Blood In The Seine: French Christian Nationalism And The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre: Part 1

Credit David Hall

On August 22, 1572, Gaspard Comte de Coligny (1519–72), Admiral of France, bent to adjust his shoe or perhaps to open a letter. That unexpected movement saved his life. The bullet, fired by Charles de Louviers (d. 1583) from an upstairs window . . . Continue reading →

Featley: The Sweet Dipper (Part 6)

And this is the firm tradition of the universal Church, in respect of the baptism of infants, who certainly are as yet unable “with the heart to believe unto righteousness, and with the mouth to make confession unto salvation,” as the thief could do; nay, who even, by crying and moaning when the mystery is performed upon them, raise their voices in opposition to the mysterious words, and yet no Christian will say that they are baptized to no purpose.—Augustine. Continue reading →

On Churchless Evangelicals (Part 1)

I was once a churchless evangelical. As a young Christian I attended a medium-sized (three-hundred member) Southern Baptist congregation for a few years without joining. It was not really a problem. Of course they would like to have seen me baptized (as . . . Continue reading →

Featley: The Sweet Dipper (Part 4)

As noted previously, Featley’s volume, Καταβαπτιστοι καταπυστοι, which he politely translated as Dippers Dipt, was subtitled, The Anabaptists Duck’d and Plung’d over Head and Ears, at a Disputation at Southwark.1 This record of the event went through two editions in 1645 and I . . . Continue reading →

Featley: The Sweet Dipper (Part 2)

In this installment, we focus on the major Baptist figure present at the debate, William Kiffin (1616–1701). He is worthy of attention, first because he was a central figure in the debate between Featley and the Baptists, but also because he was, as a nineteenth-century Baptist historian wrote, “FATHER OF THE PARTICULAR BAPTISTS. He played a “significant role” in the drafting of the London Confession of Faith (1644) and was the second signatory to the Second London Baptist Confession (1677) in 1689. A nineteenth-century historian called Kiffin an “extraordinary” person in the Particular Baptist tradition. One anonymous writer called him the “ordained Mufti of all heretics and sectaries. Continue reading →

Featley: The Sweet Dipper (Part 1)

In this series I intend to consider what was perhaps the earliest Reformed response to the Particular Baptist movement, a treatise by the Anglican theologian and Westminster Divine, Daniel Featley (1582–1645), which recounts a disputation (think of a debate) between Featley, an . . . Continue reading →

Review: The Case for Christian Nationalism By Stephen Wolfe

The rise of Donald Trump, the renewed call for a “Christian America,” the novel promotion of Christian nationalism—these three things are recent realities in the American political and religious scenes. Indeed, they are related realities. Furthermore, these three realities are not helping . . . Continue reading →

Review: The Trial of the 16th Century: Calvin and Servetus By Jonathan Moorhead

Jonathan Moorhead (PhD, Dallas Theological Seminary) has taught at The Master’s Academy International in Russia and the Czech Republic. He specializes in church history, theology, and apologetics. Drawing from his expertise, his recent monograph on the trial of Michael Servetus and Calvin’s . . . Continue reading →