If it does not care much about the Lord’s Supper (either to observe it or as to who communes) neither does it necessarily have a vital interest in the facts of the history of salvation. This tendency is plainly evident in two great figures in the history of Pietism, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918). Both were raised in the Pietist tradition and both abandoned historic Christianity. Continue reading →
Yet there is another aspect to the essay, and that is Paglia’s barely concealed contempt for the attempts of liberal Christianity and of the gay lobby itself to make homosexuality respectable. For Paglia, sex is powerful and deviant sex reflects that power . . . Continue reading →
Christianity they will tell us is a life and not a doctrine. Now that seems to be a devout and pious utterance, but it is radically false all the same, and to see that it is false you do not need even . . . Continue reading →
The enemy is made the more dangerous because it is found within, rather than without, the Church. Definite opponents of the Christian religion could have been more easily met; but now as in ancient times Satan has preferred to labor for the . . . Continue reading →
Perhaps the most intense and difficult part about growing up is learning how to fit in, when to try, and when it does not matter. I suppose, we probably never really outgrow those questions but perhaps, as we mature, it matters less . . . Continue reading →
A friend and HB reader writes to ask about the validity baptisms administered in mainline (liberal) congregations. Should a NAPARC (North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council) affiliated congregation receive as valid a baptism performed by a minister in a denomination that has . . . Continue reading →
A God without wrath brought men without sinto a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross. —H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (1937), 193.
…The denomination had decided to allow the ordination of women as elders (1966) and as ministers (1968). The verbatim record of these assemblies show that this was declared to be merely permissive legislation and evangelicals were assured it would never be forced . . . Continue reading →
The New York Times reported yesterday that a sufficient number of presbyteries of the liberal, mainline Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) have voted to approve gay marriage that church order Book of Order will, beginning in June of this year, define marriage no . . . Continue reading →
This does answer the question, does the PCUSA still have heresy trials? Of course they do. Heresy or apostasy in the PCUSA is now defined as lack or failure of institutional or corporate loyalty, and or actions, speech against the institution. Where . . . Continue reading →
But more and more there is a tendency to brand as illiberal, medieval and narrow any man who differs from the current of popular religious thought, and declares it to be non-Christian in its tendencies. There is a great discussion in the . . . Continue reading →
But what was the difference between the teaching of Paul and the teaching of the Judaizers ? What was it that gave rise to the stupendous polemic of the Epistle to the Galatians? To the modern Church the difference would have seemed . . . Continue reading →
Perhaps it may be objected that if we continue to be tolerated, we shall harm the church by an insistence upon the maintenance of a strict view of its doctrinal standards. I think that just from the “Liberal” point of view there . . . Continue reading →
All this is true. But it really does not apply to the situation in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. The point is that Church is very largely dominated by unbelief. It does not merely harbor unbelief here and there. No, it . . . Continue reading →
Some of my friends in the CRC seem to think that this would be a good thing. They speak to me with wistful longing about the “freedom” of the PCUSA. This is a romantic vision that is unrelated to the truth. The . . . Continue reading →
Dad had been a staunch defender of a somewhat cramped version of Calvinism formed by his upbringing in the Gereformeerde Kerk in the Netherlands. Early on, his parents had put the kibosh on his aspirations to ministry; unless he had a distinct . . . Continue reading →
The mentality of fundamentalism sometimes crops up where one would least expect it; and there is no better illustration of this than the inimitable New Testament scholar, J. Gresham Machen. Machen was an outspoken critic of the fundamentalist movement. He argued with . . . Continue reading →
There several ways to classify American denominations. We could distinguish between “liberal” (those who no longer believe Scripture to be God’s inerrant Word or the historic Christian faith) and “conservative” (those who affirm inerrancy and historic Christianity). As Darryl Hart argues in . . . Continue reading →
THE present situation in the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. is only one phase of a situation that prevails in the Protestant churches throughout the world. Everywhere—in the countries of Europe and in mission lands—Christianity finds itself in a mighty . . . Continue reading →
Edwin Walhout, a retired CRC minister, has published a provocative essay in The Banner, the denominational magazine of the Christian Reformed Church. In this essay he imagines how our orthodoxy will be viewed 1000 years from now. In order to set up the . . . Continue reading →
