we come across God accomplishing his will through the evil acts of men. If we take this to mean that God predestined each of those events to happen, and the sinful men involved did the will of God, even that they had no free will to choose otherwise, then we must live with the dichotomy between God’s will and God’s commandments, and that must be rooted in placing divine will and power over divine love. That Christians engage often in this doctrinal paradigm is undeniable, and it cannot but have tragic results in terms of ethical and moral understanding, because it is rooted in a distorted mental image of God that denies His impassibility and the consistency of divine simplicity. Such a view cannot contribute to a saintly life, for divine love has to be tamed to make way for some sort of higher considerations, even within what now appears to be a complex and even varied divine nature.

          If that is the case, then what can we mean by saying that God is good? Can divine love have, within itself, hatred? Was St. Paul wrong? Does light indeed have fellowship with darkness? Did God’s “hand and counsel designate” such malicious sins? In the eternal will of God, did Judas have to betray the Lord? Did the Sanhedrin have to perpetrate injustice to the point of judicial murder? Did the soldiers have to crown Jesus with thorns and mock him? Did the brothers of Joseph have to hate him, and sell him? The answer that many Christians have been taught to accept is yes. They take literally the words from Malachi: “Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated (Mal.1:3).”  Although such language merely used a Semitic idiom to say that God chose Jacob and rejected Esau, I have come across those who interpret this in a thoroughly modern western emotional sense, ignoring the true meaning (and the theological issue of what Jacob was chosen for, that is, the place of Israel in the large Messianic theme of Salvation History, as any intelligent reading of Romans chapters nine through eleven makes clear, once one’s head is free of the baggage). For them God hated Esau, so he predestined him to go to hell, making sure he would never receive divine mercy and salvation. And, so too, for them the cross teaches both divine love and a distorted picture of what must be called, honestly, divine cruelty – at best divine indifference.

          So, if we accept this doctrinal paradigm, light must have fellowship with darkness, hatred fellowship with love, and specific sins must actually be the outworking of God’s will. How can this completely distorted doctrine help but cause a schizoid image of a god divided within himself, preventing the believer from approaching any question of morality on the firm basis of consistent theological principle, and thus render the attainment of charity always beyond one’s reach? For, who can rise to a higher moral level than what one worships as God?

          What God’s eternal counsel determined was not the actual sins. Getting back to the question I posited above, “In what way were the betrayal of Judas, the false condemnation by the Sanhedrin, the cruelty of the Roman soldiers, etc., the Will of God?” The answer is that those sins were not at all the will of God. God has revealed his commandments in no uncertain terms, simply stated in the summary of the law to love God with one’s whole heart, mind and strength, and one’s neighbor as oneself.

          God’s will was to save Israel and preserve them in the time of famine. So, when the brothers of Joseph did what was inevitable, foreseen by the God who knows all things, Providence produced what was good. In no way could their evil acts prevent the will of God; indeed, because He “enacts all things in accord with the counsel of his will (Eph. 1:11),” even the most sinful acts have to result in bringing about the good purpose of Almighty God. It was never the will of God for Judas to betray Christ, nor for the Sanhedrin to falsely convict Him, nor for the Romans to go about their violent and murderous acts with such schadenfreude.

          It was the will of God for the Son to offer Himself willingly in love for the sins of the whole world. It was the will of God for Jesus to surrender himself as the obedient suffering servant. The inevitable evil of a world hostile to God and to all goodness was very much within the foresight of the Almighty. Carrying out his will, to do good, was not prevented by human evil; indeed, whatever evil men do, God has the almighty power and perfect wisdom, nonetheless, to turn it to good. Therefore, inasmuch as he cannot be defeated, even evil acts result in his will being accomplished. But, to believe that God must rob man of the freewill that is inherent in the creation of the human race (else, the “image of God” becomes meaningless) and therefore wills any sinful act as something divinely “predestined,” must cause all of the theological confusion, and therefore moral confusion, I have described above.

PART 46 GOSPEL OF JOHN

Click on the picture. PART 46 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this latest installment Dr. Kevin Hart goes over John 17:14-26

SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY 2025

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity 2025, The raising of the widow's son. Click on the picture below.

A STRANGE FUNDAMENTALISM

REPOSTED FROM 2022

This is to arm you against those who try to make the Bible seem pro-abortion. 

