UPDATE Below 7/9/13 Original Post July 2, 2013 On June 20, 2013 the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America, the mainline (liberal) and oldest Dutch Reformed denomination in the US removed the “conscience clause” from its Book of Church Order. . . . Continue reading →
D. G. Hart’s latest is just out: Calvinism: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). It just arrived in the post so I’ve not had time to read it and we have a dinner guest arriving any minute. I hope to . . . Continue reading →
You will have a battle, too, when you go forth as ministers into the church. The church is now in a period of deadly conflict. The redemptive religion known as Christianity is contending, in our own Presbyterian Church and in all the . . . Continue reading →
I’m cleaning out my office and clearing out a great lot of books One of the volumes I found is Carl F. H. Henry, Basic Christian Doctrines (New York: Holt, Rhinehart, Winston, 1962). Included in this collection of very brief entries are G. . . . Continue reading →
Have you ever stared at a word on the page until it lost all context and began to move around or just seem silly? That happens to writers. Consider the word “critical.” It’s a word we use frequently and in a variety . . . Continue reading →
In a piece that appears in Christianity Today online Ted Olson argues that a plan, which was cancelled, to free the Korean hostages in Afghanistan by taking hostage the families of the kidnappers is a bad idea because the Apostle Paul wouldn’t . . . Continue reading →
This episode of the Heidelcast, from January, 2010, takes a look at Chicago radio legend Steve Dahl’s reaction to being forced to go to church for Christmas. It’s useful to hear how silly Christians appear to unbelievers when we try to be . . . Continue reading →
Peter Leithart is a teaching elder (TE) in the Presbyterian Church in America. Until recently he was a minister, laboring outside the bounds of his presbytery, in a Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC) congregation in Moscow, ID. The CREC is the . . . Continue reading →
HB reader Joseph Grigoletti pointed me to an interesting article on the website of the Christian Reformed Church in North America that seeks to explain to visitors what it means to be Reformed. The article says, in part: Reformed Christians are a . . . Continue reading →
Let me venture a sociological hypothesis here: The new American secularism is in defense of the sexual revolution. Since the 1960s there has indeed been a sexual revolution in America. It has been very successful in changing the mores and the law. . . . Continue reading →
Sports themes continue on the HB. The Blaze carries a story today about an Orthodox Jewish day school in Houston, TX. Last year they earned national attention when they were nearly disqualified from participating in the state basketball tournament because they refused . . . Continue reading →
In the fundamentalist-modernist controversy in the early part of the 20th century, one of the more difficult aspects was the question of whether the “modernists” really believed the faith any longer. The suspicion among conservatives was that in some, perhaps many cases, . . . Continue reading →
It started with John Frame’s “Warrior Children” piece in 2003. In June, 2012 Anthony Bradley wondered about the decline of popular presbyterians. More recently Bill Evans has elaborated on theme of the decline of conservative presbyterianism. This morning I wake to find . . . Continue reading →
(HT: Jordan Huff). It’s not often that one sees discussion of transubstantiation on Comedy Central or anywhere else for that matter (except perhaps EWTN). It’s interesting that Wills, a Roman Catholic, seems to feel no reluctance to attack Romanist dogma. It reminds . . . Continue reading →
(HT: Rich Barcellos)
Dr Benjamin Carson’s biography is the stuff of legend and films. Born into terrible poverty, Carson is now the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the founder of the Carson Scholars Fund. A Seventh-Day Adventist, his views on creation . . . Continue reading →
For evangelicals, it means thinking more seriously about ecclesiology and what it will take to sustain Christianity across generations. Promise Keepers, Campus Crusade for Christ, and other parachurch groups have been important to evangelicalism. But “parachurch” makes sense over the long term . . . Continue reading →
UPDATED 14 January 2013 (see below) 9 January 2013 Sometimes the most interesting words show up in pop culture. A faithful HB correspondent (whom I won’t name for his sake) sent me a link to a story claiming that cyclist Lance Armstrong . . . Continue reading →
Almost from the moment I came into contact with the PCA, in 1984, people were talking about whether the PCA should split. So it’s not entirely surprising that informal talk of splitting the PCA should still exist. Nevertheless, it was a little . . . Continue reading →