Posts with the tag “church”

Maiden, Mother, Matriarch
by Maggie Breckenridge on October 1st, 2023
Louise Perry, author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, a 30-something United Kingdom columnist, feminist, and host of a podcast with the title of this article, has written insightfully about the three stages of a woman’s life. Here is her analysis. A woman is first a maiden: young, single, at the peak of her physical beauty. To one degree or another she is admired and sought for her physi...  Read More
Christian Liberty, Alcohol, & Tobacco
by Maggie Breckenridge on July 12th, 2023
As I progressed through my seminary education (ca. 1977-81), I began to notice an interesting phenomenon. As men became more reformed in their doctrine, they tended to become more demonstrative in the exercise of Christian liberty. This was particularly true of those who were reared in conservative Protestant traditions which tended to be careful or legalistic (depending upon your perspective) reg...  Read More
Worship at General Assembly: What We Want
by Maggie Breckenridge on July 16th, 2021
Let’s return to having worship services each morning, Tuesday to Thursday…They can be held from 8:30-9:30 or thereabouts…. Each evening General Assembly could host a concert. Choirs, soloists, and musicians all across the sacred music spectrum could perform. These concerts could be held from 7:00-8:00 or thereabouts. I might dare to hope that this two-pronged approach would make everyone happy. An...  Read More
Coronavirus and the Church: Compliant, or Uncreative?
by Maggie Breckenridge on April 6th, 2020
It has been surprising to see the speed with which the churches have shut down public operations and shifted their ministries online. Having this online capacity is a wonderful provision during an epidemic, one unavailable to previous generations. Live streaming allows the church to do something when the alternative might have been to do nothing, to provide some spiritual food when circumstances m...  Read More
John Calvin and the Directory for Public Worship of God
by Maggie Breckenridge on January 1st, 2018
It can be argued that John Calvin is among the most important liturgists in the history of the Christian church. Indeed, I have attempted to make the case that his Genevan Psalter of 1542 and its Form of Church Prayers established a norm for worship.The Form’s stress on the ordinary means of grace (word, prayer, sacraments), its emphasis on preaching and congregational singing, its elimination of ...  Read More
Modesty
by Maggie Breckenridge on September 16th, 2011
“Modest dress is required, in keeping with the dignity of the place as well as the solemnity of the occasion. Whatever you strip off the wedding dress afterward to turn it into a party dress is not at issue; one does not show up for a religious ceremony in a plunging neckline or strapless party dress.” –Miss MannersOh Miss Manners, in the years since you wrote those words, the issue of modest dres...  Read More
Vacationland PCA - \"Should We Be Doing That?\"
by Maggie Breckenridge on September 7th, 2011
The PCA is a land of liturgical anarchy driven by a Trotyskesque philosophy of perpetual liturgical revolution and accelerated by the rapid mutations of popular culture to which it is pegged and with which our ecclesiastical trendsetters feel duty-bound to keep pace.One summer when our children were young our family was doing our usual summer ritual of attending out-of-town PCA churches. Frankly, ...  Read More

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