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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Assurance

The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation & Evangelism

Book Review The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation & Evangelism by Norman Shepherd The Call of Grace is an excellent manual to put in the hands of laymen to teach them how to rest in God’s grace while taking seriously the prize of the upward call of…

by Mark HorneJune 3, 2002
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Baptism

Why I Did Not Baptize My Daughter

My Role as a Parent in My Children’s Salvation Evangeline Jael Horne is our third child. My two boys were born while we were at seminary and we had the privilege of giving them to Jeff Meyers, our pastor at that time, for baptism. When Evangeline was born, however, I…

by Mark HorneJune 3, 2002
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Eucharist

John Calvin & Paedocommunion

John Calvin writes in the Institutes about the possibility of admitting children to the Lord’s Supper by virtue of their baptism once and only once: At length they object, that there is not greater reason for admitting infants to baptism than to the Lord’s Supper, to which, however, they are…

by Mark HorneJune 1, 2002
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Eucharist

For the Children’s Sake: An Alternative Angle on the Paedocommunion Debate

The debate over paedocommunion does not seem to have made much headway on either side in recent years. Certainly both sides have made a solid effort to argue for their position. But no resolution seems to be forthcoming in the near future. As a convinced paedocommunionist, I find the church’s…

by Rich LuskJune 1, 2002
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Baptism

Can Baptism Do Anything?

Lots of conservative Protestants want to answer “no” to this question. The problem with this position is that conservative Protestants are bound to believe what the Bible teaches. And the Bible says inconvenient things, like “baptism now saves you” (1 Peter 3.21), or “all of you who were baptized into…

by Mark HorneMay 30, 2002
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Baptism

Calvin On Baptism, Penance, and Absolution

This paper is something of a follow-up to my earlier study, “ Baptismal Efficacy and the Reformed Tradition: Past, Present, and Future .” One of the more controversial aspects of that paper was my claim that Calvin held to a very high view of baptismal efficacy. Indeed, he was a…

by Rich LuskMay 30, 2002

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Holistic Mission

Registration is now open for the Easter term intensive course on holistic mission at Trinity House. The course will be held at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, March 17-21, 2014. The goal of missions is to build holistic, sustainable, and self-propagating Christian communities, or to use the Biblical idiom, to…

January 14, 2014

Blessed are the meek

The word ‘anaw , “humble” or “meek” is used 13x in the Psalter. It refers to a social position; it’s not only, or even primarily, an attitude of mind, but a life-condition. The meek are the afflicted, low-born, abused. Within the Psalter the word forms a story-arc of sorts. Early…

January 13, 2014

Gay Marriage and Religious Freedom

Miles Kimball of the University of Michigan argues that supporting gay marriage is support for religious freedom. After all, most of the opposition to gay marriage is religious, and in America we aren’t permitted to impose our religion on other people. Besides, Kimball says, gay marriage is an avenue for…

January 13, 2014

Culture Industry and Imagination

Reflecting on our culture’s penchant for remakes in the NYTBR , James Parker traces the phenomenon to a “commercial factor here: the enormous built-in timidity of the culture industry, which will always be happier with a remake than a new thing. Once youve assembled a hero, a hero that works,…

January 13, 2014

Modes of Existence

Jonathan Ree reviews Bruno Latour’s An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns in the TLS , and along the way sums up some of Latour’s contributions to social science. Latour’s early work in the anthropology of science, emphasizing the “social construction” of scientific facts, earned him…

January 13, 2014

Writing Competitively

Tim Parks’s piece asking why published authors are shown so much respect begins with the career of Salman Rushdie. An easy mark. But Parks’s larger point still stands: “No one is treated with more patronizing condescension than the unpublished author or, in general, the would-be artist. At best he is…

January 12, 2014

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