What I see is ironic: The new trend among those who argue for a right to abortion  at any stage of pregnancy, and for any reason, have taken to quoting isolated Bible passages as “proof-texts,” and attributing the beginning of life to what amounts to a superstitious and magical belief that birth is the mystical dividing line that turns a lump of inert material into a living soul. They imagine themselves to be the scientific ones; yet they ignore science, speak of “ensoulment,” and misuse the Bible to prove their case. Ironically, in my experience it has often been the very same people, objecting indignantly to the charge of ignoring science in favor of magic “ensoulment,” who also have engaged religious believers with the worst kind of fundamentalism, employing their favorite gotcha proof-texts.

          Naturally, Anglicans tend not to be lulled into fundamentalism, preferring in-depth study to simplistic proof-texting, taking into account a perspective gained by consideration of the Canon of Scripture as a whole rather than as a collection of isolated chapters and verses. Proof-texting is nothing like “rightly dividing the word of truth (II Tim. 2:15).” Nonetheless, it is necessary to set straight their three favorite attempts to proof-text their way into offering apologetics for abortion from biblical sources. These three involve the creation narrative, specifically of Man, and then two passages from the laws in the Torah (or Pentateuch). Let us look at each of them in order.

1.   The Creation of Adam

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7)."

In simplistic fundamentalist style, their argument is that this verse proves that “ensoulment” takes place after birth when a newborn takes its first breath into its own lungs. Never mind that the modern science of prenatal medicine treats the unborn baby as a patient, monitors its heartbeat, keeps track of its growth and development, and in every way affirms that this human being is completely alive within the mother’s womb. The idea that it suddenly becomes alive by breathing without her aid, once it has emerged from her womb, is not science, but, as I said above, superstition. It is nonsense that has no place in the modern world. Furthermore, their fundamentalism is mixed with this strange belief in magic as they distort the biblical text into something it was never intended to be.

The purpose of the creation narrative, in this case the second creation narrative, is two-fold: We see that everything in creation is God’s work, and that it is good, and together it is very good. But this passage is about creation as a first cause, something that cannot be repeated. Indeed, as modern people we have no reason to be overly concerned about the obvious fact that the first two chapters of Genesis are not even read as history by most modern people, just as they were not taken as literal history by the earliest readers. Chapter one is a poem, with such poetic license that God makes the light of day before He is said to have created the sun. Along with the second chapter detailing Eden as the source for four rivers that actually never connect, we can see that the ancient people who gave us these accounts were not trying to pass them off as literal historical fact. In fact, they would be surprised, if they came into our time, that anyone ever did so regard them.

          So, what do we learn from Genesis 2:7? First that God is the creator of the species called Man, or Adam, or homo-sapiens. Adam, in the story, is not even born, but rather formed as a complete and even adult male. It is here that we first learn of the consistent biblical teaching that we each have a body and a spirit, and that these taken together make each of us into a living soul. In both Greek and Hebrew the words for soul and spirit are not only different, but set alongside each other as separate parts of a human being. In the New Testament this takes on great importance in St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, especially chapters two and fifteen, where the difference between soul and spirit is essential to making sense of the text. The body comes from the earth, and in this sense Adam, in the narrative, is born from the earth figuratively. But he is not born literally, and is not an infant.

The passage is telling us simply that life, along with consciousness, comes from God. Also, in both Greek and Hebrew the words translated as “spirit” also mean wind or breath. This is about the creation of the human species, and even taken on its own terms, within the narrative, the story is that this first man was not formed in the womb at all, and not alive until God imparted his own Spirit into him. The breath of God into Adam is the Holy Spirit imparting life into a body that has not been conceived, has never been growing and developing in a mother’s womb, and that had no prior vitality, no heartbeat, nothing. In no way is this creation story anything like pregnancy and childbirth, and in no way is the initial gift of life to the human species repeated by gestation and birth.

In short, to treat Gen.2:7 as a proof-text to justify abortion, by reading into it that breath going into the lungs unassisted by the mother turns morally insignificant tissue into a person, is to defy science in fundamentalist style, complete with a Bible verse. But, after reflection, it is obvious that the text is not about a baby growing and developing in the womb, and is not about birth. Frankly, if we really want to be very biblical about ensoulment, we need to look another passage.

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls  (Leviticus 17:11).”

The Hebrew word translated “life” is nefesh; so it is correct to translate it as “The soul of the flesh is in the blood.”  Inasmuch as our prospective interlocutors are waxing very fundamentalist, let us look at what actual appeal to biblical authority reveals. Certainly no one can argue that the unborn baby has no blood, so playing the match by their own rules, in this first game we say “checkmate.” But the rules of the game are disingenuous on their part; they have to know that modern prenatal medicine is the science that makes their attempt to return to the Dark Ages most repugnant.

