If someone had asked me a decade ago about the sufficiency of Scripture, I would have given a zealous defense of the historic Reformed position. I will do the same today; I still affirm the historic Reformed view without any variation from its expression in the Westminster Confession's first chapter: The whole counsel of God […]
In the churches of the Protestant Reformation, the Apostles' or Nicene Creed is recited regularly, including the line, "I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church." Catholic means universal, and it refers to those truths that are, as St. Paul identified them, to be held "without controversy" (1 Tim. 3:16, KJV). It also refers […]
The decade of the 1990s was not the best of times for Evangelicalism in the United States. To be sure, evangelicals continue to be a force in national politics, and they have received favorable treatment in the press, such as Alan Wolfe's positive coverage of evangelical academics in the Atlantic Monthly (October 2000). But Evangelicalism […]
In the past ten years, I have become a husband and a father and that has changed my thinking in many ways, but perhaps even more pertinent for theology is the recent opportunity I had to write a commentary on the book of Obadiah for the Anchor Bible series. Obadiah is the Rodney Dangerfield of […]
Almost thirty years ago, I got involved in the charismatic movement. And that involvement has continued to influence my thinking over the last decade. In 1971, I visited the prayer and praise gathering of a charismatic community in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was impressed, to say the least. Why, I asked, would a mixture of […]
Ever since becoming a Christian in high school, the role of the local congregation has been important to me. I remember spending some (ok, many) hours the first summer I was a Christian in my church's library, compiling statistics about the growing membership of our church and tabulating that in comparison with our shrinking attendance. […]
Since arriving at Concordia Seminary my interest has been to use the heritage of our confessional writings as resources for the Church's life today. To that end, I have sought to uncover their presuppositions, theological priorities, and patterns of thought in order to guide how we think theologically about issues today that were not dealt […]
Dr. Ann Douglas is Professor of American Studies at Columbia University and author of The Feminization of American Culture and Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s. She has argued that the demise of Calvinism led to a sentimentalism in religion, which has had a long-term impact upon American culture. It is one of the […]
"Throw an egg from a Pullman," newspaper columnist and social critic H. L. Mencken famously noted in the 1920s, "and you're bound to hit a fundamentalist." Were David Brooks to update Mencken's observation for today, it might go something like "Toss a double mocha latte from an SUV, and you're bound to hit a Bobo." […]
Paul's comments on the Mosaic law have generated controversy from his day to ours. In Paul's time, two questions were prominent: (1) Did Paul's claim that "We have now been discharged from the law" (Rom. 7:6) imply that "We should continue in sin" (Rom. 6:1)? (2) Since the law in this case is the Jewish […]
Biblical preaching has always driven Church reform. To be sure, programs and personalities have had their place; yet it has been expository, doctrinal, evangelistic preaching that has given Reformation longevity and depth. Though almost always under fire, expository preaching remains a foundation stone in godly parishes. Edited by R. Kent Hughes, Crossway Books’s “Preaching the […]
Posted July 30, 2008 Dr. John MacArthur is a well-known pastor, author, and speaker who has donemuch good for the cause of Christ in our generation. Therefore, we weresurprised when, on two occasions known to us, he publicly criticized anarticle in Modern Reformation (January/February 2002) by distinguished theologianand PCA minister T. David Gordon, titled, "The […]
