According to recent Gallup polls, American churches are emptier today than they were twenty-five years ago.1 Church membership is falling in large numbers. In fact, over fifty percent of Americans rarely or never attend worship services—and if they do, it is usually . . . Continue reading →
In Tolkien’s Two Towers Gimli, Aragorn, and Legolas attack a white-clad old man, thinking him Saruman. Realizing their error, they apologize to Gandalf saying, “We thought you were Saruman.” Gandalf says, “I am Saruman, or rather Saruman as he should have been.” . . . Continue reading →
I wonder how many books about preaching have been published. Two hundred? Five hundred? It is hard to know for sure, but the number is not small. And although there are numerous books about preaching, most of them are quite similar. They . . . Continue reading →
Why do we need a primer on distinguishing law and gospel? There are many answers to this question, but for time’s sake, let me give you four reasons a book on the distinction between law and gospel is needed today: 1. It is . . . Continue reading →
In his influence on the Reformed theological tradition, Girolamo Zanchi was a giant. Zanchi was born in Alzano, in northern Italy, in 1516, one year before Luther famously nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg. He received a first-rate . . . Continue reading →
We pick up again with Alan Strange’s treatment of Hodge in Empowered Witness. There are some questions raised by this work that bear consideration in a review. A reader who is not already in sympathy with the essential argument or who perhaps . . . Continue reading →
The debate last year over the overture by Evangel Presbytery to the General Assembly (GA) of the Presbyterian Church in America (overture 12), which was adopted by GA, presented acutely the question of the spirituality of the church. Overture 12 asked GA . . . Continue reading →
Approaching the one-thousand-year-old Oxford Castle and Prison from the east, at the corner of Castle St. and New Rd., the entire crosswalk is emblazoned with rainbow colors, indicating the Oxford city council’s solidarity with the local LGBTQ+ community. Continue reading →
If you have been in the Presbyterian and Reformed world long, at some point you have likely heard of Cornelius Van Til. He has had an enormous influence. For some people, Reformed and presuppositional apologetics are nearly synonyms. This may be surprising . . . Continue reading →
Within the bookstore of biblical studies, an alarming variety of works rest upon the shelves. Erudite tomes of philology and archeology, collections of sermons, thematic monographs, devotional series, and popular commentaries intermingle like diverse species in a rainforest. Arguably, each type has . . . Continue reading →
In the responses to Part 1 of this review, many comments pointed out that I had not engaged much with the negative aspects of Shepherds for Sale. In this second part, I will include reflections on the less precise and more unhelpful . . . Continue reading →
Dr Clark invites Rev. Dr. Harrison Perkins to the Heidelcast to discuss his new book, “Righteous by Design: Covenantal Merit and Adam’s Original Integrity,” part of the Reformed Exegetical Doctrinal Studies series published by Mentor. Continue reading →
The controversy surrounding Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale has somewhat died down by now, but the fault lines it has clarified in the Christian media world are still clear. There are those whose suspicions about progressive influences in Christian institutions have been . . . Continue reading →
The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) is naturally suited for devotional use. Its devotional qualities have been recognized almost from the instant it was first published. How many people who know virtually nothing else about the catechism know all or part of the first . . . Continue reading →
Not many dates are worthy of remembrance over a century-and-a-half later. The beginning or end of a war or the death of a nation’s leader might be on people’s radar for a few decades, maybe a century, but eventually the slow decay . . . Continue reading →
There are other, perhaps related questions that arise under this heading. For example, is the logical order of the application of redemption by the Holy Spirit (the ordo salutis) merely a “pedagogical device”? (229) Such a conclusion would surprise all the Protestant . . . Continue reading →
We have considered his method, but what about Frame’s theological conclusions? Where the classic Reformed theologians typically defined theology as something that exists in God and which is accommodated to us creatures and revealed in analogues to us, for Frame, theology is . . . Continue reading →
This volume was originally published under another title in 2006. It began as a series of lectures given in 2004, and it carries a number of strong endorsements from Reformed and evangelical luminaries, not the least of which is the foreword by . . . Continue reading →
In early July 2024, at the fourth annual National Conservatism Conference in Washington D.C., Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Doug Wilson, Pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, ID, met to discuss Christian nationalism in America.1 During a panel, . . . Continue reading →
Unless one is a reader of the works of Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499–1562) or a student of modern Canadian Presbyterian history one might not know of Mariano DiGangi (1923–2008). One reason for his relative obscurity is because as minister of Tenth Presbyterian . . . Continue reading →