Volume 4: People And Place

The bibliopalooza continues. People and Place, the final volume of Mike Horton’s very important, four-volume systematic theology is out and available at the Bookstore at WSC for $27.46. One of the great failings of contemporary evangelical theology, piety, and practice is that . . . Continue reading →

White Horse Inn: Christianity, Politics, and the Two Kingdoms

Mike hosted an excellent roundtable discussion featuring Darryl Hart, adjunct professor at WSC and Director of Academic Programs at ISI, Dan Bryant, former Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice, and Neil McBride, a strategist for the Democratic Party. This is . . . Continue reading →

How to React to Homosexuals in the Congregation?

The question was raised on the PB how a congregation ought to respond to practicing homosexuals who are visiting a congregation regularly. Here’s a slightly revised version of my initial answer. First, praise God that they are in the congregation where, one trusts, . . . Continue reading →

Caspar Olevianus on Church and Kingdom

“The Kingdom of Christ in this world is the administration of salvation by which Christ the king himself, outwardly, through the gospel and baptism, gathers to himself and calls to salvation a people or visible church (in which many hypocrites are mixed).” . . . Continue reading →

Why Did the Geneva Consistory Insist on Biblical Names at Baptism?

Matt Tuininga, a friend and former student, has an interesting post at Christian in America in which he tells about the conflict between the consistory and some of the people in Geneva over the question of how the people should name their children. . . . Continue reading →

HB Classic: So You’re About to Call a Pastor?

[First published on the HB in June 2007] This is a sensitive topic. People don’t always think rationally or biblically or confessionally about the office of pastor. Many folk don’t understand what ministers do and most people who are involved in the . . . Continue reading →

Are Church Members Free Agents?

An HB Classic

One of the biggest developments of the modern era of sports is the rise of the “free agent.” Under “free agency” an athlete is bound to a team only for a short period at the end of which he becomes a “free . . . Continue reading →

On Churchless Evangelicals (pt 1)

An HB Classic

I was once a churchless evangelical. As a young Christian I attended a medium-sized (300 member) SBC (Southern Baptist) congregation for a few years without joining. It wasn’t really a problem. Of course they would like to have seen me baptized (as . . . Continue reading →

R. B. Kuiper On The Two Books

God has seen fit to reveal Himself to man in two books—the Bible, the book of special revelation, and nature and history, the book of general revelation. Now it is the duty of the organized Church to teach men the content of . . . Continue reading →

Why I’m Not Cynical About The Church

Sean writes (in response to another post) raising the question implicitly of cynicism about the visible, institutional church. My response is below. I understand disappointment with the discipline process. I’m disappointed when a consistory places people under discipline and those who’ve been . . . Continue reading →

Office Hours: The Experience Economy

In the medieval and Reformation periods the West had an agrarian economy. In the Modern period we had an industrial-manufacturing economy. By the 1980s we had a service economy. Today, according to Jim Gilmore and Joe Pine (Strategic Horizons LLP), we live . . . Continue reading →