Rector (parish priest) at S. Francis Anglican Church Dallas, ACNA, husband and father. Devout Catholic. Creator of bespoke ecclesiastical vesture. (thee/thou)
Dallas, TX
Joined June 2015
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Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
The difference between the Anglican tradition’s concept of Purgatory and that of the Roman tradition is that we don’t presume to know precisely what it is or how it works.
In context, the Anglican condemnation of the “Romish doctrine of Purgatory” was not a blanket dismissal of the concept of postmortem cleansing, but a specific criticism based on the belief that Rome had gone too far in how they stratified it.
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
Christians traditionally used to fast every Wednesday and Friday.
Might be worth taking back up again.
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
🚨 BREAKING: Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) demands the Senate IMMEDIATELY reconvene on Monday morning, work EVERY DAY until Democrats take power, and pass budget reforms, election integrity and EVERYTHING WE NEED
"STAY UP there until January...get everything done. Stay EVERY DAY. Through Christmas, through Thanksgiving, through New Year's, every day!"
"We should balance the budget. We should pass permitting reform. We should get election security done."
"People want jobs. They want more affordable government. We have the power to do it RIGHT NOW." 🇺🇸
"We KNOW the Dems are gonna destroy the filibuster!"
Rick Scott wants a RAPID FIRE approach to get everything done while Dems don't control the chamber.
And if the filibuster isn't nuked, do it via reconciliation!
Send as much common sense to Trump's desk while we have the chance. This would be a good start to 2028!
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
Paul commands Christians to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
Read that again. Salvation. Worked out. With trembling.
Most Protestant readers assume Paul taught that any human contribution to justification is impossible, that grace excludes cooperation entirely. But Paul's own command assumes the opposite: there is something for you to do, and eternity can hinge on whether you do it.
The standard move is to soften the verse: "work out" just means "display outwardly" what God has already worked in. But Paul doesn't say "show off your salvation." He says work it out, in fear and trembling, which is the language of serious moral effort before a living Judge.
Three points worth sitting with.
Paul says this to saints already believing. This is instruction for the justified, not a ladder for the lost. Catholic theology calls this sanctification, growth in the grace already received.
The reason given is not "because it is finished" but "for God is at work in you" (2:13). Grace is the engine, and your effort is the output. Both are real. Neither cancels the other.
Paul repeats this elsewhere. "Strive to enter through the narrow door" (Luke 13:24). "Run so as to win" (1 Cor 9:24). "I discipline my body... lest I be disqualified" (1 Cor 9:27). Disqualified. Paul, disqualified. That only makes sense if cooperation matters.
The Fathers read this verse the same way for centuries. Augustine treats fear and trembling as the permanent posture of a Christian who has not yet been perfected, not a terror abandoned at conversion.
If salvation cannot in any sense be worked out, why would an apostle command it?
People who are not actual Republicans or Democrats should not count toward a majority as those who "caucus with."
Abdul El-Sayed is now saying he won’t work with Democrats & is starting his own party.
He ran as a Democrat, used the primary process, & accepted Democratic support to get elected. Now that he has the office, he’s walking away from the party that put him there.
He needed the Democratic machine to win he no longer needs it to hold power
You can’t make this up
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
8 men who identify as women won their races in the midterm elections. It’s actually so over.
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
The keys given to Peter in Matthew 16 are not a vague symbol of faith, but a precise, historical reference to the royal office of the prime minister in the Davidic kingdom.
Most Protestants read "I will give you the keys of the kingdom" as a metaphor for preaching the gospel. A personal encouragement to Peter. Nothing institutional.
But Christ was quoting something. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
Isaiah 22. God deposes Shebna, the corrupt steward of the palace, and installs Eliakim:
"I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; he shall shut, and none shall open."
Note the structure. Keys. Opening and shutting. Authority exercised on behalf of the king.
Now Matthew 16:19. "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven."
Same office. Same language. Same structure.
In the Davidic court, the steward was the Al-Bayit, the master of the palace. He governed when the king could not be present. His authority was the king's authority, delegated. And critically, the office outlived its holder. Shebna was removed. Eliakim was installed. The keys passed from man to man.