2.   A Matter of Premeditation

“If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe (Exodus 21:22-25).”                                                     

Our interlocutors will have quoted an unfortunate mistranslation from the Hebrew, rendering the phrase translated quite literally in the King James Bible (above), “so that her fruit depart from her,” as “causing her to have a miscarriage,” or words to that effect. Their argument is that the child is not treated automatically as a murder victim, ergo, the fetus is of less moral significance than a person who has been born and taken that magical first unassisted breath.

     The first mistake is to assume that the baby has necessarily died. It is not absolutely clear, inasmuch as premature births at late stages of pregnancy have been a regular feature of human experience all throughout history. Granted, today the prematurely born child is even safer, and its life can be sustained at earlier and earlier stages of development (itself a relevant moral fact to the whole subject of abortion). If indeed the baby were to survive, then the child, as well as the injured mother, is to be avenged “if any mischief follow.” The words “Life for life” are, as in Leviticus above, “Soul (nefesh) for soul (nefesh).” The obvious implications do not support our interlocutors’ position.

     More to the point however, whether the child has died or not, the passage cannot be used to make their argument. Let us assume that the child has died, as is most likely, and that the “mischief” is strictly the injuries sustained by the mother. That does seem to be the more reasonable way to interpret the meaning of the ancient text. But it does not follow that this would mean that the child in the womb is of less moral significance; for in the Torah the penalty for murder was not to be carried out on someone who caused an accidental death. “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come over Jordan into the land of Canaan; Then ye shall appoint you cities to be cities of refuge for you; that the slayer may flee thither, which killeth any person at unawares (Numbers 35:10,11).” In the verses that follow it was commanded that no one could be punished for murder unless the actual killing was, in our legal language, premeditated. The men who strove together deserve a punishment; but the entire episode would be an accident. It is likely then that the litany of penalties was not literally meant in this case, “soul for soul,” but was included because this was probably a recognized and oft repeated refrain; for it appears elsewhere.

     However the text was intended, by the rules of the match, we again say “checkmate.”

3.   A Matter of Clumsy Eisegesis.

“Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him, And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner; And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled: Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance. And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the LORD:  And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water:  And the priest shall set the woman before the LORD, and uncover the woman's head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse: And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse: But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water: And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter. Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the offering before the LORD, and offer it upon the altar: And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water. And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another instead of her husband, and is defiled; Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law. Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity

(Numbers 5 :12-31).”

 

I have saved the most ridiculous argument for last. What can I say? Eisegesis is always wrong, whether you are reading an alien meaning into the Bible, or Shakespeare, or lyrics of The Beatles. The eisegesis they commit when they invoke this rather strange passage is that they read into this text pregnancy, whereas in fact there is no mention of an existing pregnancy at all. The passage ends with the promise that she may conceive, which potential pregnancy would follow later. Worse, they imagine that the potion mixed by the priest will cause a miscarriage, and that it is, therefore, abortion performed by the priest. But there is no miscarriage caused by the potion. There is no pregnancy, no miscarriage, in short, no abortion, anywhere in this very unusual ancient passage.

          Indeed, if the potion really were to make a woman’s belly swell, and her thigh to rot, it would stand to reason that her belly is normal size when she drinks it. Frankly, discussing this at all seriously is difficult to do. Not only is the passage very strange indeed, but if this ritual had ever been practiced it could have had only one result: A woman in danger of being abused or divorced would be vindicated and cleared, because there is no magic potion then, and none today either, that could cause her belly to swell and her thigh to rot; and certainly not one that would have this terrible effect only if she had cheated on her husband. By the rules of the match, our interlocutors’ ironic appeal to proof-texts,  we again say “checkmate,” only this time straining to keep a straight face.

          Science and Superstition

So, in closing, we should wonder how any modern person can so easily set aside the advances of science in the field of prenatal medicine, as to argue “first breath ensoulment,” and how anyone wanting to distance himself from belief in the supernatural would treat that first breath as the beginning of life when that life has already reached an undeniably complex stage of development. They like to think we are the backwards and superstitious lot. But with all their talk about ensoulment and their fundamentalist abuse of scripture, the very opposite is exposed.

