British theologian John Webster has noted, "To confess is not to reflect, even to reflect theologically; it is to herald the gospel…. To confess is to testify-and to testify with a bit of noise." It would be surprising if such noisy testifying did not at times lead to unrest and even division within the churches […]
1. We affirm that Evangelicals and Roman Catholics commonly confess the faith of the ecumenical creeds. We deny that this catholic consensus is sufficient for recognizing the Roman church as a true visible expression of Christ's body. 2. We affirm that the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone […]
In North America today we have many confessionally Reformed denominations: for example, Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Free Reformed Churches, Korean-American Presbyterian Church, Netherlands Reformed Churches, Orthodox Christian Reformed Churches, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian Church in America, Protestant Reformed Churches, Reformed Church of the United States, Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, United Reformed Churches. Each […]
I was struck by an editorial in the Frankfurt (Germany) newspaper, which observed that the election of Cardinal Ratzinger to be the new pope was not a threat to Germany, a country that voted for the Reformation, even though Benedict XVI represents "the Counter-Reformation in person." First, I enjoyed the admission from a secular European […]
Christianity in America has undergone a remarkable number of changes since the end of World War II. At the opening of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942, for instance, Harold John Ockenga, pastor of Park Street Congregationalist Church in Boston, declared that Roman Catholicism was as much a threat to American society as communism […]
As Darryl Hart points out in his article, "Does Protestantism Have What Evangelicals are Looking For?", American attitudes toward Roman Catholics have changed dramatically in the past half-century. Whereas before 1950 it would have been unlikely for Protestants and Catholics to socialize together, much less intermarry, faithful Christians today are confused about what is appropriate […]
Protestant opinions of the papacy have taken many forms throughout the ages, ranging from confessional anathemas to the modern proponents of "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" (ECT). One of the reasons for the wide variety of views is often a lack of awareness of how the papacy has acquired its current form. At the commencement of […]
