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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In a discussion of God's transcendence, Jeremy Begbie ( Redeeming Transcendence in the Arts ) observes that some accounts of transcendence leave the impression "that language is something by its very nature that God would long to escape, that something so finite and susceptible to corruption could have no integral…
In his "Person" in Christian Tradition , Stephen Hipp notes that the "originality" of Cappadocian Trinitarian theology "lies in using the word hypostasis to designate the person in distinction from the substance. The distinction between hypostasis and ousia had not been instituted during apostolic times; the Greek Fathers are the…
William Hasker ( Metaphysics and the Tri-Personal God ) cites Carl Mosser's objection to social Trinitarianism's claim that the three Persons are "distinct centers of willing": "If the divine persons cannot differ because they necessarily act in concert with one another, then attributing distinct wills is superfluous. Attributing distinct wills…
Shannon Hayes is a different kind of feminist, a feminist who has not only broken from the patriarchy but from she views as a global capitalist system that buttresses the patriarchy. She is a Radical Homemaker . She explains that “Radical Homemakers are men and women who have chosen to…
William Mann has argued that when medievals identify God with His attributes, they identify Him with "property instances," specific individuals in a relationship of instantiation with the universals that they instantiate. Jeffrey Brower ("Making Sense of Divine Simplicity," Faith and Philosophy 25: 1 [2008]: 3-30) explains, "As Mann sees it,…
Robert Tombs ( The English and Their History ) observes that many intellectuals have pondered the character of nations for the past two centuries, asking "whether nations are ancient or modern phenomena; whether they have some organic existence as cultural, genetic or geographical entities; whether they are political and ideological…
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