          Indeed, it is we who are believers in science. And a very real warning must be added. Ensoulment, as they use the word, is about defining personhood. After all of the bloody history, especially of the last five hundred years, with everything from genocidal colonialism, and race-based chattel slavery, to the Holocaust, everyone should back away from defining personhood. For the real purpose in defining personhood is always about exclusion and the attempt to justify atrocities. It is to designate others as non-persons. It is about dehumanizing them. Prenatal medicine is not about defining personhood, and must not be perverted into providing such a definition. Properly understood, ensoulment is a mystery, and for those who actually take religious belief seriously, the work of God and his Spirit.

 

Postscript

Regarding the situation in the United States: Before leaping for joy at the overturning of Roe vs. Wade (and Casey vs. Planned Parenthood), let us be sober enough to admit that we, who stand for the sanctity of life, have actually lost ground in recent years. The younger generations had, once upon a time not long ago, become less adamant in fighting for unrestricted access to abortion for any cause beginning in the last decade of the twentieth century. Fewer and fewer new doctors have been willing to do abortions simply because they learned the latest advances in medical knowledge, and have been unwilling to kill their patients (for every obstetrician treats at least two patients in every pregnancy). The number of abortions decreased dramatically. This was not legislative progress, nor was it political progress. But it was a trend based on appreciation for more medical knowledge about the development of life within the womb. We were making progress

          Observably, much of that ground has been lost in the last few years, even though the greater scientific knowledge remains and even advances yet more. The problem is politicians. The reactionary nature of American politics has caused a sharp division of causes-lumped-together for which the average person feels compelled to go along with one complete party line or the other. Instead of any discussion in which the developing infant has moral significance as a being, the only topic discussed is personal freedom “to choose.” We are allowed only to mention the woman’s body, as if a pregnant woman has two heads, two hearts, two sets of fingerprints, and two separate DNA patterns until that magic moment of separation; of course this is a completely unscientific fairytale. Instead of debate about when the fetus should be protected by law, a discussion that led to the federal ban of partial birth abortion in 2003, the new demand is for absolute freedom of choice by the mother through all nine months of pregnancy; a position so extreme that even a majority of the self-proclaimed pro-choice advocates were opposed to it before 2016.

          Unfortunately, most Americans have become increasingly unable to distinguish between issues. And most politicians have also become less and less resistant to pressure from the respective National Committees of the two major American parties to take any position other than the complete Party Line. This is why lumping together various causes is such an abomination to free thinking minds. The self-contradiction of advocating in favor of healthcare for all, yet advocating the murder of any unborn child who is simply an inconvenience, contrasted against the equally absurd and self-contradictory picture of those who oppose healthcare for all, but claim to be “pro-life,” or pro-gun and “pro-life,” is what makes party politics obscene, fueled by the legal bribery unique to the United States, that gives powerful corporations the ability to purchase your representation in Congress, taking it away from you. Those who are willing to let the poor die by neglect and injustice are not really “pro-life” just because they are right about the abortion issue. Those who advocate for the poor and for refugees do not have the moral high ground either when they argue against the life of the most helpless who cannot speak for themselves, hidden from sight in the womb. The self-contradictions and inconsistencies lumped together as party platforms makes absolute loyalty to either party, and the party line, a betrayal of Christ.

          Now, for those who really want to stand for innocent life, because they know that how we treat “the least of these” is taken personally by Jesus Christ, and that in the judgment we will account for how we treated him in how we treated them in their hour of need (Matt. 25:31-46), fierce loyalty to either of these two parties is simply impossible. Both of them persecute “the least of these,” whether it is the helpless unborn child, or the poor, the sick and imprisoned, or the stranger, and in fact persecute these innocents to the death whether before or after birth (yes, “to the death.” I am considering writing an entire book about cases known to me personally in which modern Americans have died from poverty – yes, many modern Americans are dying quite preventively and needlessly from poverty).

          Whatever happens in the legal realm, our most important focus must be on preaching the Gospel, and “teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you (Matthew 28:20).” Laws made by legislatures come and go. Power structures do not endure. Congresses and Presidencies flip back and forth between party majorities. Probably, even the Supreme Court will flip between parties more and more in the future. It is unlikely that advances made in those venues will have anything even remotely resembling permanence. Roe vs. Wade has been overturned; but this does not place barriers between state lines. The battle we must win is the battle for persuasion, to change hearts and minds. This requires the truth, and it requires credibility.

