Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
One striking aspect of the recent “Federal Vision” conflict in the various conservative micro-Reformed groups is a debate over what older theologians really meant and said. Examining the credentials of various people who speak with great assurance on these matters one sees repeatedly degrees in church/theology history studies. In fact,…
The Worship of the English Puritans by Horton Davies really valuable book for gaining historical perspective on the American Presbyterian scene. (I will note for the record that I don’t believe there is an objective definition for “puritan” and I wish historians would stop using it and instead speak of…
This is the conclusion to Frame’s discussion about historical/covenantal election in his The Doctrine of God (pp. 329-30): Historical election and eternal election are distinct, but they cannot be entirely separated. Note the following: 1. Both historical and eternal election are aspects of God’s saving purpose. The election of Israel…
From John Frame’s The Doctrine of God : So although the election of Israel is by grace, there is an important place for continued faithfulness. Individuals can belong to the chosen people, yet lose their elect status by faithlessness and disobedience. Branches can be broken off “because of unbelief” (Rom.…
I’ve recently re-discovered an awesome theological resource, The Westminster Shorter Catechism Project . It is excellent, not least because it demonstrates the healthy diversity that has always been allowable in the Reformed Tradition until recently. For example, consider the sources attached to Question and Answer #94: Q: What is baptism?…
A friend recently asked if the frequent saying of the Pledge of Allegiance was a sign of American jingoism, or an attempt to inculcate “nationalism” of a bad sort. It seemed to him as a Canadian that that might be the case. That seemed to me to be probably backwards,…
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Peter Hanns Reill, ed., and Ellen Judy Wilson, principal author, Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (revised edition; New York: Facts on File, 2004), 670pp. Contemporary critics of modernity, including Christian ones, often focus their attacks on ?The Enlightenment,?Ethe intellectual and cultural movement that endured through the ?long eighteenth century?Ebetween Louis XIV…
William Langewiesche, The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime (New York: North Point Press, 2004), 239pp. Landlubbers that we are, most tend to forget that, as William Langewiesche puts it, “our world is an ocean world.” First published as a series of articles in The Atlantic ,…
Marjorie Garber offers many interesting insights into the themes of Shakespeare?s Comedy of Errors in her recent Shakespeare After All . Here are several of the highlights of her analysis: 1) She points out that, like many of Shakespeare?s comedies, the crisis of Comedy of Errors is provoked by ?an…
INTRODUCTION When the prophet Shemaiah confronted Rehoboam, the king turned from his plan (1 Kings 12:21-24). But Jeroboam is not so responsive to the word of the Lord. A man of God from Judah confronts him at his altar at Bethel (13:1-3), and Jeroboam responds by trying to arrest the…
Richard Neuhaus has his gleeful fun attacking John Milbank in the November 2004 issue of First Things . I don’t think he’s entirely fair to Milbank’s political thought, and his charge that Milbank’s attack on the Catholic Church is an “annoyingly unremitting rant” that is “mainly a product of deep-seated…
Barth interestingly ( CD 1.1, p. 410) suggests a correspondence between soteriology and Trinitarian theology: “reconciliation or revelation is not creation or a continuation of creation but rather an inconceivably new work above and beyond creation, so we have also to say that the Son is not the Father but…
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