Templating with anonymous functions and usage of output buffer in PHP - php

Question

I figure I'd better ask than make a fool of myself some time when I get my code reviewed.
I am making a website, trying to follow MVC design architecture, although it might not even be MVC but I figured it works nice.
Currently, I am doing something like this;
I have a render() function that takes a string $template and array of arguments,
render($template, $vars=[]){
extract($vars);
ob_start();
include($template.'.php');
ob_flush();
}
and outputs the view. In a controller, I then do this,
Class WhicheverController
public static function defaultAction(){
$article=Article::getOneByID(array('id'=>$_GET['id'], 'user'=>User::currentUser())); //returns database result as object
render('_header', array('title'=>$article->title));
render('header', array('user'=>User::currentUser()));
render('sidebar', array('user'=>User::currentUser()));
$content=Comment::getByArticleID(array('article'=>$article->id)); //returns object
//of root comments, highest level in comment-replies tree
$comments=function() use ($content){
foreach($content as $comment){
$threads[]=function() use ($comment){
render('comment', array('comment'=>$comment));
}
}
render('pagination', array('content'=>$threads)); //pagination paginates based on number of
//items in content, and echoes it or runs it if it is_callable
}
render('article', array('article'=>$article, 'comments'=>$comments));
}
And finally in article.php;
//some html with echoing $article->variablethis or variablethat
<div class="comments">
<?= $comments(); ?>
</div>
Now, the way I figured it out, ob_flush() sends to client prematurely, so I get headers with styles and header and sidebar printed as I am getting the neccessary variables. That is good (if that's how it works).
Then, I want to do the same with the main content - article and comments. First I get the comments and article data, and pass it to article.php. But I have to do some pagination logic first before sending it away, and that would delay rendering of article.php. So I create an anonymous function which does that, and pass that as a variable function $comments(); which does it's logic when it is called.
This is only one example. In one controller I first get top rated articles of today, yesterday and current week, and create anonymous function for each one, before passing it to frontpage.php. Frontpage.php does this, essentialy;
//some html markup
<?= $articles24h(); ?>
//more html
<?= $articles48h(); ?>
//and so on
Now, when I thought of this I thought it was brilliant but as I started to add more variable functions I noticed my code was starting to become longer and I presume anyone other than me illegible.
My question is: is this bad practice; this usage of anonymous functions, variable functions and ob_flush() (more importanntly, does it do what I think it does)?
EDIT: The code itself works. In here I might've made some logical mistakes, but the point is to display the usage of functions.
EDIT 2: Okay, so I realized I can have one anonymous function display $articles24h and $articles48h any paginating content just by passing each as $content, like so function($content) use ($something_else, $but_common){ //yada yada }, which helps a lot, but I still don't know if this is desirable. i.e. there is a better way.
EDIT 3: I created 3 View classes, one View class with static render() method that just takes a template name and array with variables and prints out a template, and two others, PaginationView and PartialView; both have their own render() method and don't extend View class (even thought if I was a better programmer yadda yadda I' do it differently). Pagination paginates partial views that PartialView stores in a class variable and creats when constructed. If I don't need to paginate data, I just call PartialView->render()
Neat (IMO), but it looks kinda ugly in code, like so:
$content=Article::getByAuthorID(array('author'=>$profile->id), array('order'=>$order,'column'=>'time_submitted'));
$user_articles=new PartialView('_article', $content, array('length'=>60));
$user_articles=new PaginationView($user_articles->views, 10, 1);
$user_articles is then sent to
echo View::render('user_page', array('articles'=>$user_articles, 'profile'=>$profile, 'comments'=>$user_comments));
As you can see, I also do this for comments so the code gets lengthy. I don't want to change anything it I am not breaking anything, although I feel like this is a violation of DRY in some way (?)
Is there a better way to do this, without sacrificing clarity but making it more compact?