We launch Modern Reformation in 2013 by posing a provocative question, especially for a magazine with a name like ours! Is the Protestant Reformation over? We certainly don't think so, but it is crucial to take stock from time to time in order to discern whether it is still necessary to keep up a genuinely […]
Mark Noll is the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame and author of multiple books, including The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans, 1995) and Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism (Baker Academic, 2008) with Carolyn Nystrom, which is the subject of this interview. […]
In cooperation with the Gospel Coalition, Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City has recently produced the New City Catechism. Their motivation is commendable. Back in 1996, we at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals sponsored a meeting of church leaders from different denominations to draft a statement called “The Cambridge Declaration.” Similar in motive (though […]
God announced that Eve could not take the ax in her hands, but her son would. What hope this would have given those first parents. Their son would win the victory for them over the Enemy. Adam's faith and hope in this promise of God comes out as he names his wife Eve, the mother […]
Label them "Rambo Catholics." Call them "ecclesiastical bullies." Claim they're "hard-nosed." But if you're brave enough to assert they're going unnoticed, do so at your own risk. They know better. Conservative in all things theological (and social and political), this new league of outspoken Roman Catholics won't be ignored. They're well versed in the church's […]
In my experience with those who wrestle with conversion to Roman Catholicism—at least those who have professed faith in the gospel—the driving theological issue is authority. How can I be certain that what I believe is true? The gospel of free grace through the justification of sinners in Christ alone moves to the backseat. Instead […]
circa 180 Irenaeus pens Against Heresies and describes Rome as a faithful preserver of apostolic doctrine, but there is no mention of papal primacy: "For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church on account of its preeminent authority… inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by […]
For vast numbers of people, Roman Catholicism is the religion of choice. Rome can be attractive for a wide variety of reasons. The most significant is familial, people born into and persevering in the Roman Church. But other attractions of various sorts can be readily found: theological, philosophical, liturgical, moral, psychological, and historical. Defenders of […]
Many of us were raised to believe that we had all the answers (whatever they were) and that Roman Catholicism believes in Mary and the pope rather than in Jesus and the Bible, in salvation by works rather than grace. And yet, as the surveys demonstrate, we didn’t really know what we believed or why […]
This is a massively important and timely book. We face an unexpected foe today that, unless reversed, will harm the evangelical gospel witness, perhaps even destroy that witness within the next generation or two. Admittedly, in pop culture, mass media, and the mainstream academy, the Bible (and therefore the gospel) seems to have lost all […]
The sight of heretics running rampant has always distressed the orthodox. Historically they’ve taken some extreme measures to restore their equanimity: wars of religion, the Spanish Inquisition, burnings at stakes, things like that. In America, so the story goes, with the advent of modernity, democracy, and the First Amendment, it was determined that religion was […]
Secularism, pluralism, individualism, freedom, rights, toleration’whatever. In his book, The Unintended Reformation, Notre Dame professor of history Brad Gregory provides a provocative examination of the moral decline of modern society. Troubled by the pluralism and secularism surrounding him, he argues that the Reformation produced a profound shift in attitudes toward truth and ethics. Starting with […]
How Must we be Saved? Decrees of Trent(Chapter V)The Synod furthermore declares, that in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, […]
Plenary Indulgence for the Year of FaithOctober 2012’November 2013 According to a decree made public October 5, 2012, and signed by Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro and Bishop Krzysztof Nykiel, respectively penitentiary major and regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Benedict XVI will grant faithful Plenary Indulgence for the occasion of the Year of Faith. "The […]