The office was successional by design.
"Binding and loosing" confirms it. This was rabbinic technical language for judicial rulings, for declaring what is permitted and forbidden under the Law. Christ hands Peter not a feeling, but a court.
So the question is unavoidable. If Christ deliberately invoked a Davidic office that was viceregal, permanent, and successional, why would He intend Peter's office to die with him?
The early Church agreed. Tertullian, Cyprian, and the Fathers generally read the keys as a real chair of authority, not a private compliment.
The first Christians had no doubt that offices succeed. Judas's seat was filled by vote and Scripture in Acts 1.
Why would the keys be the one exception?
If Matthew 16 gives Peter only a personal gift, what do you do with Isaiah 22?
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
Polycarp of Smyrna learned the faith from the Apostle John himself. Around 110 AD he wrote a letter that quietly demolishes the claim that the early Church had no hierarchy, no priesthood, and no fixed doctrine.
A thread
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
In 350 AD, a bishop in Egypt wrote down a prayer his church had already been praying for generations. Modern critics say the sacrificial Mass and invoking saints were medieval inventions. This one document, older than most of the New Testament manuscripts we possess, says otherwise. A thread.
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
I realised yesterday that what I most admire about Christ's teaching is that it's NOTHING to do with power
Whereas Islamic teaching is LARGELY to do with power
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
So what if a Muslim wins an election in America and becomes a congressman or senator? Why is that any different from a Buddhist winning an election?
Because Buddhism is a religion. Islam is a state.
Islam has a population: the ummah. It has a constitution: Sharia. It has courts, criminal law, family law, taxation, rules for minorities, doctrines of war and peace, and a foreign-policy framework governing relations between the land of Islam and the lands outside it.
The ummah is not tied to Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, or any other modern country. It crosses all of them.
Islam's population "Muslims" belong to one political-religious community.
That is fundamentally different from Buddhism.
A Buddhist American may practice Buddhism faithfully, but Buddhism does not give him a second universal political order with its own law, sovereignty, territorial doctrine, and theory of government.
Islam does.
This is why reducing Islam to “just another religion” misses the point.
Muslim officeholders are literally citizens of another existing country, and their loyalties can never be American first, because the two projects are contradictory.
Add to that the religious hatred of Jews in Islam and the special relationship between Israel and America.
A Muslim in a position of power in America, with a religious mandate to hate Jews, will not approach Israel from the perspective of what is in America’s best interest, but rather from the perspective of what Islam commands him to do.
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
Despite what Texas’s governor-elect, @GinaHinojosaTX says, vouchers aren’t a scam.
-4 in 5 students in the program come from low-income families
-1 in 4 has a disability.
Those students deserve the opportunity they were given.
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
Understand the implications of what happened in Texas last night.
Gina Hinojosa has called on Gov. Abbott to end state & local cooperation with ICE & she can order that on day one.
Hinojosa voted against the 2017 SB 4 as a TX state rep. The bill was essentially a sanctuary cities ban and required TX law enforcement to cooperate with ICE detainers. She then voted against another SB 4 in 2023, which made it a state crime to cross illegally into Texas.
Should there be another border crisis in coming years, there will likely be no resistance from Texas at the border. No Texas DPS, no TX National Guard, no razor wire or water buoys, and no Operation Lone Star, which Hinojosa called a “dog and pony show” and “political theater”.
Remember when 15,000 Haitians surged illegally into Del Rio, TX in 2021 under the international bridge? That was only stopped because Texas DPS responded on Abbott’s orders and physically blocked further crossings by lining up their cruisers to form a wall. The Biden Border Patrol was caught off guard and offered almost no resistance, except for some horseback agents who were falsely slandered for “whipping”.
Additionally, because Republicans failed to pass any legislation codifying President Trump’s border security measures, if Dems take the White House in 2028, that Dem president could, if he/she wants to, reverse every single Trump border security policy immediately upon taking office because they were all done at the executive level, and they can order Border Patrol to go back to a passive catch & release policy like we saw under Biden.
