Caspar Olevianus on Church and Kingdom

“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

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

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 →

Light Summer Reading

I’m part way through Lane and Oreskes on the genius of American constitutionalism. It’s a breezy spin through the history of the constitutional crisis. The first part of their thesis is attractive to Augustinians. They argue that the founders realized that their . . . Continue reading →

Farel's Baptismal Form

William (Guillaume) Farel preceded Calvin Geneva and worked alongside him in advancing the Reformation there and elsewhere in the Francophone world in the 16th century. Wes Bredenhof has a fascinating account of his baptismal liturgy, which features a strong emphasis on the . . . Continue reading →

Our 2009 MA (Hist Theol) Candidates (Updated)

Congratulations to our 2009 MA (Historical Theology) candidates, (Rev) Mr Michael Brown and Mr Joshua Forrest. Last night the latter defended thesis, “Absolute Dependence or Classical Synthesis?: Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Appropriation of Lutheran Orthodoxy” and the former defended thesis: “Christ and the Condition: . . . Continue reading →