Welcome Friends,

Beginning in  August 2007 I will be serving as interim (and possibly future) rector of Christ Church Anglican in St. Charles , Missouri . This is a two-year-old plant of the Anglican Mission in America. 

For those scratching their heads, this is a mission of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda (L'Eglise Episcopal au Rwanda ). Think of us as Evangelicals with smells, bells, and liturgy; as Catholics without a Pope; or as Episcopalians with an archbishop in Kigali rather than in New York City. More importantly our faith is possessed of a much deeper commitment to historic Christianity than the American Episcopal Church. 

As part of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, we are in official communion over seventy seven million members worldwide (most in what is known as the “Global South”). That means we make up the third largest Christian contingency in the world, after Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. For those still scratching their heads, there is an excellent article by Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi of Uganda entitled What Is Anglicanism? in the current issue of First Things. I encourage you to have a look.

We have been at Saint Louis University over the past couple of academic years and that we are beginning the third. I have ended up laying down roots in the major research area of Modern Christianity and will likely be starting dissertation research on a nineteenth century Anglican theologian by the name of Edward Bouverie Pusey.

Part of this has resulted in my landing a book contract for a volume of collected essays on Anglican converts to Roman Catholicism and their role in the papal infallibility debates of the late nineteenth century. The work, entitled The Burdens Of History: Essays On The Oxford Movement And Papal Infallibility will be edited by me and my future dissertation director, Kenneth L. Parker. We hope (fingers and toes crossed) to have it to press soon after the first of the year.

Otherwise speaking, Tracy and the girls are doing quite well. Tracy continues to work in the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Saint Louis University and largely foots the bill for her well-kept husband’s book habit.  

Please do keep us in your prayers over the coming months. The added responsibilities will keep things very busy around here and the church—a very loving & healthy-sized core group at present—needs to continue to grow and mature into full viability. We will obviously be doing our part with teaching, preaching, and the practice of hospitality, but only God can bring the increase. Don’t forget us and know that you are never far from our reciprocal thoughts and prayers.

B'Shalom,

MJGP

Rev. Michael J. G. Pahls