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I believe the importance of this subject for the PCA is now matched by its urgency. If I may speak personally, one of the most alarming trends that I’ve seen among candidates for the ministry and among teaching and ruling elders in . . . Continue reading →
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The struggle in the PCA over confessional identity is a microcosm of the macrocosm. The current discussions reveal that the PCA is on track to be another denominational domino to topple along with the mainline churches who have embraced theological liberalism. The . . . Continue reading →
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If the inheritance of life eternal be by the law, it is no more by the promise. But it is by the promise because God gave it unto Abraham freely by promise. Therefore it comes not by the law. The opposition between . . . Continue reading →
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There is a good deal of talk in contemporary evangelicalism about the rise, nature, and effect of so-called “postmodernism,” a movement in architecture, literature, philosophy, and religion associated with a circle of French writers such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. In . . . Continue reading →
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In Stephen J. Nichol’s fine biography on J. Gresham Machen, he refers to historian Bradley Longfield’s description of the real problem within the church during the modernist controversy: namely, the moderates, whom Machen called the “indifferentists.” Machen wrote in a letter to . . . Continue reading →
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In 1882 the Lutheran minister Joseph A. Seiss (1823-1904) published the provocative volume, The Gospel in the Stars, Or, Prímeval Astronomy (Philadelphia: E. Claxton & company, 1882). Evidently it found an audience and it has been reprinted as recently as the early . . . Continue reading →
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Machen considered the church in the book’s final chapter, where he argued that since modernism was a different religion altogether, the honorable thing for modernists to do was to withdraw from the church. Knowing this to be unlikely, Machen appealed to moderates . . . Continue reading →
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The question of the hour is whether missional contextualization requires celibate gay/same-sex-attracted (SSA) “Side B” pastors. The supporters of (or tolerators of) Side B ministers and the novel doctrine that goes along with them would not say that mission-driven cultural accommodation (per . . . Continue reading →
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I can understand why evangelicals and others, who do not have a covenantal theology, would exile their children during public worship but I do not understand why so many ostensibly Reformed congregations have adopted the practice of dismissing their covenant children from . . . Continue reading →
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There are, therefore, more than five points and — as far as the confessions and the Reformed dogmaticians from Calvin to Kuyper are concerned — there cannot be such a thing as a “five-point Calvinist” or “five-point Reformed Christian” who owns just . . . Continue reading →
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The breaking point, for me, came during a weeklong music festival known as Vortex I. Funded jointly by the Portland counterculture and the Oregon government, it was meant to divert attention from an appearance by President Nixon and put a peaceful face . . . Continue reading →
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We live in a time of exile. At least those of us do who hold to traditional Christian beliefs. The strident rhetoric of scientism has made belief in the supernatural look ridiculous. The Pill, no-fault divorce, and now gay marriage have made . . . Continue reading →
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Previous accounts of Christian Reconstructionists have tended to focus on these believers’ theocratic vision of a future Christian polity rather than their separation from mainstream society. Today, Gribben concludes, these practitioners of “strategies of hibernation” may no longer be as marginal as . . . Continue reading →
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The first is that a preemptive disparaging of opponent’s concerns is not likely to achieve the letters’ stated goal of unity in the PCA. When Christian leaders ask, “Are we being biblically faithful?” an answer that derides the nature and motive of . . . Continue reading →
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Pride month, and its commercial sponsors, is an appropriate key to understanding the priorities of the modern West. It celebrates hedonistic self-assertion. It mocks the values of the past. It uses the language of inclusion to exclude anybody who will not wholeheartedly . . . Continue reading →
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There was sometimes an expressed commitment to certain iconic traditions of Anglicanism that seemed to supersede the commitment to the gospel message and the primacy of Scripture. I began to perceive that many of Episcopalian background regard the traditions of Anglicanism as . . . Continue reading →
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Let’s admit, however, that sometimes, upon first becoming Reformed, some folk become jerks. Sometimes this phase is temporary. Mike Horton calls this the “cage phase,” when a new convert to Reformed Christianity needs to be put in a cage until he matures. . . . Continue reading →
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One of the most interesting bits of Oxford history is the story of the Oxford Martyrs and the statue by which they are remembered. The history of the monument itself is fascinating. In 1833, John Henry Newman (1801‑90), an Anglican priest, began . . . Continue reading →
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Paul calls Christ the “last” Adam (1 Cor 15:45). So, we know that there was a definite link between the two. In Romans 5:12–21 Paul intentionally wants us to think of Adam and Christ as fulfilling similar roles. Adam was the first . . . Continue reading →
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One reason no one wants to talk about the comity agreement is that it is not always observed. One suspects that few church planters or pastors even know that there is a comity agreement that is supposed to be informing our church . . . Continue reading →
