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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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Nine lives?

Few people today work at the same job throughout their 40 or so years of working life, and many economists and sociologists have pondered the effects of this development. No doubt there is something lost. But there is also gain. Rosenstock-Huessy suggests that, due to technical efficiencies, doctors can stuff…

January 6, 2007
History

Resurrected texts

When the young Yves Congar visited Lutheran theologians and pastors in Germany in 1930, he learned that Lutheran perceptions of Catholicism were largely shaped by Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, of which Congar had never heard. Today, it would be impossible for a sophisticated theologian like Congar to reach his mid-20s without…

January 6, 2007
Philosophy

Peirce and signs

Menand offers a useful summary of Peirce’s views on signs, in a way that highlights both similarities and differences with Derrida. Peirce taught a notion of differance : “The meaning of a representation,” he wrote, “can be nothing but a representation. In fact, it is nothing but the representation itself…

January 5, 2007
Philosophy

Pragmatism

In his very readable The Metaphysical Club (2001), Louis Menand gives a number of pithy summaries of pragmatism, its sources, its varieties, and its fundamental beliefs. The common attitude or idea among pragmatists has been “an idea about ideas.” Whatever their differences, pragmatists “all believed that ideas are not ‘out…

January 5, 2007

Between, and child actors

Everyone lives between times, and is the intersection of past and future. Everyone is always already taught, and always anticipating or actually teaching and ruling. Rosenstock-Huessy writes, “‘He’ never exists, but is always between two times, two ages, as son and father, layman and expert, the end of one era…

January 5, 2007

Double Procession

No generation ought to be determined by the spirit of the sons. As a matter of simple fact, the world is never occupied by a single generation. For a generation to be healthy, the spirit of the sons must mingle with the spirit of the fathers. The Spirit must proceed…

January 5, 2007

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