Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Rounding Out the Traditional Doctrine of Justification Justification and the Church The traditional Protestant doctrine of justification fails to fully hold together the soteriological (forgiveness of sins) and the ecclesiological (covenant membership). This is part of a larger problem, of course, namely, the dichotomizing of church and salvation. Biblically and…
John Piper’s book, Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2002) is, from any perspective, a passionate work. Nevertheless, I find I need to disagree with parts of it. The reason I do this is not because John Piper’s book does…
What follows is a handout for a Sunday School class I have taught recently at my church . Presbyterian doctrine teaches what the Bible says about God sovereign control over history and his unconditional choice (election) to bring some people to everlasting glory while allowing others to remain in unbelief…
“Covenantal Nomism” sounds like a description of tiny contract-loving creatures who live underground. But it is actually a recent term used to describe the pattern of religious belief and practice in first-century Palestinian Judaism. The idea is that God graciously establishes a structured relationship based on promises, a “covenant,” with…
What follows deals primarily with two essays, one by Dr. Douglas Kelly and the other by The Rev. Richard Phillips . My reason for writing this essay is that many people are confidently saying things about N. T. Wright that I believe are contrary to fact. I choose Dr. Kelly…
The Bible is often treated as a book of rules with directions for living. To some extent, that is true; but it is neither the whole truth nor the most important truth about the book. Ultimately, the Bible is a story about God and man and their reconciliation in Christ.…
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Brian Stanley reviews Rupert Shortt’s latest, Christianophobia , in the TLS , and has this to say: “For Christians in Western Europe and North America, freedom of belief and worship is universal and unquestioned. For perhaps 200 million of their fellow believers elsewhere – principally in Asia, the Middle East…
Again in Church Dogmatics The Doctrine of the Word of God, Volume 1, Part 2: The Revelation of God; Holy Scripture: The Proclamation of the Church , Barth teases out the “negative” consequences of the confession that God has revealed himself in Jesus. If, Barth argues, Jesus tells us that…
At the beginning of Church Dogmatics The Doctrine of the Word of God, Volume 1, Part 2: The Revelation of God; Holy Scripture: The Proclamation of the Church , Barth insists that the actuality of Jesus is prior to the question of the possibility of incarnation. One cannot move from…
Glaeser ( Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier , 9) observes that city officials often attempt to renew a city with a “massive construction project - a new stadium or light rail system, a convention center, or a housing project.”…
The auto industry was the secret to Detroit’s success. Its “Fordist” model of industrialization was also the cause of Detroit’s decline, according to Edward Glaeser’s Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier (8-9): “Cities thrive when they have many small firms…
Mediation does not stand in opposition to immediacy, argues Jean-Luc Marion in an essay on Pseudo-Dionysius. Rather, in the mode of gift, “mediation neither troubles nor retards immediacy but rather completes it” and indeed ” only mediation produces immediacy” ( The Idol and Distance: Five Studies (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)…
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