A Little Wisdom Might Help Us Love Our Neighbor

Two Albuquerque, NM megachurches are being fined by the governor for disobeying regulations on gathering for worship. Both held Christmas Eve services with crowded auditoriums. In one video there are few masks evident. KOAT has the story. One congregation claims to have . . . Continue reading →

Crisp: Edwards Was A Panentheist

…Such a picture of God’s relation to the creation is undoubtedly striking, combining as it does aspects of classical theism, theological aesthetics, panentheism, and the doctrines of continuous creation and occasionalism (about which, more presently). Far from being the product of some . . . Continue reading →

Criticizing Edwards On Religious Affections Does Not Lead To Dead Orthodoxy: There Is Another Way

In the wake of my latest essay, which cautions readers regarding Jonathan Edwards, has come questions about the role of affections and emotion in the Christian life. These questions signal how deep the Pietist tradition (see the resources below) runs in American . . . Continue reading →

Why Caution About Jonathan Edwards Is In Order

Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) is America’s most famous theologian and perhaps its most famous philosopher too. He is an important and influential figure and worth seeking to understand for those reasons alone. We should think about Edwards for other reasons, however, He is . . . Continue reading →

On “Safetyism”

But these same scenes present an affront to the organs of social control. There would seem to be an inherent tension between the spirit of play and “safetyism” (I parse this tension more fully in my book Why We Drive, which will . . . Continue reading →

A Tension That Does Not Exist

There were a number of issues that I might have taken up in my response to Crawford Gribben and Chris Caughey’s essay, “History, Identity Politics, and the ‘Recovery’ of the Reformed Confession” in the volume On Being Reformed which space did not permit. . . . Continue reading →

Did Abraham Kuyper Become An Anabaptist? Updated With A Postscript

Is theocracy, i.e., an state-established religion and the state enforcement of religious orthodoxy essential to Reformed theology, piety, and practice? That is the question asked and answered recently by Craig Carter, a former Anabaptist turned Particular Baptist theologian in response a recent . . . Continue reading →

New Resource Page: Christ And Culture

Apart from getting the gospel right and getting the gospel out, there is perhaps no problem more pressing upon the church than that of how to relate Christ to culture. H. Richard Niebuhr identified three approaches: Christ against culture (e.g., Tertullian), Christ . . . Continue reading →

Luther Delivered Us From The Doctrine Of Purgatory But Critical Theory Will Have It Reinstated

R. Scott Clark, professor of church history at Westminster Seminary California in Escondido, California, told Campus Reform that “Dr. Thompson calls Lutherans to repent for ‘systemic racism’ and takes for granted that we should all accept this new, rather radical redefinition of racism which, in her account, entails a new, decided un-Lutheran definition of repentance.” Continue reading →

Understanding The New Calvinists: Neither New Nor Calvinists

The New Calvinist movement is probably about 20 years old or so. Collin Hanson’s Young, Restless, and Reformed appeared in 2008, just before Recovering the Reformed Confession. Whether it is Reformed is a matter to be debated. In recent years, however, the movement has certainly shown itself to be restless. One prominent figure in the movement has publicly abandoned the Christian faith. Three prominent figures, James MacDonald, C. J. Mahaney, and Mark Driscoll, have been either been removed from their churches or resigned amidst scandals. One might think of them as elephants in the YRR/New Calvinist room. Continue reading →

Muller On The Sources Of Biblicism

The rise and development of Socinianism in the seventeenth century cannot entirely account for the variant trinitarianisms of the age, including the English debates of the 1640s and 1650s, the variant language and historical perspectives of the Cambridge Platonists, and the doctrinal . . . Continue reading →