Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
While I think Zacharias Ursinus’ thinking would be profitable to consider, I am not recording his reflections in order for readers to come to agreement with his position as a whole. Rather, my interest is twofold. First, I think the way the Heidelberg Catechisms is used as a “proof” of…
On this question Hebrews 10 is quite clear and really needs no additional argument. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume…
Not all readers of this essay letter may be aware of it, but a tempest has been brewing in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), a tempest created by the liberal party in that denomination. It came about this way. In January 2002, a Pastor’s Conference on covenant theology was…
Once upon a time there was such a thing as Calvinistic thought. It existed when I was younger, but seems to have largely disappeared in recent years. But let me elaborate. When I became a Calvinist, back in 1970, I bought a bunch of books. Over the next few years,…
CHRIST THE PREACHER How Ephesians Shows Us Why Preaching is Essential to Salvation & Sanctification Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a…
Tracking the informal shifts in Protestant opinion regarding Baptism can be a difficult business. For example, in 1849 Anglican clergyman William Goode published his defense of Evangelicalism against the Anglo-Catholics under the title, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of…
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Dale Dykema of Covenant Home Curriculum writes: “I have just finished reading Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali Moslem woman converted to Dutch Humanism. Her efforts to expose the violence of Islam, especially its oppression of women is noteworthy. Of particular interest to me was how this woman discovered…
The liberal state is a free state, but it’s clear from Spinoza that freedom in a liberal state is limited to unlimited freedom of thought and speech. Action is controlled by the state, including religious action: “God has no special kingdom among men except in so far as He reigns…
The genealogy is pretty clear: Pietist-leaning Collegiants, with affinities to the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, influence the theological and political view of Spinoza, leading him to write a treatise where he defends two central Anabaptist/Pietist clams: a) he attacks the tyranny of the letter and b) he argues for…
Another from Hatzfeld: “The Saturday after the [President’s] plan crash was the usual choir rehearsal day at the church in Kibungo. We sang hymns in good feeling with our Tutsi compatriots, our voices still blending in chorus. On Sunday morning we returned at the appointed hour for mass; they did…
In his harrowing book on the Rwandan killers of 1994, Jean Hatzfeld quotes one young man: “Suddenly Hutus of every kind were patriotic brothers without any partisan discord. We were through playing around with political words. We were no longer in our each-to-his-won mood. We were doing a job to…
According to Emmanuel Kolini and Peter Holmes ( Christ Walks Where Evil Reigned ), the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda were originally ethnically indistinguishable. Prior to colonialization, the difference was “vocational,” social and economic. Tutsis were cattle herders, Hutus farmers; Tutsis were Abel, Hutus Cain. When the Belgians took over,…
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