Review: Petrus van Mastricht’s Theoretical-Practical Theology Volume 3: The Works of God and the Fall of Man

Although it is bad practice to believe in golden ages in the absolute sense, the present is certainly a high point for the church in the specific sense of the English-speaking world gaining increasing access to rich material from Protestant Orthodoxy that . . . Continue reading →

A New Devotional Drawn From The Works Of “The Sweet Dropper”

Many English (and Dutch) speaking Christians have a particular affection for and connection to that varied and complex movement known as Puritanism, usually described in this space as English Reformed theology. One of the English Reformed theologians to whom my friend Paul . . . Continue reading →

Teraz po polsku (Now In Polish) The Westminster Confession and Christianity & Liberalism

The Reformed theology, piety, and practice is a global phenomenon. Continue reading →

A Word To The PCA: Fathers, Do Not Exasperate Your Brothers (1)

There is a kind of therapeutic psychology rampant among the elite in Western culture’s ivory towers and it has made its way into our seminaries and churches, beguiling some and maddening others. Continue reading →

Reformation2Germany: The Thirty-Year Plan

What do you associate with Germany when you think about it—if you do? What do you associate with our history, specifically as a Christian? The Reformation? Martin Luther, perhaps? Or the Heidelberg Catechism? Surely, with such a history, Germany would be the . . . Continue reading →

Homosexuality, Concupiscence, and the PCA

Until recently the doctrine of concupiscence received little attention in Reformed circles. Perhaps it was mentioned in passing during a systematics class in seminary, but until the first Revoice conference in 2018 few knew how to pronounce, much less define concupiscence. Since . . . Continue reading →

Catholicity, Confusion, And A Correction

In the mid-1970s, the original cast of Saturday Night Live featured a regular character as part of the Update sketch. The character’s name was Emily Litella. She was played by the late Gilda Radner. It used to be that local newscasts would . . . Continue reading →

Charles Stover Discovers The Reformed Confession

It was my first staff meeting serving as a youth intern in my hometown church. My pastor, who had graciously allowed me to test my gifts in the pulpit before I went off to Bible college, wanted to know where I stood . . . Continue reading →

Secular When It Should Be Sacred

A significant part of the process of recovering and applying classical Reformed theology to our contemporary situation (sometimes called ressourcement, a French word which refers to getting back to original sources) is recovering the distinctions that we lost in the 19th and . . . Continue reading →

What Tradition Is And Does

(1) Central to the task of transmitting the faith from one generation to the next is the requirement of transmitting it as a whole, without addition or subtraction. In my judgment, the modern project of “mediating theology” often failed precisely in this . . . Continue reading →

Withholding The Chalice in Protestant Practice

Intinction And The Loss Of Symbolism

The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament the administration of which has been influenced by the health of the culture at the time. This past summer, I interned at a church and attended meetings where the staff discussed how to administer the Lord’s . . . Continue reading →