Reverend David W. Hall is married to Ann, and they are parents of three grown children and grandparents of nine grandchildren. He retired as the Senior Pastor of Midway Presbyterian Church (PCA) in 2026 where he served since 2003. Previously, he served as Pastor of the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (1984–2003) and as Associate Pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Rome, Georgia (1980–1984). He was ordained to pastoral ministry in 1980, educated at Covenant Theological Seminary, and is the editor and author of several volumes, including Irony and the Presbyterian Church in America. You can find him on his Substack “Cheering Folly’s Demise.”
1. There is a clock that goes off, and that is the end. Really the end. We live in an age of coddled people whose specialness immunizes them against accepting verdicts. In most NAPARC denominations, litigation to the Nth degree has become . . . Continue reading →
The great grandson of several New England families (John Cotton’s among them), Elisha Williams (1694–1755) graduated from Harvard in 1711. After a brief career of teaching and tutoring in 1722 he became the pastor of a congregational church in Wethersfield, Connecticut, prior to serving as the Yale rector from 1726–39. Continue reading →
If not already, some Christian readers may react to columns that extol any virtues of college football whatsoever. Yes, it is dangerous;1 yes, some of its athletes are reverse role-models; yes, it may distract from exclusively academic pursuits; yes, it is a . . . Continue reading →
Introduction Colonial thinkers Samuel Adams and Rev. Jonathan Mayhew argued against the innate goodness of man with implicit reference to King George III: “Ambition and lust for power,” they claimed, “are predominant passions in the breasts of most men. . . . . . . Continue reading →
On January 18, 2016 at Liberty University, a presidential candidate referred to a Bible passage1 in his talk, advising that Christianity was under siege. While such remarks may stir one’s passions, two centuries earlier, another speaker referred to that same passage with an entire sermon devoted to it. Continue reading →
Many readers of these pages know only a sliver of the interests of the Heidel-Head. Not only is Dr. Clark an elite Oxford historian, but he is also a Nebraska football nerd. He grew up in Nebraska during the heyday of Cornhusker . . . Continue reading →
With Week Zero and several Atlantic Coast Conference upsets behind us (it is the end of the season, not the beginning that counts though), finally football fans enjoyed a full weekend of real games over Labor Day. A humbled Clemson program, still . . . Continue reading →
We have only one day until the return of ESPN’s GameDay and football kickoff extravagances. I can still smell the freshly mown grass watered by the early morning dew, and feel salty sweat stinging eyes, and the total body ache and bruising . . . Continue reading →
Even though I cannot use sporting “chance” as a header for a column, I still learn a lot from sports—always have. Growing up playing competitive sports taught me many lessons that I would not have learned otherwise, and these have helped in . . . Continue reading →
The abridged sermons in this series were generally delivered between 1744 and 1795, a half-century period that is definitely pre-partisan. Thus, these should be received as free from the bias of modern partisanship. Continue reading →
How does one sustain a movement of ideas over time? Is something as non-cognitive as social friendship a factor? One historian of the Swiss Reformation noted that it would be impossible for someone like Calvin to be so dearly loved at his death if he had been a monster all his life. Continue reading →
A pastor is a human being redeemed by God’s grace and called to serve the Lord as an ordained minister. As a human, he will need friends. It is a highly unrealistic expectation to think that pastors are above needing friends. Continue reading →
The more doctrinal wing of the PCA was flexing some muscle in the first half of the week at the 2024 General Assembly, but would it continue through the week? And will that continue beyond this Assembly? Continue reading →
As the PCA General Assembly convened on June 11th in the Greater Richmond Convention Center in downtown Richmond, VA, for the first time following its 50th birthday gala, ruling elder Steve Dowling from Southeast Alabama Presbytery was elected as Moderator. He led . . . Continue reading →
The PCA General Assembly convened again a large convention ballroom at Baton Rouge’s Bellemont Hotel for its next Assembly. Meeting in the deep South and the furthest west to date, the 12th GA would continue hashing out areas of mission and expansion. The . . . Continue reading →
I was raised in an era that is evidently receding. Not that very long ago, it was quite politically incorrect to mistreat Jewish holocaust descendants. Now, a Jewish student is practically persecuted on many elite campuses. Indeed, that general disavowal of anti-Semitism, . . . Continue reading →
The Charismatic movement was a controversial issue for the day, even among reformed and Presbyterian churches. Much of the past century, with its cooperation with broad evangelicalism, left some churches unprepared to speak to this issue. The PCA, in its first major . . . Continue reading →
From Scott Howard-Cooper’s introduction to Kingdom on Fire,1 a memoir about the turbulent 1960s through the intersected lives of UCLA legends, Coach John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bill Walton, we learn of some of the zany madness underneath some earlier student protests compared to . . . Continue reading →
When the 35th GA convened at Memphis’ Cook Convention Center June 12–14, 2007, the PCA was changing from the inside out. Its expanded Overtures Committee met for the first time, and the CMC (Cooperative Ministries Committee) was begun. CofCs (Committee of Commissioners) . . . Continue reading →
The 14th GA met in the elegant Academy of Music (a performing arts center) in the city center of Philadelphia, June 23–27, 1986. In addition to sweltering summer temperatures, a sanitation strike threatened conveniences. Nevertheless, the Assembly met in city center Philadelphia, . . . Continue reading →