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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Federal Vision

Zacharias Ursinus & the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousnes

While I think Zacharias Ursinus’ thinking would be profitable to consider, I am not recording his reflections in order for readers to come to agreement with his position as a whole. Rather, my interest is twofold. First, I think the way the Heidelberg Catechisms is used as a “proof” of…

by Mark HorneJune 5, 2006
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Covenant

Does the New Covenant have its own distinctive sanctions as well as blessings? We affirm

On this question Hebrews 10 is quite clear and really needs no additional argument. For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume…

by Mark HorneMay 21, 2006
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Biblical Horizons

FV, NPP, PCA, AAPC, ETC.

Not all readers of this essay letter may be aware of it, but a tempest has been brewing in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), a tempest created by the liberal party in that denomination. It came about this way. In January 2002, a Pastor’s Conference on covenant theology was…

by James B. JordanAugust 5, 2005
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Biblical Horizons

The Closing of the Calvinistic Mind

Once upon a time there was such a thing as Calvinistic thought. It existed when I was younger, but seems to have largely disappeared in recent years. But let me elaborate. When I became a Calvinist, back in 1970, I bought a bunch of books. Over the next few years,…

by James B. JordanAugust 5, 2005
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Ephesians

The Centrality of Preaching

CHRIST THE PREACHER How Ephesians Shows Us Why Preaching is Essential to Salvation & Sanctification Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a…

by Mark HorneJune 5, 2005
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Baptism

Baptismal Theology Within Reformed Evangelicalism

Tracking the informal shifts in Protestant opinion regarding Baptism can be a difficult business. For example, in 1849 Anglican clergyman William Goode published his defense of Evangelicalism against the Anglo-Catholics under the title, The Doctrine of the Church of England as to the Effects of Baptism in the Case of…

by Mark HorneMay 29, 2005

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Triune Pastor

In his book on Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your Light We Shall See Light , Christopher Beeley takes a chapter to describe the Trinitarian foundations of Gregory’s theology of pastoral care. Gregory’s Orations, he points out, are organized to lay the emphasis…

January 20, 2014

Fear of Death

Orthodox theologian John Romanides describes in The Ancestral Sin (162-3) how the fear of death leads to evil practices and habits: “Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in men gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus,…

January 19, 2014
History

Illiberal liberalism

TS Eliot presciently warned in his “Idea of a Christian Society” (in Christianity and Culture ) that liberalism has the capacity to turn into its opposite: “Liberalism still permeates ourminds and affects our attitude towards much of life. That Liberalism may be a tendency towards something very differentfrom itself, is…

January 19, 2014
History

Borrowed Capital

Chesterton ( The Thing ), pre-channeling Alasdair MacIntyre: “the modern world, with its modern movements, is living on its Catholic capital. It is using, and using up, the truths that remain to it out of the old treasury of Christendom; including, of course, many truths known to pagan antiquity but…

January 19, 2014

Ukraine, Dictatorship

Timothy Snyder reports on depressing developments in Ukraine : “President Viktor Yanukovych, in having the deputies of his Party of Regions endorse an extraordinary packet of legislation, has arrogated decisive political power to himself. After hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians spent weeks in the cold demonstrating for basic human rights…

January 19, 2014

Static Natural Law

A debate on natural law is brewing in my little world, and here’s a little contribution. Natural law advocates insist that there are things that We Can’t Not Know , as J.Budziszewski puts it. Paul agrees: “Since the creation of the world God’s invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine…

January 19, 2014

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