When we think of the Synod of Dort and their rulings (canons) against the Remonstrants (Arminians) we tend to think about the doctrine of sin or the doctrines of unconditional grace, election, and the like but there were structural, subterranean issues at . . . Continue reading →
Dan writes to ask this question. It’s a good and important question and the answer is in two parts: anyone but not everyone. First, anyone may go to seminary. Since I teach at a seminary and I know how we operate, I’ll . . . Continue reading →
With regard to political action: American Christians (particularly evangelicals) must get over the microwave mentality. We need to think more in terms of camp fires and cook outs. It takes a long time to make a decent meal outdoors and it might . . . Continue reading →
Recently the Supreme Court of the United States issued a very significant decision widely known as Obergefell. In that 5–4 ruling, writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy argued that same-sex marriage is protected under the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the . . . Continue reading →
Recently the Supreme Court of the United States issued a very significant decision widely known as Obergefell. In that 5–4 ruling, writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy argued that same-sex marriage is protected under the 14th Amendment, which was ratified after the . . . Continue reading →
The first of these two documents, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” was a call to the Christian world to form a united front against the destructive influences of secular culture in such areas as ethics, statism, and the relativization of truth. In the . . . Continue reading →
Introduction In recent years, the study of virtue has experienced a renaissance.1 While we are recovering our classical grammar of virtue, we should also to recover our vocabulary of vice as well. Concupiscence is among our choicest words to be recovered. Because . . . Continue reading →
Trans. J. N. Lenker et al. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001) prepared by Shane Lems, M.Div © 2007 Shane Lems. All Rights Reserved. Usage: You may link to this index but it may not be copied wholesale without the permission of the author . . . Continue reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
One of the more frequent criticisms of the attempt to appropriate the older Reformed “two kingdoms” (or as Calvin put, “a twofold kingdom”) approach to Reformed ethics for a post-Constantinian setting, as distinct from the “transformationalist” or some versions of neo-Kuyperianism, is . . . Continue reading →
Stanley Fish proposes to go back to Thomas Hobbes. The Leviathan (Whale)-like civil authority is precisely why our founders said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” and appealed to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and to the “the . . . Continue reading →
We seem to live in a Malthusian age, i.e., an age of increasing scarcity or perhaps fear of scarcity, where concern over how to divide an economic (and environmental) pie of limited size (called a “zero sum game”) has replaced the idea . . . Continue reading →
Mike Horton, my colleague at WSC, spoke recently at Covenant College (Lookout Mt, GA) on the connections between a two-kingdoms analysis and the various neo-Kuyperian approaches to the relations between Christ and culture. Matt Tuininga was there and filed this report at . . . Continue reading →
Five years ago it was a leading premillennialist saying that were Calvin alive today he would, in effect, be John MacArthur. Now, the Secretary-General of the World Council of Reformed Churches, lecturing at Princeton Seminary (HT: Sovereign Grace News), claims that were Calvin . . . Continue reading →
Introduction Since the medieval period, theologians have stated theology in the form of brief, sometimes provocative, propositions to be discussed. 1. Prolegomena Theology requires proper distinctions. The Protestant scholastics distinguished properly between archetypal (theology as God knows it in himself) and ectypal . . . Continue reading →