This new state of Justification is continuing and permanent; not in this sense, that God renews and frequently reiterates the enstating of them into this new relative state; but in this sense, that once justified always justified; they are fixed and preserved . . . Continue reading →
HeidelQuotes
Ben Sasse On Indoor Childhood
The digital revolution is remaking nearly every aspect of modern life. A top concern of parents, educators and sociologists is screen time. How much is too much? The question points to a larger problem: American children are weirdly held hostage indoors. In . . . Continue reading →
Bilkes: The Church Needs Clarity On Law And Gospel
The church in our day suffers greatly from a lack of clarity on many things, but not least issues of law and gospel. Many mix law and gospel or swing too far, thereby discounting one while thinking they are doing justice to . . . Continue reading →
Don’t Mistake Verbal Fluency For Education
In an era when AI can write anything, authentic education must go beyond the mere production of words. “The end then of Learning,” wrote John Milton in 1644, “is to repair the ruines of our first Parents.” The image is hard to . . . Continue reading →
Why The Reformation Distinguished Law And Gospel
“Are you getting in the Word?” “You gotta get in the Word.” Christians hear phrases like this constantly. They sound deeply spiritual and unquestionably biblical. But when you stop and think about them, they are often so broad and undefined that they . . . Continue reading →
San Diego Mosque Shooters: Atomized, Nihilistic, And Angry “Victims”
If these are supremacists, they have absorbed a large dose of victim culture to go with it, which is why they see themselves neither on the right nor the left, and sound like both and neither. That’s the heart of it, for . . . Continue reading →
Ben Sasse: Not Just Filling Time
Kevin Nelson and his family once received a print of Gustave Dore’s “Adam and Eve Driven Out of Eden” as a gift from a congregant. In the work, Adam and Eve stagger toward the viewer surrounded by thorns and thistles, while a . . . Continue reading →
A Consequence Of The Appropriation Of The Therapeutic Culture
Another well-known minister has resigned from his pastoral office due to a previously undisclosed inappropriate relationship. The twist in this grimly familiar tale is that he had largely built his ministry around his struggle with homosexual temptation and his advocacy for celibacy. . . . Continue reading →
SCOTUS Defends First Amendment Liberties Of Donors
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a collection of five faith-based pregnancy centers in New Jersey, may challenge in federal court an unconstitutional, coercive subpoena issued by New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin. Alliance Defending . . . Continue reading →
ARP Report Condemns Kinism
Simply put, any idea that posits racial superiority as a basis for church or civil social order is to be seen as out of bounds with Christianity as a religion and as a source of truth, and is sin. The Synod is . . . Continue reading →
Two Stages Of Justification Is Roman, Not Reformed
The Reformed understanding of Scripture is that believers are as justified and saved now as we will be at the judgment. There are not two stages of justification, initial and final. Rather, we distinguish between justification and vindication. At the judgment it . . . Continue reading →
Deconstructing Without Apostatizing
For the past eight years, Nate Hanson served as the host of a podcast called Almost Heretical. The show generated millions of downloads and rose to become one of the most successful “deconstructionist” podcasts on the market. On Wikipedia, it’s listed among . . . Continue reading →
As If
When I was a teenager, we sometimes had a cynical way of responding to certain things. So, for example, one of my friends might say, “I think the teacher is going to give us a free period so we can go outside . . . Continue reading →
Presbyterian Signers Of The Declaration Of Independence
The almost mythical status the Declaration holds for many Americans is not the product of some twentieth-century PR spin either. From the beginning, whether from prescience or hubris, Americans believed that the founding of their new nation was an act of profound . . . Continue reading →
Distinguishing Is Not Diminishing
Distinguishing justification and sanctification does not make the second less important or nonessential, but if we do not distinguish them, we will lose the gospel of free grace and as Christians come to think of our standing with God as contingent on . . . Continue reading →
Luther: Assertions Of The Truth Are Essential To Christianity
For it is not the property of a Christian mind to be displeased with assertions; no, a man must be absolutely pleased with assertions, or he will never be a Christian…In Romans 10 he calls it “confession” saying “and with the mouth . . . Continue reading →
Hitler Rejected Christianity
Interestingly, when Hitler was confronted in January 1940 with the observation that people might not know where he stood religiously, he suggested that, on the contrary, it should not be difficult for people to figure it out. After all, he asserted, he . . . Continue reading →
Establishmentarian Politics And Evangelical Feast Days In The Dutch Reformed Church Calendar
Our church order has a separate article on ecclesiastical feast days which stands in a long tradition on this subject, going right back to the beginnings of Reformed churches in the Netherlands. In the following I wish to investigate the purpose and . . . Continue reading →
The Rise And Fall Of Christian Nationalism
“By any objective, scientific standard, blacks are not fully human.” “Adolf Hitler was a Christian prince.” “It was evil to permit women to vote.” “You can have either a civilization or blacks — but not both. What must be done is obvious.” . . . Continue reading →
Who Applies Grace?
[T]he adversaries imagine that they are declaring the mercy of God, because they make it common to all, but if we consider the matter more closely, we attribute much more to mercy than they do. We affirm that everything depends on it, . . . Continue reading →