Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I appreciate Andy Webb’s recent entry into the current discussion over baptismal efficacy. 1 This is an issue which has consumed a great deal of time and energy in the Reformed world in recent years. It is not likely to subside soon. As a contributing party to the discussion, I…
The Covenant Vision of the Heidelberg & Westminster Catechisms Regarding Children and Baptism 7 POINTS ABOUT THE TEACHING OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death? Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but…
Is the Holiday Unpresbyterian? ‘Tis the season to be informed–sometimes in gentleness, often with vigor–by a variety of Christians (and others 1 ) claiming that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas. I have no desire to force anyone to celebrate Christmas against their will. Indeed, it would be insulting to…
This month we begin by considering Alan D. Strange’s article, “Understanding the ‘Federal Vision'” published in the February 2007 issue of New Horizons, the official denominational magazine of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Mr. Strange is an OPC minister, a teacher at Mid-America Reformed Seminary, and was a member of the…
There is no reason to believe that Matthew 24, Mark 13, or Luke 21 records Jesus prophesying about what is now known in Christian theology as “the Second Coming.” In my opinion, the fact that most modern conservative Christian scholars and pastors are not yet willing to acknowledge that the…
Francis Turretin, the Reformed theologian of the seventeenth century, carefully distinguishes the Reformed view of infant faith from Lutheran and Anabaptist claims. Anabaptists denied any faith to infants so that they could justify their refusal to baptize them. Lutherans affirmed (rightly) that covenant infants were believers, but made no distinction…
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The biographical essays in G. Wright Doyle’s Builders of the Chinese Church summarize the lives of nine key missionary figures in Chinese Christianity. Doyle apologizes early on for including only two Chinese leaders, Liang Fa and Xi Shengmo (Pastor Hsi). He is aware that many other Chinese nationals contributed to…
Writing at the Atlantic , Christopher Orr complains that American political satire collapses easily into the standard American genre, melodrama. He puts the British and American versions of House of Cards in the balance, and the latter comes up wanting: “Tonally . . . the two shows are like night…
The Economist reports that “”The number of Americans giving up their passports has shot up, from less than 1,000 a year in the late 2000s to a record 3,415 in 2014.” One of the main reasons has to do with aggressive efforts to collect taxes from Americans who earn money…
T homas Kidd and Barry Hankins, both of Baylor University, observe that the story of Baptists in America is by most accounts a success story: “Baptists, who command tens of millions of American adherents, including the largest Protestant denomination in America (the Southern Baptist Convention) and the largest African American…
As Mark Stoll pursued research on the history of American environmentalism, he discovered that “A huge proportion of the leaders of environmentalism during its mid-twentieth-century heyday were raised Presbyterian.” As late as the Progressive Era conservationism of 1900-1920, “Progressive conservationists were nearly all raised Presbyterian. The almost complete unanimity astonished…
Revelation 13:16 is the first use of the word “mark” ( charagma ). It is a different word from “seal” in chapter 7 ( sphragis ). The mark of the beast looks like a mark of life and power. Those who refuse to worship the image of the beast are…
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