Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Where do we go from here? Depending on one’s perspective, the American story can plausibly be interpreted in different ways. Looked at from past to present , we can see a great deal of continuity from medieval Christendom and the Reformation to America’s founding. The War for Independence, after all,…
Click HERE for Part 1 Civic Religion: American or Christian? We have already traced out the basic contours of the shift in America from an ecclesiocentric, theocratic social order to a secular one. Building on Locke and Hobbes, the Enlightenment accomplished an astonishing coup of Christendom. That victory for the…
Author’s Introductory Note: Engaging in broad historical interpretation as I am about to do is always risky. Necessarily, one “stylizes” history by simplifying, over generalizing, and stereotyping. But the narrative qualities of history are not simply due to the imposition of human rationality upon brute facts; rather history is always…
A. Repentance to life involves endeavoring to believe real hard that you’re saved. reject infant baptism. stop watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. walk with God in all the ways of his commandments. B. What is necessary so that no sinner may expect to be forgiven unless he does it? Only…
The machine works mechanically and it is flawless. Slander/libel a group of Presbyterian ministers as “Romanist” because robes and James 2 are no worse than praying to Mary or relying on purgatory to pay for unconfessed sins. Drive off anyone who disagrees. Of that number, there may be a tiny…
If we take as a starting point the Tribal / Monarchical / Empire model, we can then add to it the Late Empire Phase. The particular ‘marker sin’ of Empire is false intermarriage, which signifies pluralism and syncretism. Empires by definition are “cosmopolitan” dominated by cities, high culture, many cultures,…
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Thanksgiving was clearly a part of the liturgical life of the early Christians. In talking about tongues, Paul says that one who does not know the tongue cannot join in the “Amen” at the eucharistia , since he cannot understand what has been said (1 Corinthians 14:16). Paul uses the…
The history of the world, proponents of liberalism argue, is the history of the struggle for freedom, the struggle between freedom and slavery. Democracy also sees history as a struggle, in this case the struggle to establish the power of the people. As Ruszard Legutko ( Demon in Democracy )…
Below is a portion of my opening comments at an ETS session on "public legacies of the Reformation," presented on November 16, 2017. I was asked to identify the legacies of the Reformation that help us face the emerging challenges of the present day . Before I attempt to answer,…
Ryszard Legutko's The Demon in Democracy is a bracing read. Legutko, a Polish philosopher and member of the European Parliament, has lived under both communism and liberalism, and so is unusually well-positioned to articulate his counter-intuitive thesis: "both attitudes - the communist and the liberal-democratic - are linked by .…
Locke is often seen as the heir to Reformation political theology. Ruben Alvarado ( Calvin and the Whigs ) begs to differ. Locke was waiting in the wings when Calvinist politics eroded. He writes: "Puritans founded some of the chief colonies in America, those of New England, and their influence…
While in North Korea, President Trump held back on schoolyard insults to Kim Jong-un, and focused on the damage that Kim's regime has caused to North Koreans : "Far from valuing its people as equal citizens, this cruel dictatorship measures them, scores them, and ranks them based on the most…
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