My Books

The Lord Jesus Christ intended his kingdom present on earth, the Church of God, to be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. Prior to the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, history tells of the most egregious division in the Church between the Latin West and Byzantine East in AD 1054 and following. How can it be that Catholics and Orthodox share a thousand years of ecclesial life together in one faith, sacramental order, and hierarchical government, only to have that bond of communion broken?...

At the root of the schism between Catholics and Orthodox is the divergence between the two on the issue of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit. From the 9th to 15th centuries, the doctrine of the Filioque occupied the greatest concern for the Greeks as they understood its concept to entail a certain essential Trinitarian error. Were the Orthodox objections to the Filioque sound? Did the Catholics have good responses? Written for both the fresh inquirer and the seasoned theologian, this book sets out to answer these questions...

Christians have always believed that the Law of Moses and the Prophets of Israel foretold the expiration of the Old Covenant and the coming of a New Covenant that would restore the people of God under a new Davidic King who would rule the world from Jerusalem and serve as an everlasting Priest "according to the order of Melchizedek" (Psalm 110:4). Jesus of Nazareth, proclaimed as Lord and Messiah, is firmly believed to be Israel's long-awaited King and Priest who, after offering His human body as a propitiatory sacrifice to God in violent death, rose again and ascended to God's right hand to minister in the heavenly sanctuary on behalf of the covenant people...

Both Catholics and Protestants hold to the biblical worldview which sees God establishing a wonderful creation wherein He governs all things according to an order of justice. The created order is not a free-for-fall that is subject to the dictates of human choice. Human beings, simply by virtue of their being creatures made in God’s image, are held accountable to live up to God’s purposes. As such, mankind is ordered to conform to the Creator’s holy standards for human existence...

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of arguments put forth in defense of the baptismal ecclesiology of St. Cyprian of Carthage (210-258). The latter held that the sacrament of baptism cannot be validly nor licitly administered by anyone outside the visible boundaries of the one true Church. Consequently, anyone who seeks to convert to the true Church after having been “baptized” outside the Church in either heretical or schismatic communities must be baptized afresh, for the latter is their only true baptism...