Anglican practices and rituals are primarily found in the Book of Common Prayer, the prayer book of Anglicanism, which helps define Anglican beliefs and worship practices on every level. The book is almost as important as the Bible itself to Anglicans. The Book of Common Prayer, which defines the “common”
The Baptist denomination is the largest free church denomination in the world with 43 million members. It is one of the largest Protestant Free Church denominations. More than 75 percent of all Baptists – about 33 million – live in America. There are about 216,000 Baptists in Great Britain, 850,000
The Catholic Church, known as the Roman Catholic Church, has well over one billion members, about one-sixth of the world’s population. It’s the world’s largest Christian denomination. It’s also the largest organized body of any world religion. Catholics are led by the Pope, also known as the Bishop of Rome,
Lutheranism is not a single entity. It is organized in autonomous regional or national churches. Globally, there are some 150 such Lutheran church bodies. Lutheranism is one of the largest Protestant denominations. It is also the oldest Protestant denomination. Lutheranism retains much of the tradition of the ancient and medieval
There are Methodist Churches in nearly every country in the world and global membership numbers about 70 million in 138 countries. The World Methodist Council (WMC), an association of churches in the Methodist tradition, comprises more than 40.5 million Methodists. There are at least 19 Wesleyan Methodist denominations in the
For readers acquainted with the great American poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)—or even, dare I say, the macabre predilections of adolescence—it will come as little surprise that the Belle of Amherst spent a number of her formative years trying to imagine her own death. What might prove slightly more surprising is
The Lord promises the most remarkable thing to His children—even to those who seem to be cast away, like the Jewish captives in Babylon. “A new heart…will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your
Artificial Intelligence and the Things That Matter Most By Jonathan A. Powers “Do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation.” These words come at the opening of C. S. Lewis’s essay, “On Living in an Atomic Age,” written in 1948 as the world struggled to come
Daryl Murray grew up in a Christian home, but his faith became his own as a teenager on a youth choir tour to New York City. A few years later, during a summer internship near Times Square, he told a homeless man at a church door to come back the
The Problem Your Church Can Feel but Can’t Name with Gavin Adams Most churches aren’t stuck because they lack passion. They’re stuck because of 48 layers of paint. Gavin Adams has a name for what’s quietly slowing your church down, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Gavin
In August 2016, while accepting the Republican nomination for president in Cleveland, Ohio, Donald Trump uttered five words that many observers instantly recognized as a rupture from the past. The system is rigged, he declared—and “I alone can fix it.” The Atlantic’s Yoni Applebaum described the speech as “breaking with
In earlier Jeremiah chapters, the prophet lists the woes that will befall apostate covenant Israel, but he doesn’t leave it there. Only the Lord knows how to turn this level of desolation and mourning to joy. Meridian Magazine
Pilgrimage as a Spiritual Possibility By James R. Thobaben This article first appeared in the March 2022 edition of Good News. In 1864, as the American Civil War turned toward its inevitable (and proper) conclusion, Methodists in North Carolina published The Southern Zion’s Songster. Included in the work, albeit uncredited,