In a polarized age, even ideas that used to be held in common can become flash points of distraction and disagreement. Chief among those new areas of division in our own era is the topic of justice. Justice is a theme on which the Bible has much to say, and yet friends—who love the Bible […]
(PART THREE OF A FOUR-PART SERIES) I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13) Although John only disclosed the main purpose of his first letter toward its conclusion, it informed all that he wrote. […]
Michael Horton and the WHI Team are launching an exciting new column in Modern Reformation. Our prayer is that this new feature encourages all of us as we see Christ building his church around the world, a church against which the gates of hell shall never prevail (Matt. 16:18). This new initiative invites our brother […]
I think about missions a lot. I am a pastor and a missionary, and I serve on a missions committee for a church I do not pastor. I think about it every day. I have been a Christian a lot longer: forty-six years. When I started reading the Bible back in 1973, something began to […]
Like it or not, our present lives cannot escape what is trending. Whether it is a kitten on a piano or a drone strike in Iraq, our smartphones bombard us with trends. Many of these last as long as a snowflake on a warm windshield, tickling us briefly only to melt away. One of these […]
It’s been eight years since I wrote Christless Christianity, and things don’t seem to have much improved out there. Evangelicals on the right fawn over Donald Trump as the “defender of the faith” (apparently meaning the Christian faith). After a couple generations of being gripped by the fear of man more than the fear of […]
Meditate for a moment on the climactic scene in John 18:6–11, when Jesus was arrested, betrayed by one of his intimate circle. “When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground.” Here was a man without so much as a stick in his hand, and the Roman soldiers […]
Whoever suffers from the malady of being unable to endure any injustice, must never look out of the window, but stay in his room with the door shut. He would also do well, perhaps, to throw away his mirror. —Johann Gottfried Seume1 The very term “social justice” is experienced as a phrase of legitimacy among some Left-leaning […]
Protestants and American Conservatism: A Short History by Gillis J. Harp Oxford University Press, 2019 323 pages (hardback), $34.95 Since about the time when Jerry Falwell Sr. founded the Moral Majority in 1979 (with lots of help from Republican Party operatives), confessional and evangelical Protestants have generally identified as conservative. In Christian terms, being conservative […]
The Mosaic of Atonement: An Integrated Approach to Christ’s Work by Joshua M. McNall Zondervan Academic, 2019 336 pages (paperback), $34.99 The Christian teaching that God has reconciled sinners by Christ through the Spirit has been central and pervasive in the worship, contemplation, discussions, and debates of every generation of the church age. This is […]
Created to Draw Near: Our Life as God’s Royal Priests by Edward T. Welch Crossway, 2019 224 pages (paperback), $17.99 Years ago in Philadelphia, I watched a woman stand paralyzed and in tears on the platform of the subway station. She needed to get on the train, but she was gripped by fear. As several […]
As we near our thirtieth year of publication, we have been searching for someone to take the reins of Modern Reformation. After an extensive search process, I am pleased to announce the selection of Dr. Joshua Schendel as the magazine’s new executive editor. Dr. Schendel recently received his PhD in theology from St. Louis University, […]
