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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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Aristotle on Trump

Trump and Aristotle may not seem to have a lot in common, Carson Holloway argues that Aristotle's Politics illuminates the deep source of Trumpism. In Book 5, Aristotle describes the origins of political factions: “In general, he teaches, human beings become factious over equality and inequality. That is, political conflict…

April 11, 2016

In Praise of the Repairman

Matthew Crawford is an advocate for the moral and intellectual value of manual labor. He argues in Shop Class as Soulcraft that “T he moral significance of work that grapples with material things may lie in the simple fact that such things lie outside the self. A washing machine, for…

April 11, 2016

Breaking With the Imperium

Listening to Rod Dreher read the final paragraph of After Virtue , I was struck by MacIntyre's description of the political prerequisite for forming communities of virtue in the new dark ages that are upon us. Here's the famous passage: “It is always dangerous to draw too precise parallels between…

April 8, 2016

The Triumph of One-Armed Bandits

“Until the mid-1980s, green-felt table games such as blackjack and craps dominated casino floors while slot machines huddled on the sidelines, serving to occupy the female companions of ‘real' gamblers,” writes Natasha Dow Schull in her 2014 Addiction By Design . Slot machines were “often placed along hallways or near…

April 8, 2016

Comparative Religion

Comparisons of different religious beliefs and practices wasn't new in the 19th century. At least since the age of exploration, Europeans had been compiling long and detailed treatises comparing Christian with “heathen” religion. What was new in the 19th century was the formation of a discipline of comparative religion. In…

April 8, 2016

Jigging and Expertise

In an essay on “ The Intelligent Use of Space ,” David Kirsh observed that since we have bodies, “we are spatially located creatures: we must always be facing some direction, have only certain objects in view, be within reach of certain others. How we manage the space around us,…

April 7, 2016

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