          Of course, as a priest I am mostly concerned about saving souls. It is quite disturbing that more and more people who claim to be Christians have become more and more willing to engage in sexual relations before marriage, as if “changing times” has rendered any of God’s commandments obsolete. The real danger in the current setback, that young people are once again becoming more ready to advocate for convenience abortion as a “woman’s right” in order to establish worldly equality (i.e. equal opportunities to serve Mammon), is that people who are in the Church and call themselves Christians will be willing in greater number to accept this consequence of sexual “freedom,” and endanger their own souls by adding to it the shedding of innocent blood. Indeed, whatever happens in the culture dominated by unbelievers along with merely nominal believers, we have to resist pressure from without for the sake of our own people. They, especially while young, need sound teaching as their only protection. This brings me back to where I began this essay.

          In recent years I have seen these three major attempts to posit arguments supposedly drawn from the Bible, designed to argue that abortion is not even a sin, and that it is perfectly legitimate. These same three arguments continue to appear, and have been made by a large circle of advocates ranging from ordained ministers and rabbis to professed atheists. As we have seen, these three arguments contradict science, rely on superstition even when made by atheists who delude themselves that they are believers in science, and are also strangely fundamentalist in method though those who have repeated these gotcha arguments from “proof-texts” would never admit to it.

PART 45 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this video Dr. Kevin Hart discusses John 17:1-13. Click on the picture below.

AN APOLOGY to whom it may concern

I realize that I have been indulging a very real fault. Over the years I have allowed myself the luxury of giving in to a curmudgeonly nature, and of wasting time arguing and debating to no purpose, wasting time, offending people because the tone of my comments was too short. I have felt justified, even self-righteous because, I told myself, these are not merely political matters: They are matters of justice. Therefore, crying out must be in the spirit of the prophets. In fact, I believe that I was right about current events and the importance of justice, but wrong in my manner of communication. I was surprised recently by posts on my own Facebook page, some that were posted there by others, yes (and I warned one of my Facebook "friends" that I would block him if he did it again unless to say Happy Birthday), but too many of my own posts had the potential to cause unnecessary offense. It was as if I had not seen them before.

My brother, Addison, also a priest who lives in Norway and has recently converted to Orthodoxy at the age of sixty-nine, spoke very wisely to me, and pointed out that one of the dangers of social media is that it gives us the illusion that what we say will matter, that we have power to effect real change. But, among millions of voices, we do not. In many ways it can impair our judgment, and all too often it has impaired mine, I ask forgiveness from any and all who have ever been offended.

Fr. Hart

PART 44 GOSPEL OF JOHN

Dr. Kevin Hart goes over John 16:23-33. Click on the picture below.

REVISED.

Fr. Harrelson sent me this a little while ago.

"Fr Hart, it has been pointed out to me that I gave you the wrong sermon. I wrote two this week. With everything going on, I did not like the first one I wrote and used a different one. Can you please change the post on the continuum blog to the version I used today?"

I must concur that what he asked me to replace the first one with is better. 

PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN: TRINITY 13 2025

We were not able to make a video this morning, but here is the sermon preached at Saint Benedict's Anglican Catholic Church on Sunday, September 14, 2025: The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.

The Epistle : Galatians 3:16-

The Gospel : Luke 10:23-37 (The Parable of the Good Samaritan)

Fr. Nicholas Harrelson 

In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen. 

When a student of the Law of God asked Christ what he should do to inherit eternal life, our Lord turned the question back to him. What is written in the scriptures? He asked him. What do you read there? The man replied by quoting the two great commandments from God's Word, to love God with one's whole being, and one's neighbor as oneself. We also hear these two injunctions when we have the Communion service, in the words that begin with the introduction, "Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith." This use of these two commandments comes from the Twenty-second chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. A lawyer asked Jesus, "Master, which is the great commandment in the law?" His reply was the same as the lawyer's reported in today's New Testament lesson, and is a part of the Gospel for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.

 

These two commandments are, to say the least, of considerable importance. For Jesus praised this lawyer's answer, and said, "This do, and thou shall live." Obey these commandments, and you will inherit eternal life.

 

The first one comes from the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, and then is repeated several times in that book. The second comes from Leviticus 19, verse 18. In this verse, it's possible to interpret the commandment as applying only to one's own people, in this case, fellow Jews. However, verses 33 and 34 of this chapter include non-Israelites dwelling among God's chosen people. The first verse says, "If a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him." In a generous outreach of the divine love, verse 34 adds, "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself."

 

Two reasons are given as a basis for their charity. They are to remember their own unhappy experience as inhabitants of Egypt, and treat the foreigners among them better than they were treated: "Ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." The second reason was the special relationship which they had with God, and that He was the source of the commandment: "I am the Lord your God."

