Part 1 of this post. 14. Can any mere creature make satisfaction for us? None, for first, God will not punish any other creature for the sin which man committed;1 and further, no mere creature can sustain the burden of God’s eternal . . . Continue reading →
liberalism
Ministers: Servants of God or Man?
Machen explain to the 1934 graduating class of WTS.
Was Jesus the First Christian?
The old liberals tried to make Jesus into a Christian — as the moralists have always done and continue to do.
Machen on Examples
At Geneva Redux.
Brian's God
Brian McLaren has source of continual fascination at the HB. He’s also been so for Martin Downes at Against Heresies. Martin is raising questions about McLaren’s latest in which he demonstrates that concern that the Emergent Movement is just another form of . . . Continue reading →
Machen: The Good Fight Of Faith
The Apostle Paul was a great fighter. His fighting was partly against external enemies—against hardships of all kinds. Five times he was scourged by the Jews, three times by the Romans; he suffered shipwreck four times; and was in perils of waters, . . . Continue reading →
Do Mainlines Renew?
There several ways to classify American denominations. We could distinguish between “liberal” (those who no longer believe Scripture to be God’s inerrant Word or the historic Christian faith) and “conservative” (those who affirm inerrancy and historic Christianity). As Darryl Hart argues in . . . Continue reading →
Or We Could Catechize Them
I ask nothing of you in the way of a declared position on religion. Your mother may have demanded more of you here,—entreated more; I cannot. I ask but this: that you will give earnest, serious consideration to the fact that we . . . Continue reading →
Keep Calm And Cover Up? The Walhout Saga Continues
Recently I’ve been stressing to my students the importance of believing their senses. Maybe it’s because each autumn I re-read the Apostolic Fathers (and other patristic writers) and walk the students through the threats posed by Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion (pre-Gnostic, Gnostic, . . . Continue reading →
Tillich: Pietism And The Enlightenment Both Fought Against Orthodoxy
It is entirely wrong to place the rationalism of the Enlightenment in contradiction to pietistic mysticism. It is popular nonsense that reason and mysticism are the two great opposites. Historically, Pietism and the Enlightenment both fought against Orthodoxy. The subjectivity of Pietism, . . . 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: What Happened To The Reformation? (Part 2)
It is October 2017. 500 years ago this month Martin Luther wrote 95 theses against the abuse of indulgences in the Western church. We have traced the Reformation to this date for a long time but as you and I have discussed . . . Continue reading →
Niebuhr On The Marcionite Character Of Theological Modernism
A God without wrath bought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (New York: Harper, 1937), 193. (HT: David Chin)
Incremental Steps Toward Punishing Politically Incorrect Speech?
The San Diego County Board Tuesday evening adopted a resolution declaring misinformation a “public health crisis.”res Continue reading →
Valentinus, Marcion, And Contemporary Christianity
In our ancient church course we have been working through the basic ideas and foundational figures in the Gnostic movement of the second century AD.
Does Inerrancy Apply Only To The Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts Of Scripture?
The final authority for Christian doctrine and the Christian life, as the Westminster Divines wrote, the Word of God in the original languages. This is why it is so important that our pastors and teachers receive a genuine education in the original languages and why we should expect them to continue learn and progress in their knowledge and use of the original languages in pastoral ministry. For centuries before the Renaissance and Reformation, most the ministers in the Western church lost the ability to read the Scriptures in the original languages. Indeed, to find an illiterate priest (one who could not read at all) was not unknown. In the Greek church, of course, they could at least read the New Testament but it was not until the Renaissance that the knowledge of Hebrew and Greek began to return more widely and to be taught again in the universities, where pastors were educated. The Reformed churches understood and appreciated the value of the knowledge of the original languages and expected the pastors to learn and use them. Continue reading →