What can confessional Presbyterian and Reformed folk learn from the history of Roman Catholicism in America? Quite a lot as it turns out. We are continuing our brief hiatus from the series, As It Was In The Days of Noah to talk with . . . Continue reading →
It is a deep animus that would seek to tie John Calvin (1509–1564) to the QAnon-fueled wackos who stormed the American capitol earlier this month but that is what Richard Hughes tries to do in a recent editorial in the Los Angeles . . . Continue reading →
New Years Eve was noisy in Escondido but the fireworks really started when I joined Chortles Weakly (Brad Isbell) to help bring in 2021 with the Presbycast. We had fun with sound effects and general goofiness as our dogs both cowered (and . . . Continue reading →
A growing number of our ministers and churches are conforming to the world’s values, attitudes, and ideals, especially as it concerns homosexuality and the social gospel. The future doesn’t look good for the PCA. Frankly, the future looks pretty bad, and I’m . . . Continue reading →
Very few laymen are aware of the fact that over the last 15 years there has been a secret organization in our Church working quietly behind the scenes to gain control of the political machinery of our denomination. This group, composed mostly . . . Continue reading →
It is a deeply-held conviction among more than a few American Christians that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that it was such until relatively recently. Further, it is widely thought that if only there were a religious . . . Continue reading →
On 17 July, 2020 J. I. Packer (b. 1926) went to be with our Lord. Like Carl Trueman I am thankful for Packer. As a young evangelical, Packer and John R. W. Stott saved me from the mindless evangelicalism toward which I . . . Continue reading →
For far too many American and global Christians, the “prosperity gospel” is all they know of Christianity. For far too many Christians what the Scriptures actually teach about the law and the gospel is almost entirely unknown. Their leaders and influences are . . . Continue reading →
Key to Kidd’s strategy is definition. He characterizes evangelicals as “born-again Protestants who cherish the Bible as the Word of God and who emphasize a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.” [4] Conversion, Scripture, and experience of the Holy . . . Continue reading →
And think about this whenever progressives — such as we are dealing with in US Orthodox Christianity — say that we have to get with the times, and change our faith and practice to make it more suitable for contemporary America. But . . . Continue reading →
It is odd, however, that this is the issue that has produced the division. Same-sex marriage has not become plausible or imperative by virtue of its own merits. It has only become plausible as a function of much wider and deeper shifts . . . Continue reading →
The second installment in the American Gospel film series is available now. Brandon writes: The gospel message of “Christ crucified” has always been offensive. In our culture it is common for preachers to soften the offense of the cross, and the attributes . . . Continue reading →
So, let us speak of slavery. The American republic inherited slavery from the British empire, in much the same way that it inherited its fiscal poverty, its lack of manufacturing capability, and its primitive infrastructure. We expected to overcome all of these . . . Continue reading →
I think I first read about “web logs” about 1995, when I was teaching at Wheaton College. Then they were the domain of people writing about what they had for breakfast. They were daily, public journals where people recorded online their most . . . Continue reading →
In 1923, a young assistant professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary named J. Gresham Machen published a scathing critique of the worldview animating establishment or “mainline” Protestant Christianity in Europe and America. That worldview, Machen argued in Christianity and Liberalism, . . . Continue reading →
In October of last year the HB noted the release of the documentary American Gospel, an exposé of the so-called “prosperity gospel,” as well as the widespread confusion in evangelicalism over the nature of justification. I noted then, for far too many . . . Continue reading →
Did you stop and get to know those people in the churches? Did you ask them about their burdens? Is it possible there were things much bigger that you were overlooking because of a superficial need for an emotional buzz during worship? . . . Continue reading →
For far too many American and global Christians, the “prosperity gospel” is all they know of Christianity. For far too many Christians what the Scriptures actually teach about the law and the gospel is almost entirely unknown. Their leaders and influences are . . . Continue reading →
A God without wrath bought men without sinto a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (New York: Harper, 1937), 193. (HT: David Chin)
One of the questions submitted to the Reformation conference last fall at the Lynden URC asks “in regards to the current state of the church, what is needed in terms of a Reformation?” That’s a great question. If we are talking about . . . Continue reading →