About

Who is the Confessing Reader?  I am a husband and father, by training and profession a physician, by avocation an amateur student of theology and liturgy, a lover of early medieval British history and Renaissance and early modern European history, a Lay Catechist of the Diocese of North Carolina, a church musician, a communicant member of an Episcopal parish in central North Carolina.

Why “The Confessing Reader”?  Broadly, to connect the weblog with that part of the Church that identifies itself as “confessional”, looking to a catholic reading of the Holy Scriptures, to the Creeds, and to the sacraments as the bedrock of Christian teaching, practice, and unity. Specifically, the name derives from the late Bishop Lesslie Newbigin’s book, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt & Certainty in Christian Discipleship:

[In contrast to the liberal reader of the Bible, who stands within the tradition of the historical-critical principle] The confessional reader stands within the tradition of the Christian church. The presuppositions here are those of the gospel itself, namely, that in Jesus the Word of God was made flesh, lived a human life, died for the sin of the world, and rose again. These presuppositions govern Christians’ reading. They read as members of that same community whose story is told in the Bible. It is that community that has put the Bible into their hands and has taught them how to understand it. They read as believers.

–Todd Granger