Tish Harrison Warren, a priest in the ACNA (a denomination in the Anglican tradition), writes in Christianity Today, We have an impoverished and inadequate political theology. It took us generations to get here, and this one election, regardless of the results, will . . . Continue reading →
History of Ideas
National Association Of Scholars: Revoke Pulitzer Prize For 1619 Project
The Project as a whole was marred by similar faults. Prominent historians, most of them deeply sympathetic to the Project’s goal of bringing the African American experience more fully into our understanding of the American past, nevertheless felt obliged to point out, . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours With Michael McClymond Against Universalism
Since the arrival of the capital M Modern world, beginning in the mid-17th century, one of the persistent points of friction between orthodox Christianity and Modernity has been the Christian doctrine that Jesus is the only way to heaven and eternal life. . . . Continue reading →
Turretin: What We Mean When Call Mary Theotokos, The Mother Of God
XI. Mary is rightly called the Mother of God (theotokos) in the concrete and specifically because she brought forth him who is also God, but not in the abstract and reduplicatively as God. Although this is not expressly stated in the Scriptures, . . . Continue reading →
Justification In The Earliest Christian Fathers: 1 Clement
Perhaps the first post-Apostolic use of the New Testament verb “to justify” (δικαιόω) occurs in 1 Clement, written just after 100 AD to the same Corinthian congregation to whom Paul had written half a century earlier. There is no claim of authorship . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: Aquinas Among The Protestants
Thomas Aquinas (c.1224–74) was one of the most important Christian teachers in the period and though he was eclipsed in the centuries after, his work returned to prominence in the 16th–19th centuries particularly among Roman theologians, for whom Thomas became the theologian . . . Continue reading →
Theology And The University In Nineteenth-Century Germany
The history of modern German theology is dominated by two figures, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and G. F. W. Hegel (1770–1831) but there is more to the story. If Schleiermacher and Hegel formed the skeleton, a series of lesser-known figures and institutions formed . . . Continue reading →
Identity Markers: Why Some Axioms Persist
Peter Berger has been an influential and important sociologist of religion for more than 50 years. He is presently Professor Emeritus of Religion, Sociology and Theology and Director of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs at Boston University. To review a . . . Continue reading →
Inventing Grievances
As Riley-Smith explains, however, the Muslim memory of the Crusades is of very recent vintage. Carole Hillenbrand first uncovered this fact in her groundbreaking book The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. The truth is that medieval Muslims came to realize that the Crusades were . . . Continue reading →
Davenant Not As Deviant?
Some of what Davenant writes is clearer than other parts. But it seems that a primary thought is that Christ died for the world in a universal sense, from which flows what are nowadays called the gifts of common grace, and warrant . . . Continue reading →
Chiliasm And Soul Sleep
Our study began with Irenaeus’ contention that the belief in an immediate removal of the soul to the presence of God and Christ at death was a stumbling block to orthodox acceptance of chiliasm, and with his counter proposal that the chiliastic . . . Continue reading →
A Very Brief History Of Schooling For Christians
When most Americans think of education and schools we think of buildings, teachers, board meetings, lunch lines, playgrounds, classrooms, and athletic teams. We might be tempted to assume that education has always been done this way but it has not always been . . . Continue reading →
An Ogre Minding Long Term Developments
Because of this emphasis on mentalités, Le Goff preferred to speak of birth and genesis rather than origins, decline, or decadence. Hence he wrote The Birth of Purgatory (1981) and The Birth of Europe (2003) (the French title posed a question: L’Europe . . . Continue reading →
The Road To Unitarianism (2)
This is the second of a two-part series. In part 1 we considered the origins of Unitarianism. The Unitarian faction within the Congregational church continued to grow in the early nineteenth century. The apex of the internal movement was the 1819 “Baltimore . . . Continue reading →
The Road To Unitarianism (1)
Earl Morse Wilbur, the foremost historian of Unitarianism, identified the 1531 publication of Michael Servetus’s De Trinitatis Erroribus, which criticized orthodox Trinitarianism, as the start of the movement that developed into contemporary Unitarianism.1 After infiltrating Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Anglican churches in . . . Continue reading →
Fifteen (Mostly 19th-Century) Myths About The Middle Ages
There are a number of myths about the so-called middle ages: they thought that earth was flat etc. Most of these myths were fabricated in the 19th century. Why? Because that was the apex, in the West, of “Modernity,” the Enlightenment, when . . . Continue reading →
Is Humanism Evil?
David asks, The term “humanism” seem to incite disgust in most conservative Christians today but I have heard Calvin and other reformers referenced as “humanists.” What is the difference between the word’s use in that context and the present one? Renaissance humanism . . . Continue reading →
Implicit Faith In Holy Scripture
Therefore, as regards the primary points or articles of faith, man is bound to believe them, just as he is bound to have faith; but as to other points of faith, man is not bound to believe them explicitly, but only implicitly, . . . Continue reading →
Mystery Unveiled: The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England
In the Reformation and in the period of Reformed orthodoxy, there was no question whether the Christian faith is true. There were great and important questions debated between the Reformed churches and theologians with the Roman communion, the Lutherans, the Anabaptists, and . . . Continue reading →
New In Print: Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy
Willem van Asselt, Irena Backus, John Witte Jr, Carl Trueman and others (including John Fesko and myself) are among those contributing to A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy by Brill. If you’re interested in the academic study of the history of Reformed theology . . . Continue reading →