Historical Theology

The Social Crisis is Too Great to Be Arguing About… (Updated)

by on December 3, 2010 | 3 Comments

The various social crises facing the West are great but the Roman empire was already in crisis when God the Holy Spirit empowered Christ’s apostles to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Rome fell. The gospel and Christ’s church continued. Another empire, Christendom, replaced the old Roman Empire but it fell too. The kingdom of God, as manifested chiefly in this world in the visible, institutional church, continued. Social crises are important but they aren’t more important than the gospel. Seeing that is a key difference between actually being Reformed and being just another social conservative with a passing interest in the Reformation (as it suits whatever social agenda is in view). Continue reading →

Was Barth Reformed?

by on October 29, 2010
Always Reformed: Essays in Honor of W. Robert Godfrey

Among the Followers of Karl Barth (d. 1968), both evangelical and mainline (and especially among evangelicals in the mainline) it is sometimes assumed that Barth’s theology was and is the true modern manifestation of Calvin’s theology and to the degree Calvin’s theology . . . Continue reading →

The Catholicity of the Reformed Faith and Its Evangelical Counterparts

by on October 18, 2010

Recently Mark Driscoll and Gerry Brashears published a survey of basic Christian teaching. Martin Downes has been helpfully evaluating their account of the doctrine of Christ. It is interesting to see the way two ostensibly “Reformed” writers handle a matter of catholic . . . Continue reading →

Roman Catholic Scholar Converts to Evangelical Faith

by on August 23, 2010 | 8 Comments

Re-posted from c. 2007 Dateline Paris, 1534. © Paris News Service By Guy LaFontaine Jean Calvin, 25, of Noyon, a leading scholar of the classics and law student in the University of Paris, has reportedly converted to the evangelical cause. A classicist . . . Continue reading →

Office Hours: Martin Klauber on Protestant Orthodoxy in the Classical Period

by on August 17, 2010

There aren’t many scholars who know in detail what happened to Protestant theology after the “high orthodox” period in the mid-late 17th century (think Francis Turretin). Marty Klauber is one of those fellows and we sat down to talk last spring when . . . Continue reading →

Nobody Expects the Italian Reformation (link corrected)

by on June 12, 2010 | 4 Comments

But it happened, briefly and the good news here is that it’s back. Andrea Ferrari is a pastor of the Reformed Congregation in Milan, Italy. He’s also an author who has written (in English!) on one of the more significant Italian Reformed . . . Continue reading →

A Westminster Divine on the Threefold Distinction in the Law

by on May 31, 2010 | 22 Comments

“First, concerning the law of God, you know there are some of them: 1. Ceremonial, which consisted in Rights, and Ordinances, and Shadows, typifying Jesus Christ in his sufferings, unto which there was a full period put by the death of Christ. . . . Continue reading →

Eamon Duffy on the Origins of the Papacy

by on May 26, 2010 | 5 Comments

Eamon Duffy is Professor of the History of Christianity, and Fellow and Director of Studies, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge. He is author of several significant works of church history including The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1570 (New . . . Continue reading →

New Bavinck Institute Website

by on May 4, 2010 | 1 Comment

Thanks to Laurence O’Donnell (Calvin Seminary PhD student in systematics) for the heads up regarding the new Bavinck Institute website. They are featuring Ron Gleason’s to-be-released bio of Bavinck himself and an online journal, The Bavinck Review. Well done!

Second and Third Thoughts on Edwards

by on May 4, 2010 | 1 Comment

Few figures are as electrifying and divisive in the study of American religious history as Jonathan Edwards. To many he is and can be only St Jonathan, the paradigm of theology, piety, and practice. To others the story is more complicated. It . . . Continue reading →

Reformation History Resource: Zwingli Online

by on January 11, 2010 | 19 Comments

Zwingli is the forgotten Reformer. Hated by the Lutherans as a “sacramentarian” moralist and not terribly favored by the mature Reformed Reformation, he’s the ugly step son of the Reformation. Here’s a blog (operated by whom?) which collects Zwingli resources. (HT: Jim West)