Tag Archives: Confessionalism

Charles Finney Wasn’t the Only New York Pastor to Defend Revivals

Brick1

The Redeemer Report features an article by Tim Keller defending revival and conversion as biblical. Keller’s outspokenness on revivalism should not be a surprise since he was a student of Richard Lovelace (Dynamics of Spiritual Life), and since he has defended revivals on other occasions. Followers of Keller’s career and writings may be forgiven if… Read More→

Posted in Evangelicalism, Piety with Excitement | Also tagged , , , , | 97 Comments

Playing with Fire

fire eater

Martin Luther complained about the radicals of the Reformation who invoked the fullness of the Spirit that they had “swallowed the Holy Ghost, feathers and all.” Justin Taylor’s recent quote from John Piper about worship makes me wonder if fire-eater would occur to Luther as the name to describe the oldest of the Young, Restless,… Read More→

Posted in Shock and Awe | Also tagged , , , | 47 Comments

Cherry Picking Alert (and boy are those trunks sappy!)

cherries

The Gospel Coalition has launched a year-long series of blog posts about Princeton Theological Seminary, a school that celebrates its bicentennial this year. The first post introduces PTS by likening the institution to the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement. Controversies swirl around celebrity pastors and their best-selling books. Evangelicals unite across denominational lines to share… Read More→

Posted in Adventures in Church History, Because Someone Has to Provide Oversight | Also tagged , , , , , , | 31 Comments

Confessional Intuition

Worldviews are overrated. Intuition matters. At least, that’s the impression readers may take away from a thoughtful review of a new book on philanthropy by Jeff Cain, a former colleague and now the co-founder of American Philanthropic. The book in question is Do More Than Give: The Six Practices of Donors Who Change the World,… Read More→

Posted in Wilderness Wanderings | Also tagged , , | 13 Comments

Young, Restless and Lutheran?

If you read Collin Hanson’s book on the young Calvinists you will discover that of Dort’s five points the young and restless ones affirm at most two of the five. You will also see that what drives young Calvinists has less to do with the five points of Calvinsim than with one big point –… Read More→

Posted in Paleo Calvinism | Also tagged , , , , , , | 75 Comments

Why Does Mahaney Get More Slack Than Nevin?

The answer appears to be that if you I have spoken at conferences with C.J., shared a meal with him after one of those sessions, or sung Sovereign Grace Music songs on stage with him, then it is possible to stand in the gap with C.J. in the current difficulty that SGM is experiencing. But… Read More→

Posted in Jure Divino Presbyterianism | Also tagged , , , , , | 175 Comments

Al Mohler, the Gospel Coalition, and Me (about whom it always is)

Name-dropper alert: Al Mohler and I have been friends for over two decades. (The Harts used to be on the Mohler’s Christmas card list until the former’s nomadic way of life prompted USPS to stop forwarding those attractive greetings from the president’s house in Louisville.) Al and I met when we were participants in a… Read More→

Posted in Jure Divino Presbyterianism | Also tagged , , , , , , | 318 Comments

Look At All the Detail (and Beware the Adverbs)

When teaching on the historical development of Reformed Protestantism I have been struck lately by the greater and greater amounts of detail into which the Reformed churches went in descriptions of the Holy Spirit’s work. If you look (see below) at the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) you don’t see much beyond affirmations of faith, regeneration, and… Read More→

Posted in Application of Redemption | Also tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Having His Confession and Feeling It Too

Whether he has too much time on his hands or is an outlier in the Gospel Coalition, Kevin DeYoung deserves kudos for reading books by Reformed confessionalists. Whether more reading will be sufficient to wean DeYoung off pietism is another matter. But he will have to spend more time on the topic if he is… Read More→

Posted in Piety with Excitement | Also tagged , , , , | 40 Comments

The Gospel Coalition’s Thin-Skinned Long Arm

I did not see Kevin DeYoung’s post at his Gospel Coalition blog about confessionalism and pietism — and for good reason. Between the time you opened the page and blinked it was gone. (And it promised to be the first of a three-part series.) (UPDATE: For those old enough to remember the Tonight Show when… Read More→

Posted in Piety with Excitement, sanctification, Shameless Selves Promotion | Also tagged , , | 140 Comments