Orthodoxy has fallen out of favor among evangelicals. Among a growing number of younger evangelicals, the fight for orthodoxy is seen as a power play that attempts to overthrow community and diversity with certainty and authoritarianism. Among those of a different generation and ethos, orthodoxy is seen as a sort of supernatural baking powder that […]
There is a book of the Bible from which ministers seldom preach. Though I have lived nearly sixty years, been a minister for thirty-five and married for almost forty, I am one of those who have avoided speaking on this book-the Song of Solomon. Then one day I chose to use it for a wedding […]
Everywhere we turn today, "faith" has become an attitude in search of an object: you've got to believe in something. We hear a lot about "faith com-munities" as a genus of which particular religions are regarded as species; "faith perspectives," even "faith-based" political initiatives. Prince Charles has intimated that upon his succession to Britain's throne […]
Who defines the content of "orthodoxy"? Every society has a constitution and the canon of the covenant of grace by which our Ascended King reigns is his Word, Holy Scripture. While the church needs its courts to interpret this constitution, it is always the fallible interpreter and never the infallible source. Only when the church […]
"Orthodoxy" now has a fairly clear definition. The church's historic creeds and confessions have continued to affirm the basic realities of the Apostles' Creed and Nicene Creed, and the respective communions have refined their own distinctives. The boundaries of orthodoxy, whether generically considered or considered within the church's respective branches, are fairly well established. We […]
R. C. Sproul tells of the story of his letter to the best selling author of Lords of Discipline commending him on his style. The trend setting novelist replied from his flat in Rome informing Sproul that he had been the first Christian to compliment him on the novel. Raised in a fundamentalist home, this […]
If you know someone heading out of seminary or a graduate school of theology eager to apply that confessional missionary zeal of their denominational fathers to a calling parish, then it's likely they will be in for a rude awakening rather than a great one. Increasingly throughout Reformation orthodoxy, greenhorn pastors like myself-as well as […]
Among the most daunting challenges I have faced as a college professor has been the task of convincing my students that the study of history is an intrinsically worthwhile project. Perhaps accounting and engineering majors have always been a hard-sell in this regard, but the pervasive antihistorical spirit of our contemporary culture makes many students […]
"We are praying for you." This was said to me by a Russian pastor to whom I had just secretly delivered Bibles in a city called Leningrad in what was the Soviet Union, locked behind an "Iron Curtain." We had spent the morning drinking coffee in the basement of his church, discussing the oppressive political […]
I am a Southerner. Lost causes don't bother me. We are used to them. And ours is not even lost-at least, not in the long run. In the short run, I am not very optimistic for our society or for the church. We as a society are trying to maintain our democracy while dismantling its […]
William H. Willimon, a bishop in the United Methodist Church, is a theologian and preacher, the former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, and the author of over fifty books. White Horse Inn producer Shane Rosenthal conducted this interview with Bishop Willimon for a White Horse Inn video documentary on American Christianity to be […]
John Muether has written a noteworthy biography of the life and ministry of Cornelius Van Til, setting the theological contributions of Van Til in the historical context in which they were developed and defended. It is on this account that Muether's Cornelius Van Til: Re-formed Apologist and Churchman stands out as a unique contribution to […]
Of making many books on living the "spiritual life" there is no end (to paraphrase Ecclesiastes 12:12), and so one more is not surprising. The twist, however, is that this is a book on Benedictine spirituality written by a Presbyterian pastor and professor of theology. What is also surprising is that this book sold out […]
"Worship does God's story," writes Robert Webber. Those four words are the rubric for the entire book published as the final volume of the Ancient-Future series. [Editorial note: Robert Webber died April 27, 2007, at age 73 from pancreatic cancer.] Written on the popular level, Webber argues for a return to the ancient paradigm for […]
In D. A. Carson's Christ & Culture Revisited, the author seeks to bring some biblical-theological insights to bear upon H. Richard Niebuhr's famous work, Christ and Culture. Carson begins with a reminder of Niebuhr's fivefold typology for discerning the relationship of Christ to culture (chapter 1), and then moves on to provide what he calls […]
