The Road To Unitarianism (1)

Earl Morse Wilbur, the foremost historian of Unitarianism, identified the 1531 publication of Michael Servetus’s De Trinitatis Erroribus, which criticized orthodox Trinitarianism, as the start of the movement that developed into contemporary Unitarianism.1 After infiltrating Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Anglican churches in . . . Continue reading →

Fifteen (Mostly 19th-Century) Myths About The Middle Ages

There are a number of myths about the so-called middle ages: they thought that earth was flat etc. Most of these myths were fabricated in the 19th century. Why? Because that was the apex, in the West, of “Modernity,” the Enlightenment, when . . . Continue reading →

Taking Notes By Hand Works Best

Pop quizzes, of course, are not the best measure of learning, which is an iterative and reflective process. Recent Princeton University and University of California studies took this into account while investigating the differences between note-taking on a laptop and note-taking by . . . Continue reading →

20th Anniversary Of Exiles From Eden

Readers and others sometimes ask which books have influenced the way I look at this or that. Sometimes I can answer, sometimes I can’t. One influential book that I read early in my academic career, while I was a graduate student, was . . . Continue reading →

Boom! Canons Of Dort Day

This year marks the 395th anniversary of the publication of the Canons of the Synod of Dort. They were published on May 9, 1619. Canons are synodical rulings on a series of doctrinal issues and the synod published these decisions in response to . . . Continue reading →

Facts: Forgery Killers

Then last week the story began to crumble faster than an ancient papyrus exposed in the windy Sudan. Mr. Askeland found, among the online links that Harvard used as part of its publicity push, images of another fragment, of the Gospel of . . . Continue reading →

Luther’s Judgment On Images

With regard to Luther’s judgment on images, we are not in the dark. In his report to his confidant Nikolaus Hausmann on the situation he found in Wittenberg, he was unambiguous: “Damno imagines.” The elimination of images, however, should be brought about . . . Continue reading →

Did Luther And Calvin Favor Evangelical Monasticism?

I was clicking around the internets recently and (probably via Twitter) and found a fascinating essay by Greg Peters, Associate Professor of Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University. The burden of the essay is to introduce the reader to and to commend the . . . Continue reading →