The news of the gospel allies teaming up with Tim Keller to produce a catechism is a target too big to miss. Given the urban hipster brand of TKNY, one can only wonder if the catechism (which is supposed to include material from the older catechisms) will have Q&A’s like this: Q. What is the… 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→
As I continue to come across Edwards’ writings — his Faithful Narrative is part of the reader for American Heritage at Hillsdale College — I continue to be amazed at the Northampton pastor’s broad appeal, even down to the “Jonathan Edwards is my homeboy” T-shirts. Granted, Edwards has much to admire. The thought of a… Read More→
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→
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→
John Fea links to this amusing video. The mocking of small groups aside — and remember that we have pietists to thank for this odd form of Christian piety — I do wonder what would happen to the dynamics of a group like this if you introduced a Presbyterian elder (not to be confused the… Read More→
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→
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→
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→
Should a Christian Be Worried about Riding a Bus Driven by a Non-Christian?
In roughly two weeks the missus and I will be returning to Turkey with students and faculty from the College. We spend a lot of time on a bus in order to go from Istanbul, down to Ephesus, out to Urfa, and back through the center of the country to Ankara and back to Istanbul… Read More→