Confessional Protestants complain often about the way that partisan politics has driven the wedge between evangelicals and mainliners more than doctrinal or liturgical matters. That is why two-kingdom theology has some appeal. It prevents concerns for social-well being, which are legitimate, from undermining the identity and mission of the church (“let the church be the… Read More→
Word on the web is that Rome is opening up ecumenical conversations with confessional Lutherans. At the First Things blog, Matthew Block describes some of the activity and rationale for these discussions. While dialogue between Roman Catholics and mainline Lutherans continues, a desire has arisen among Roman Catholics to begin looking to confessional Lutherans for… Read More→
Put simply, the Bible speaks narrowly to the church but broadly to believers. This, at least, is the unexamined logic of neo-Calvinism. Two-kingdom proponents and neo-Calvinists both distinguish between the institutional church and its members. This distinction allows us to recognize that Christians properly do things that the church can’t do. Christians work as artists,… Read More→
Perhaps the ruckus over Jason Stellman’s decision has passed but one response by Peter Leithart needs some attention, if only because it highlights a general problem in Reformed and Presbyterian circles. It is the way that Reformed Protestantism sits lightly with folks who are officers in Reformed and Presbyterian communions. Not to pick on anyone… Read More→
Our relentless and erstwhile defender of all things Jonathan Edwards made a remarkable assertion in his interactions with other Old Lifers. He wrote: If confessionalists are just going to church on Sunday, affirming the confession, taking the sacrament and just waiting for Christ to come again, then they are being lazy. If confessionalists are not… Read More→
Protestant athletes are in the news — Tim Tebow, of Bible-verse eyeblack fame, and David Freese of World Series heroism (thanks to our D.C. correspondent). The reasons for the attention to these athletes say a lot about the differences between evangelicalism and confessional Protestantism. Practically anyone who watches sports knows that Tebow is a Christian… Read More→
I am not sure if our favorite PCA blogger had J. Gresham Machen’s birthday in mind when he posted a piece on the fortunes of Machen’s kind of confessionalism within the PCA, but it was good preparation for today’s festivities. The same goes for Westminster Seminary California which has released Scott Clark’s interview with me… Read More→
Our favorite PCA blogger has once again kicked up a little e-dust with a review of Kenneth Stewart’s new book, Ten Myths about Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition. The review itself is worth reading, as is a subsequent post that explains the author’s perspective (the author being pastor William H. Smith aka… Read More→
My confession of faith is not the Westminster Confession. It is the confession of my communion, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Of course, our confession bears many resemblances to the Westminster Confession. But if folks look at the publication of our confession, neatly produced by the Committee on Christian Education, it reads, the “Confession of Faith… Read More→
Did God Rest In One Day?
Volume four of the Nicotine Theological Journal is now available at the back issues page. Here is a whiff, from the April number: . . . [Morton] Smith’s study of John Murray is an example of how sabbatarian-creation logic fails. Murray understood as well as anyone the importance of creation for Sabbath-keeping: “The weekly sabbath… Read More→