I was meditating on Paul’s words in 2 Thessalonians 3:6–12. Paul was concerned about those in the congregation who were obsessed with and confused over Jesus’ return (parousia). They had what theologians (rightly) call an “over realized eschatology.” In their anticipation of . . . Continue reading →
In 1882 the Lutheran minister Joseph A. Seiss (1823–1904) published the provocative volume, The Gospel in the Stars, Or, Prímeval Astronomy (Philadelphia: E. Claxton & company, 1882). Evidently, it found an audience, and it has been reprinted as recently as the early 1970s and . . . Continue reading →
I was walking amidst the rows of desks as I was engaging the students in a discussion about the humanity of Christ. When I reached the end of the room, as I recall, I was leaning against the wall. Trying to drive . . . Continue reading →
Last Friday, KFI (AM 640 Los Angeles) afternoon talker John Kobylt made the argument that one reason Prop 8 was overturned is that proponents of Prop 8 could not show that homosexual marriage actually creates any adverse effects or bad outcomes. I . . . Continue reading →
Remarkably, after two decades of controversy over the self-described Federal Vision movement, there are pastors and teachers who do not seem to understand it.1 One can see why one might have been confused in the early days of the discussion, but now, . . . Continue reading →
Someone told me in high school that if I passed human physiology we would get to see cadavers. But in order to take human physiology I had to take biology, so I spent a fair bit of time my senior year studying . . . Continue reading →
Already in the New Testament, the church faced one of its greatest and deadliest heresies: the denial of Jesus’ humanity. The Greeks had room for men becoming gods and human-like behavior by the gods, but they had no room for a God-Man. Continue reading →
So far in this brief series I have alluded to Aquinas’ discussion of the ordo amoris (order of love). It was by reading Thomas that I was sent back to Augustine but now we come to Aquinas’ own discussion of the order . . . Continue reading →
Carolyn Arends wants to give an argument for the benefits of God’s moral law, but she lacks the categories by which to do it. Her argument has only two categories: good/bad, and relationships. The title and subtitle of her essay should alarm . . . Continue reading →
We live in an uncertain age. One German sociologist characterizes our time as defined by liquidity. This is a term we might associate with financial matters, but it applies to vocation and to virtually every other sphere of life. There was a . . . Continue reading →
In the 1960s it was common to hear American civil rights leaders appeal to natural justice and natural law in defense of the extension of civil rights to oppressed peoples, namely African Americans. Those arguments were compelling to Americans because they are . . . Continue reading →
On February 21 of this year, near the end of the annual American observance of Black History Month, a congregation in the Presbyterian Church in America, held a special dinner. The church website said, “This is a dinner with our special speaker, . . . Continue reading →
Darryl Hart (as always) has a provocative (in the best sense) article at Old Life.1 His use of the categories “militants” and “moderates” is very useful and helpful. To anticipate a criticism: yes, Reformed people can sometimes be jerks.2 Neither Darryl nor . . . Continue reading →
In reaction to Rick Phillips’ critique of a response by a Federal Visionist to his (then) presbytery, one of the proponents of the Federal Vision made the following argument: Surely, we all know there’s a difference between how we use terms in . . . Continue reading →
It is no longer revolutionary (no pun intended) to hold that the earth revolves around the sun, but it was not always so. The observation of Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543), that the universe is heliocentric (sun-centered) and not geocentric (earth-centered) was met with . . . Continue reading →
I do not like thinking about death, but I have been doing a good lot of thinking about it lately. It is no fun to think about death. As an American, always moving, restless, ever conquering, I resist it. Death is the . . . Continue reading →
Three times in his discussion of the nature of virtue Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224–74) referred to Augustine’s AD 388 treatise against the Manichaeans, On The Morals of the Church (De moribus ecclesiae) regarding the “order of love.”1 Even though it was a . . . Continue reading →
Doctrine. Theology. For many evangelicals these words are as pleasant as the phrase, “impacted tooth!” That theology is irrelevant to Christian life has essentially become a received dogma. Nevertheless, as much as indifference about Christian truth reigns among evangelicals, to the same . . . Continue reading →
James Fisher published a widely-read (and oft-reprinted) Exposition of the Shorter Catechism (1753). Ebenezer Erskine and others of the “Marrow Men”—that is, those who were the gospel-men in eighteenth-century Scotland (as opposed to the moralists of the time)—were also associated with it. . . . Continue reading →
In 2008, Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom published Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism.1 The book was measured in its answer, but in an interview at the time of publication, Noll said, yes, the Reformation is over. . . . Continue reading →