Years ago a Protestant Reformed minister told me that the URCNA was nothing more than the CRCNA of the 1950s. I took exception to that statement but it did make me wonder how much truth was in it. Would the URC be . . . Continue reading →
Twofold Kingdom
Marsden On Anti-Establishmentarian Christianity In The Academy
Hollinger speaks for many secularists in the academy, and we can learn from his perceptions and concerns. He is correct that establishmentarian Christianity has difficulty providing social and political equity in the presence of demographic diversification. So the best response is to . . . Continue reading →
A Cross And A Twofold Kingdom (2)
In Part 1 I sketched the history and current legal status of the Mt Soledad Cross and I indicated some ambivalence about that use of the cross. On the one hand, it seems clear that some opposition to the cross is less . . . Continue reading →
A Cross And The Twofold Kingdom
The cross atop Mt Soledad, in LaJolla has been in place since 1954 but it has been the subject of controversy and continuous and tortuous legal wrangling since at least 1989, when two atheists and the “Society of Separationists” sued in federal court . . . Continue reading →
Helm: Transformationalism Has Status Of A Private Opinion
In the dust raised by the current renewed appreciation of the Reformed doctrine of the two kingdoms, through the work of David Van Drunen and others, it is sometimes asked, in adopting the doctrine of the two kingdoms, what becomes of the . . . Continue reading →
Political Pluralism And Public Prayer
When we allow evangelicals to pray as evangelicals, Catholics to pray as Catholics, Muslims to pray as Muslims, Jews to pray as Jews, we are not undermining political pluralism in our democracy, we’re upholding it. That’s why these prayers are not an . . . Continue reading →
Constantine’s Complexity
Constantine lived his entire life within the imperial court, which he saw as the central institution of Roman life. He believed that the emperor’s job was to defend the empire from external foes while creating a more just and ordered society for . . . Continue reading →
The Βασιλεια του Θεου as a Clue to the Social Program of the Apostles
Acts on the Kingdom of God: An HB Classic
Sunday night I heard a sermon on Acts 28 during which my attention was drawn to the way Luke uses the expression, “βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ” (Kingdom of God). I was struck by eschatological character of Luke’s conception (and by implication, Paul’s conception, . . . Continue reading →
Things That Don’t Help The 2K Discussion (Updated)
R. C. Sproul, Jr published a post on Thursday 26 September answering the question, “What is 2k Theology?” (HT: David Murray). It gets some things right, some of what it says is a matter of opinion and debate, and some of what . . . Continue reading →
Rutherford On The Mediatorial Kingship Of Christ
Christ is the head and only head of the Church, for by what title Christ is before all things, he in whom all things consist, and is the beginning, the first borne from the dead, and hath the preeminence in all things; . . . Continue reading →
Kim Riddlebarger On Christ, Culture, and 2K: In The Land Of Nod
Kim Riddlebarger, Senior Pastor of Christ Reformed Church (Anaheim, California) has begun a series of lectures on Christ and culture, two kingdoms, and church and state, vocation, and eschatology as part of the Christ URC Fright Night Academy series of lectures. If . . . Continue reading →
Variety Of Reformed Views On Mediatorial Kingship
Gillespie’s view of Christ’s kingship in relation to the nations is extensively set out in the pamphlets he wrote an answer to the publications of the Rev. Thomas Coleman, an Assembly commissioner and rector of St. Peter’s Church, Cornhill, in London. Coleman . . . Continue reading →
Trueman On The Rhetoric Of The 2K Debate
Many readers may disagree with my views on this matter. That is of little account. My point here is not to argue for the spirituality of the church so much as to highlight the problem of the rhetoric being used by some . . . Continue reading →
The Abiding Validity Of The Creational Law In Exhaustive Detail
A correspondent to the HB writes: People can gloss over the term all they want, but secularism is still what it is, a rival religion and ethos to Christianity. The real divide between the FV and anti-FV crowd began with Van Til . . . Continue reading →
Jack and the Kingdom of God (Updated)
In a piece that appears in Christianity Today online Ted Olson argues that a plan, which was cancelled, to free the Korean hostages in Afghanistan by taking hostage the families of the kidnappers is a bad idea because the Apostle Paul wouldn’t . . . Continue reading →
Surrounded By Constantinians
There is some excitement in some quarters over the question of whether the United Reformed Churches confess the revised or unrevised version of the Belgic Confession. There is no evidence from the minutes of the URCs, of which I’m aware, that speaks . . . Continue reading →
Finals and the Covenant of Works
It’s the season for final exams at Westminster Seminary California. I always get a little nervous during a final, even though I’m the one giving it and not the one taking it. Naturally I want the students to do well but by the . . . Continue reading →
We Are Not Polishing Brass On A Sinking Ship
More than 30 years ago, when I first came into contact with Reformed theology, piety, and practice (the Reformed confession broadly defined), I also came into contact with a movement within the Reformed world known as “Christian Reconstructionism” and its child “theonomy.” . . . Continue reading →
Heidelcast 22: On The Relation Of The Kingdom To The Church
Steven writes to ask whether the Kingdom of God is synonymous with the visible church or whether it is broader than the visible church? These questions have been particularly a matter of discussion since the rise of the Dutch neo-Calvinist movement in . . . Continue reading →
The Revision of Belgic Confession Article 36 on Church and State
Eugene Osterhaven called this “the most difficult and disputed” article in the confession.1 As will appear below, the desire to revise this article has existed in the Reformed churches in both the Netherlands and in the USA since the late 19th century . . . Continue reading →