“Did God Leave Me When I Enrolled In Seminary?”

A former student of mine many years ago at Westminster Seminary California once mentioned that he was feeling concerned about his devotional life since beginning seminary—a thought many first-semester seminary students have. He said that before attending seminary, he had an active . . . Continue reading →

Asbury Is Having A Revival (Again)

A spontaneous marathon revival among students and faculty at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, resulted in a week-long shut-down of classes and reached out to other colleges and communities from coast to coast this month. Students, faculty, townspeople, and visitors wept, and . . . Continue reading →

Aldo Leon: Discovering The Reformed Confession In Miami

In my Baptist seminary I had a class that required me to do devotions in John Calvin’s, Institutes of the Christian Religion.  What shocked me was how much Calvin’s theological arguments were inundated with Bible references from the totality of the scriptures (not just parts).  When Calvin spoke of baptism, he spoke from the totality of the Bible, not merely a few references in Acts.  It was in that moment that I saw the stark contrast from my reformed-ish circle.  We talked a lot about the Bible and had a lot of assumptions that we brought to the Bible; but Calvin taught much from the Bible and drew his assumptions about the Bible from the Bible itself.  Continue reading →

“My Thirst For More Drove Me On”

My thirst for more drove me on. I began to explore the doctrine of the Spirit. Raised as a cessationist, I believed that the Holy Spirit comes to each believer at conversion, after that there is nothing more to it. I was . . . Continue reading →

Not To Worry. Christ Is Still Lord. Nothing Has Changed

Another Christian musician has announced that he has “deconstructed” his faith. Continue reading

The Myth Of The Bell Rope

Events described by the author of the Savage manuscript, in other words, provide an opportunity to reimagine Edwards as an active promoter of the most radical dimensions of the evangelical new birth experience—a figure who, during the early months of the Awakening, . . . Continue reading →

Some Reasons Why Visitors Do Not Stay And What To Do About It

Presbyterian and Reformed congregations occupy an odd space in American Christianity. We do not really belong to American Christianity in significant ways. Our roots are not in the nineteenth-century revivals nor even in the eighteenth-century revivals. We are no part of the . . . Continue reading →

Why Caution About Jonathan Edwards Is In Order

Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) is America’s most famous theologian and perhaps its most famous philosopher too. He is an important and influential figure and worth seeking to understand for those reasons alone. We should think about Edwards for other reasons, however, He is . . . Continue reading →

The State Of Evangelical Theology 2020: The Crisis Deepens

For a few years now Ligonier, in conjunction with Lifeway, has been conducting surveys of Americans (and others) to track the state of American Christianity. They want to know, as they write, what “Americans believe about God, salvation, ethics, and the Bible.” . . . Continue reading →

Why I Will Not Follow Mark Galli Across The Tiber

The phrase “swimming the Tiber” is a metaphor for converting from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. I have not been able to determine its origins but the online Dictionary of Christianese traces the expression to 1963, which, if true, would mean that it . . . Continue reading →

Just Discovering Reformed Theology? TheoRecon Is A Toll-Booth You Should Skip

Introduction Arguably Reformed theology has never been more popular among evangelicals than it is right now. There are multiple large parachurch movements that extol the virtues of Reformed theology in a way that was unknown thirty years ago. It has never been . . . Continue reading →

Cancelling The Lord’s Day After Christmas?

There are reports (documented in the comments below) that various ostensibly evangelical congregations are cancelling worship services this Lord’s Day. This has become something of a pattern in recent years. It seems that people, including the congregants, pastors, and church staff are . . . Continue reading →