In a moment of piety this morning (don’t worry, didn’t last long), I read this from Martin Luther in a 1535 sermon on Romans 8:17: And now he (St. Paul) begins to comfort Christians in such sufferings, and he speaks as a man who has been tried and has become quite certain. And he speaks… Read More→
We need the Lenten police. If we had them, then Reformed Protestants may not have so much material to confirm our prejudices against the church calendar. But until we do, we are stuck with evangelicals schlocking up the liturgical year and proving once again the need for reformation. In this particular case, a story at… Read More→
Religious liberty is much in the news thanks to President Obama’s national health care program and its requirements for funding abortion and contraceptive service. (For what it’s worth, the bigger story here has less to do with religious liberty or freedom of conscience and health insurance than it does with who died and gave Health… Read More→
With the recent start of Mad Men’s fifth season, the critics have been piling praise high and deep for a show that as much as I watch leaves me cold. The reviewer for Terry Gros’ Fresh Air gassed on about the show’s finely textured characters. Puh-leeze. This seemed like a desperate attempt by a university… Read More→
Observances and commemorations of Princeton Seminary’s bicentennial are coming fast and furious. The first Presbyterian seminary in the New World, founded in 1812 by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., has prompted two conferences (for starters). The first was Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s conference last week which turned out to be a lovely… Read More→
Charles Murray’s book, Coming Apart, has been receiving a lot of attention. It is a book about the growing divergence between elites and average Americans, and shows that the wealthy and well educated are far more conservative in their way of life than many assume. Ross Douthat at the New York Times has been largely… Read More→
I came across the follow excerpt while teaching a few weeks ago and it was striking that the self-made man and pursuer of virtue, Ben Franklin, was no fan of doctrinal preaching. I suspect that his objections to the preaching of Jedediah Andrews, the pastor at First Presbyterian in Philadelphia, would have also applied to… Read More→
This week’s national holiday allowed the Gospel Coalition to don its patriotic colors and wave the flag of civil piety. A post by Thomas Kidd on the faith of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln took a fairly modest line by arguing that the first and sixteenth presidents were not orthodox Christians or even the best… Read More→
The day before Justin Taylor posted about Eric Metaxes’ children’s book on Squanto, the Coalition blogger referenced an explanation about forthcoming changes in translations for the English Standard Version. The biblical words for slave — ebed (Hebrew) and doulos (Greek) have been particularly vexing to the Committee responsible revising the ESV. Taylor cites the Committee’s… Read More→
Vossians and Neo-Calvinists Together?
I have puzzled often about the lack of support in Vossian circles for two-kingdom theology. Many Vossians I know — and I consider myself to be one — find the spirituality of the church agreeable but balk at 2k. Why 2k is distinguished from the spirituality of the church is anyone’s guess, or why Geerhardus… Read More→