 

After Jesus' praise of the lawyer for his answer, he, "willing to justify himself," asked, "And who is my neighbour?" The lawyer seems to have been asking if there were limits on the commandment, if there were some to whom it didn't apply. Leviticus seems to restrict its application to other Jews and to foreigners living among them.

 

But Jesus, in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, teaches that there are no limits to neighborly love. Anyone in need whom a person can help is his neighbor. Everyone should follow the example of the Samaritan, who "was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves;" everyone should "Go, and do . . . likewise."

 

A priest and a Levite came to the beaten man before the Samaritan did. They were official representatives of a religion which emphasized alms-giving and deeds of mercy. Of all men, they would have been the most expected to help, but they both "passed by on the other side." They might have thought that the man was dead, and wanted to avoid the ritual defilement which contact with a dead person caused, because this defilement might have inhibited them from carrying out their religious duties.

 

The needs of the beaten man in the ditch should have been far more important to them . In this respect, someone has given a clear statement of what one should do in similar circumstances: "The truly devout man studies to fulfill perfectly all the duties of his state (his place) in life, and all his really necessary duties of kindness and courtesy to society. He is faithful to his devotional exercises, but is not a slave to them; he interrupts them, he suspends them, he even gives them up for a time, when any reason of necessity or of simple charity requires it." The needs of the man lying in the ditch were far more important than any need for a priest or Levite to avoid ritual defilement.

 

Perhaps these two men feared for their own safety. But the Samaritan didn't let such a concern keep him from helping the victim of the robbers. There had been a long history of hostility between Jews and Samaritans. Christ and His disciples had recently experienced it, when a village in Samaria had refused to let them stay there because they were on their way to Jerusalem.

 

But the people of Samaria had the two great commandments in their scriptures, and Jesus knew that some of them had learned their meaning. The man in the parable demonstrated by the practical help which he gave the robbery victim that he had learned to love God and his neighbor. As the story says, he treated the man's injuries, took him to an inn, and provided for his future care before he left the next morning.

 

"Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." Someone has given an illuminating paraphrase of this commandment in these words: "You should be beneficial or helpful to your neighbor as you would be to yourself . . . The Bible is not commanding us to feel something – love – but to do something – to be useful or beneficial to help your neighbor." The Samaritan clearly showed he knew what the commandment meant.

 

He and all who do likewise are responding to what God in His love has done for the forgiveness of the sins of all people and for their redemption. God's love for mankind was demonstrated supremely in what He did through Christ. By His love for us. He inspires and sustains our love for Him and for others, As Saint John wrote in his first epistle, "We love him, because he first loved us." (1st John 4:19) In considering the second great commandment, we can hardly do better than to conclude with some additional verses from Saint John: "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." This, of course, means that we love the victim of violent crimes but it also means we love the perpetrator. Christ died for the sins of all. Christ seeks the repentance of all. 

PART 43 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this video Dr. Kevin Hart continues the study of the Gospel of John and discusses John 16:16-22. Click on the image below.

Why I am a (Critical) Zionist

by Fr. Matthew Kirby

Introduction

First, some definitions. Anti-Semitism is animosity towards Jews because they are Jews, and normally includes beliefs that Jews are generally untrustworthy, avaricious, manipulative, malicious towards Gentiles and too powerful. These purported characteristics may be ascribed to racial and cultural factors or to religious ones. Anti-Zionism is the belief that the modern state of Israel is morally and legally illegitimate and that Jews should not have been given their own nation-state within their ancient homeland, the region renamed as Palestine by the Roman Empire. The reason given for this opposition to the return of Jews to (part of) their old national territory is that it occurred through the (partial) displacement of Palestinian Arabs who had been there for centuries. The question of whether anti-Zionism is by definition anti-Semitic is contested, including by Jews, and I will not automatically assume an identity between them.

There is increasing animosity around the Western world towards Israel (and Jews outside it) that has surged since the terrorist attack on it of October 7 2023 and its aftermath, the war in Gaza. Is this anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism? Or is it both? The fact that, in Australia and elsewhere outside Israel, it has involved numerous attacks on synagogues and Jewish businesses plus the targeting of Jewish people and communities per se, answers the question. Whether enacted by leftists, Islamists or neo-Nazis, clearly this phenomenon is often a thoroughly anti-Semitic brand of anti-Zionism. Russian Australians are not being targeted for Putin’s acts, nor is anybody seeking out immigrants from China, Iran or Pakistan to persecute, whenever those nations commit or sponsor some outrage.