Author: Simon Jooste

Rev. Simon Jooste (PhD, Stellenbosch University) is a former USA Division I tennis player and CPA now living in his native South Africa serving the Reformed Church Southern Suburbs. He has authored Embodiment and Power: the Essential Nature of the Women in Office Debate (2022) and Pilgrim Politics: Crucified Creedalism Under Christ’s Two-Fold Rule (Mentor, 2026).

Justification By Faith And Social Justice By Works (Part 3)

by on December 2, 2025 | 2 Comments
golden calf

The late German-American political philosopher Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) observed that history is marked by recurring attempts to divinize a fallen created order as a way of escaping the anxiety of fragile and finite existence. He identified in the early church heresy of Gnosticism a paradigm for understanding how private spiritual ambitions are transposed into public political projects—from Constantinianism and medieval Christendom to the totalitarianisms of the modern left and right. Continue reading →

Justification By Faith And Social Justice By Works (Part 2)

by on November 25, 2025 | 2 Comments
golden calf

The gospel can be turned into law—even into new religious laws, especially when sweeter fruit is available to stave off the bitter taste of judicial conviction. When fallen creatures turn down contracts with part or all of the moral law, the door invariably opens to various forms of religious innovation, new orders for spiritual justice. Continue reading →

Review: J. M. Vorster’s The Gift of Life (Part 3): What Kind Of Reformation?

by on January 6, 2023 | 2 Comments

The tensions and inconsistencies that I have attempted to illustrate in this book review beg another question: What kind of reformation is The Gift of Life after? The answer Professor Vorster appears to provide is one of “flourishing personhood” that roots out . . . Continue reading →

Review: J. M. Vorster’s The Gift of Life (Part 2): Postmodern Identity Politics Gets A Galatians 3:28 Makeover

by on January 5, 2023

At this point it is worth asking: What informs Professor Vorster’s overarching moral vision? Throughout The Gift of Life, the contention is that definitions of human dignity found in the liberal democratic and human rights traditions can be translated into Christian value . . . Continue reading →

Review: J. M. Vorster’s The Gift of Life (Part 1): Political Liberalism Or Liberation Theology?

by on January 4, 2023

North-West University Professor J. M. Vorster’s The Gift of Life: Toward an ethic of human personhood (2021) represents a crowning of his career as a Reformed Pastor, theologian, and ethicist in the South African context.1 I review this volume as a fellow . . . Continue reading →

Paul Re-Forms The Body In Corinth

by on December 13, 2022 | 4 Comments

Embodiment is central to salvation, so is suffering in the body. Without the incarnation, passion, and ongoing enfleshed intercession of Christ, there is no redemption. This was the heartbeat of the apostle Paul’s preaching in ancient Corinth, a city pulsing with ideas . . . Continue reading →