Online: "The New Perspective on Calvin"

This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece of research by the Rev Tom Wenger (MA, Historical Theology), a graduate of Westminster Seminary California on the way Calvin is being presented in some contemporary Calvin scholarship. This piece grew out of his 2003 . . . Continue reading →

New In Print: Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy

Willem van Asselt, Irena Backus, John Witte Jr, Carl Trueman and others (including John Fesko and myself) are among those contributing to A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy by Brill. If you’re interested in the academic study of the history of Reformed theology . . . Continue reading →

New Tool For The Study Of Reformed Orthodoxy

By David Systsma—Scholars now have a new tool for the early modern religious and philosophical history in its academic context. From the beginning of the Reformation at the University of Wittenberg to the establishment of the Academy of Geneva, schools were integral . . . Continue reading →

Junius And Gomarus Saw It Coming

It is also important to comment on Junius’s relationship with Jacobus Arminius, who became professor at Leiden University in 1603. Junius carried on a correspondence with Arminius after meeting him at Leiden in 1596 at the wedding of Geertje Jacobsdochter (Arminius’s aunt) . . . Continue reading →

Theology And The University In Nineteenth-Century Germany

The history of modern German theology is dominated by two figures, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and G. F. W. Hegel (1770–1831) but there is more to the story. If Schleiermacher and Hegel formed the skeleton, a series of lesser-known figures and institutions formed . . . Continue reading →

Office Hours: Aquinas Among The Protestants

Office Hours Video

Thomas Aquinas (c.1224–74) was one of the most important Christian teachers in the period and though he was eclipsed in the centuries after, his work returned to prominence in the 16th–19th centuries particularly among Roman theologians, for whom Thomas became the theologian . . . Continue reading →

HT501 Introduction to Historical Theology (Fall 2018)

Course Description and Objectives: This course is designed to introduce graduate students to skills, practices and research trends in contemporary historical theology. Over the last fifty years the discipline of intellectual history, a subset of which is historical theology, has been at . . . Continue reading →

What Is Historical Theology?

DEFINITION Historical theology refers to the discipline of narrating the development of Christian theology. SUMMARY Historical theology is closely related to but distinct from the discipline of Church History, which is more interested in the institutional history of the church and its . . . Continue reading →

What The Reformed Can Learn From A 1532 Synod: Christ Our Wisdom

But what need is there of many words? “All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge lay hidden in Christ” (Col. 2). Why should a Christian preacher seek wisdom in other histories and in supplementary books, without displaying those riches and that treasury . . . Continue reading →

Doubts About Political Theology And The Church As A Lever Of Cultural Influence

© R. Scott Clark

Tish Harrison Warren, a priest in the ACNA (a denomination in the Anglican tradition), writes in Christianity Today, We have an impoverished and inadequate political theology. It took us generations to get here, and this one election, regardless of the results, will . . . Continue reading →

William Perkins On Justification

Perkins objected to Rome’s sacrifice of the Mass. For Perkins, this doctrine was attached to erroneous views of Christology, Christ’s propitiatory suffering unto death, and in turn the doctrine of justification. One of Perkins’s clearest Christological statements is found in his treatise, A Warning Against the Idolatry of the Last Times (1601), where he wrote, “For He in one person is perfect God and perfect man, our only Redeemer all-sufficient in Himself, and therefore perfect king, priest, prophet; without either partner or fellow in the work of man’s salvation.” Continue reading →

William Perkins On Justification (2)

In connection with Trent and Bellarmine’s stance on purgatory and the sacrifice of the Mass was Rome’s doctrine of a second justification. Bellarmine’s Scriptural basis for a second justification was Romans 3—which he saw as the first justification, and James 2—which he saw as the second justification. For Perkins, James 2 was for the justified because of Christ, “outward testimonies of the truth of our faith and profession, proving that the grace of our hearts is not in hypocrisy, but in truth and sincerity.” In other words, James 2 spoke not of justification in the same sense as Paul in Romans, but in a completely different sense, scope, and design, James 2:21 is in the demonstrative for Abraham’s “works did testify that his faith was true and sincere. Continue reading →

Lordship Salvation, The Federal Vision, And The Covenant Theology That The Reformation Rejected

Or Why History Is Useful

More than twenty years ago, in the summer of 2001, Mike Horton and I were sitting beside a hotel swimming pool one evening during Synod Escondido, along with several ministers from our federation (denomination) of churches (the United Reformed Churches in North . . . Continue reading →