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
Please meet Adam Hamawy, an Egyptian-born former military doctor who has just won as a Democrat for the US House (NJ-12).
Hamawy reportedly volunteered for a Chicago-based non-profit in Bosnia that was later determined to be a front for the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda.
He also accompanied, translated for, and testified as a defense witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman (the “Blind Sheikh”), who was convicted in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
This is yet another Muslim that Democrats have elected to Congress tonight.
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
THE BRIGHT SPOT FOR CONSERVATIVES IN TEXAS' BLUE STORM...
REPUBLICANS RETAINED THE SENATE FIREWALL. NO LAW CAN BE PASSED OR CHANGED WITHOUT THEM!
Texas Voters Delivered A Generational Shift On November 3, 2026, Handing Democrats Control Of The Governor’s Office, Lieutenant Governor’s Office, Every Other Statewide Executive Post On The Ballot, & The State House For The First Time Since 2003.
Governor-Elect @GinaHinojosaTX Defeated Three-Term Governor @GregAbbott_TX To Become The First Latina Governor & The First Democrat In The Office Since Ann Richards.
@VikkiGoodwinTX Unseated Powerful Lieutenant Governor @DanPatrick. @jamestalarico Flipped The U.S. Senate Seat Against @KenPaxtonTX, Ending A Decades-Long Democratic Drought. Democrats Also Captured The Attorney General, Comptroller, Land Commissioner, Agriculture Commissioner, & Railroad Commissioner Posts.
In The 150-Member House, Democrats Are Projected To Hold Roughly 83 Seats To Republicans’ 67, Breaking The Republican Trifecta That Had Governed The State Since 2003.
YET THE 31-MEMBER TEXAS SENATE REMAINS UNDER STRONG CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN CONTROL WITH NO NET SEAT CHANGES.
Republicans Hold 19 Seats & Democrats Hold 12.
Sixteen Seats Were On The Ballot; Incumbents & Open-Seat Republicans Prevailed In Their Districts, Preserving The Majority.
The Senate Requires Only 16 Votes For Control & Has Long Functioned As The Most Conservative Chamber In The Legislature, Historically Setting A Hard-Right Agenda Under Prior Leadership.
Under The Texas Constitution, NO BILL BECOMES LAW WITHOUT PASSAGE BY BOTH CHAMBERS.
A Democratic House & A Democratic Governor Can Propose & Pass Measures, But THE REPUBLICAN SENATE RETAINS THE POWER TO BLOCK THEM.
Even With A Democratic Lieutenant Governor Presiding, The Majority Caucus Controls Committee Assignments, The Calendar, & The Legislative Agenda In Practice.
This Senate Retention Constitutes The Central Bright Spot For Conservatives. Policy Changes On Issues Such As Education Vouchers, Immigration Enforcement, Abortion Restrictions, Energy Regulation, Or Taxation Cannot Advance Without Senate Concurrence.
The Chamber’s Composition Ensures Continuity Of Conservative Priorities & Prevents Unilateral Progressive Overhauls. Statewide Results Reflect A Midterm Rebuke Of The National Administration & Local Incumbents, Yet The Senate’s Geographic & Partisan Distribution—Concentrated In Rural & Suburban Districts—Proved More Resilient Than The House Or Executive Ballot.
As The 90th Legislature Convenes In January 2027, Divided Government Will Force Negotiation Rather Than Sweeping Transformation.
The Texas Republican Senate Stands As The Institutional Check On The Broader Democratic Gains.
Fr. Timothy Matkin retweeted
I said a couple of months ago that I believed the Muslim Brotherhood would start to fully focus on the US because they think they have already won the demographic war in Europe.
Boy, was I right.
Europe might have a larger Muslim population, but Muslims in the US are gaining power much faster and at a scarily disproportionate rate.
Conquering America was always their ultimate goal. Muslims believe that America is the only thing preventing them from achieving world domination.
You can’t have world domination without conquering America first. This is the final phase of their plan to establish a global caliphate.
Dark days ahead.