Calvin on "The Real Prosperity Gospel"

Christianity Today is running a series entitled, “Re-Formed” featuring essays by “John Calvin with Knox Bucer-Beza”—identified by CT as “the author of the Institutes of the Christian Religion and commentaries on most books of the Bible, both of which were sources of . . . Continue reading →

Why Evangelicals Cannot Be Trusted with the Bible

Carolyn Arends wants to give an argument for the benefits of God’s moral law but she lacks the categories by which to do it. Her argument has only two categories good/bad and relationships. The title and subtitle of her essay should alarm . . . Continue reading →

"Tough Grace" Is Not Grace (and It’s Not Law Either)

In an unsigned editorial yesterday CT came out in favor of what it calls “tough grace.” The presenting issue or symptom is CT’s concern that Christian institutions are failing to be both “tough” and “gracious” simultaneously. The argument is that the fall . . . Continue reading →

Colson Calls for Doctrinal Boot Camp: But Which Doctrine?

In 1994 Chuck Colson attempted to convince evangelicals that the decline of the culture was so precipitous that they needed to set aside the historic Protestant doctrine of justification in favor of an intentionally equivocal statement about how we are accepted by . . . Continue reading →

Mark Galli Reviews Bell on Hell

Galli writes, “but in raising such momentous issues, he has raised crucial questions that also must be asked. If universal salvation is true, why does Jesus not showcase it? Why is Jesus’ teaching characterized instead by a relentless focus on the last . . . Continue reading →

Negotiating With Polyamory: A Snapshot Of Evangelicalism In 2020

H. Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) is the slightly less famous younger brother of Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971). The latter was a favorite of two presidents, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. The former is most famous for his 1951 book, Christ and Culture, though his early work, The Social Sources of Denominationalism (1929) and The Kingdom of God in America (1937) remain influential. In the latter he perfectly characterized liberal Christianity as that in which “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” In Christ and Culture he offered a taxonomy of Christian approaches Continue reading →

Piper’s Sea Shell Sermon Illustrates How Far The YRR Movement Was From The Reformation

So I am listening to the latest episode in the Christianity Today podcast series, “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.” Like the others it is illuminating, compelling, and frustrating simultaneously. Continue reading

Parachurch or Pastoring (Part 2)

Previously began a discussion about parachurch ministries in relation to the church. The point was to raise a concern about how, frequently, parachurch ministries implicitly, if (perhaps) unintentionally, try to usurp the visible, institutional church’s primary role in God’s plan to save . . . Continue reading →

Christianity Today Is Not A Ministry

One of the episodes of Christianity Today‘s Mars Hill podcast series was actually about the problem of sexual harassment at Christianity Today (to their credit, after exposing the cultic nature of Mark Driscoll’s control over Mars Hill–in the sense that Jim Jones . . . Continue reading →

Para Means “Alongside” Not “Is”

Is the Family Research Council a church? What about Cru, the Gideons International, Voice of the Martyrs, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM), Liberty Counsel, the American Family Association, Navigators, and World Vision? The Controversy According to a recent story by Daniel Silliman, . . . Continue reading →

The Narcissism of Evangelical Latitudinarianism

This essay was written before I published Recovering the Reformed Confession (2008), which, remarkably and quite unexpectedly, remains in print. In it, I interacted with a book review published in Christianity Today which serves as a symbol of the way Pietists and modern evangelicals . . . Continue reading →