Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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Faith is inherent in human life because we live in response to language. Soldiers charge into the fray on orders from a general they trust. If they knew exactly what was ahead, their charge wouldn’t be an act of faith. They don’t know, so they must simply trust the commander.…
Lori Branch comments that the “cultural formations of western Christianity” grew out of “binary, Protestant-Catholic debates.” But this binarism is disrupted by the entry of a third, Eastern Orthodoxy. When the church history of the last century is written, the revitalization of Orthodoxy in the West will be seen as…
Wordsworth’s 30th Ecclesiastical Sonnet, on Canute: A PLEASANT music floats along the Mere, From Monks in Ely chanting service high, While-as Canute the King is rowing by: “My Oarsmen,” quoth the mighty King, “draw near, “That we the sweet song of the Monks may hear!” He listens (all past conquests,…
What is the “Federal Vision” or “Auburn Avenue” dispute about? Partly, it’s about theology. I believe the core dispute has to do with nature and importance of what Reformed theologians call the “visible church,” the universal body of believers organized in empirical local communities. A central contention of the “Federal…
Responding to the Rosenstock-Huessy quotation about prayer and research, Eric Enlow of the Handong International Law School sent this from Simone Weil: “Students must therefore work without any wish to gain good marks, to pass examinations; to win school successes; without any reference to their natural abilities and tastes; applying…
Smart says of his cat Jeoffry: For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins. For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary . . . For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life. Eliot’s “Gumbie Cat” named…
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