Historical Theology

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)

Was the Covenant of Works Gracious?

by on November 18, 2009 | 72 Comments

It is widely held in the modern period that it was. To deny that strikes many today as absurd, as impossible. The 16th and 17th century Reformed writers were not so troubled by that idea since they had much less difficulty than . . . Continue reading →

The Family of Jesus on the Kingdom of God

by on November 16, 2009 | 1 Comment

From Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiae 3.19-20: But when this same Domitian had commanded that the descendants of David should be slain, an ancient tradition says that some of the heretics brought accusation against the descendants of Jude (said to have been a brother . . . Continue reading →

A Cultural Warrior’s Meditation for Reformation Day

by on September 22, 2009 | 3 Comments

A recent correspondent pointed me to a bulletin insert offered by the PCA Christian Education and Publications Committee. The theme of the insert is the “Reformation, Calvin, and Government.” There are two questions here. The first is historical, the second is pastoral . . . Continue reading →

Antonius Walaeus De Natura Dei (On the Nature of God)

by on September 14, 2009

Because, in our late modern, liquid, age, relational categories trump all others and because we’re given to nominalism now, it’s sometimes considered downright provocative to claim that God has a nature. The older Reformed writers, however, spoke this frequently. On the Heinrich . . . Continue reading →

Caspar Olevianus on Church and Kingdom

by on August 27, 2009 | 3 Comments

“The Kingdom of Christ in this world is the administration of salvation by which Christ the king himself, outwardly, through the gospel and baptism, gathers to himself and calls to salvation a people or visible church (in which many hypocrites are mixed).” . . . Continue reading →

St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

by on August 25, 2009 | 19 Comments

Thanks to Gil Garcia for reminding us that the week of August 23 is the anniversary of the 1572 St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. One of the great paradoxes of the history of Reformed theology is that “Calvinism” is often pictured as marching . . . Continue reading →

Olevianus on Two Kinds of Holiness

by on August 11, 2009 | 1 Comment

As mentioned earlier in this space the older Reformed writers had a doctrine of forensic holiness or sanctification but rather than connecting it with union with Christ considered logically prior regeneration and faith, they tended to connect talk about it under the . . . Continue reading →