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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There are ten uses of “eye” in Revelation, nine of them in the plural (the exception is 1:7). The uses of the plural fall into several categories: 1) The eyes of Jesus are flames of fire (1:14; 2:18; 19:12) or the seven Spirits (5:6), which are flames (4:5). 2) The…
Common grace has played a large role in Calvinist thinking about culture. For some, it is this general grace of God - His restraint of sin, His gifts of cultural skill to believers and unbelievers - that makes common culture possible. Special grace and special revelation are for the church;…
Russell Shorto’s Amsterdam is not only a biography of the city, but a genealogy of the “tattered, ancient, much misunderstood word ‘liberalism,’” an Amsterdam-born set of habits. As Philipp Blom sums up the argument in a TLS review , Dutch liberalism was economically motivated: “Dutch tolerance was never ‘nice.’ It…
Daniel Gabelman’s George MacDonald: Divine Carelessness and Fairytale Levity spends a lot of time developing a historic perspective on seriousness, lightness, and levity. Dante, Shakespeare, Byron, the book of Ecclesiastes, and a somewhat revisionary analysis of Victorian culture all contribute to the argument. But that is mainly background to Gabelman’s…
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy observed that moderns are as inclined to divine service and attachment to gods as the benighted premoderns they mock. He doesn’t mean it as a metaphor: “what is meant here by the inclusive title divine service embraces all sociologists. All sociologists cultivate a form of divine service. .…
Theodore Jennings wants to socialize and politicize Paul. He thinks that highlighting Paul’s concerns for classic political issues like law and justice does better justice to what Paul actually wrote ( Outlaw Justice ). But then his agenda bumps up against the text. On the catena of Psalm texts in…
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