Government
Exiled from the land, the Jews were exhorted by the Lord to use their days wisely. God prosecuted his case against Judah by giving the prophet Jeremiah a letter to read to the exiles (Jer. 29). Babylon was not their home, to be sure, but they were not to spend these years wringing their hands, […]
“Hope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back into Politics” by John Gastil and Katherine R. Knobloch
Hope for Democracy: How Citizens Can Bring Reason Back into Politics by John Gastil and Katherine R. Knobloch Oxford University Press, 2020 240 pages (paperback), $28.00 For several years now, a steady stream of books has raised grave concerns about the state of American democracy, the deterioration of public discourse, the role of the media, […]
“The Soul of an American President: The Untold Story of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Faith” by Alan Sears and Craig Osten with Ryan Cole
The Soul of an American President: The Untold Story of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Faith by Alan Sears and Craig Osten with Ryan Cole Baker Books, 2019 240 pages (hardcover), $22.99 As a US Army chaplain, I have incredible opportunities to engage a broad cross-section of American society with the gospel, while facing the legal restraints […]
What are the precursors to democratic decline? This is the question Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt set out to answer in this careful piece of historical scholarship and contemporary analysis. They cover approximately one hundred years in their survey of the death of democracies around the world. Their point is that democracies can be subverted […]
Has Benjamin Franklin an authentic Christian who subscribed to any orthodox confession of faith? Responding to an inquiry about his faith from his friend Ezra Stiles, Congregational minister and president of Yale College, Franklin writes, I believe in one God, Creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to […]
Dr. Lee’s gracious and penetrating response greatly contributes to this discussion, and I’m grateful for the time he’s devoted to deciphering my view (which, I admit, is unique in its approach and a bit confusing in its language). I’m also grateful to Modern Reformation for granting me the space to respond. Since Dr. Lee devotes […]
What I like most about Stephen Wolfe’s proposal above is that it comes in sheep’s clothing. Seriously. Allow me to say how grateful I am to be having this conversation and to be reading fresh, new, and creative engagement on a well-worn topic. This is saying a lot when you address a debate where the […]
Debates between neo-Calvinists and Reformed two-kingdom advocates have revealed a seemingly irreconcilable divide on the Christian’s relationship to culture and politics. Many neo-Calvinists see the gospel as inaugurating a social and political project, one that was recovered alongside the truths of soteriology at the Reformation. Nicholas Wolterstorff, a neo-Calvinist philosopher, has argued that “the responsibility […]
Few issues have generated more heated debate in modern Reformed circles than the discussions currently taking place about two-kingdom theology. Books have been written disparaging learned theologians and pastors for taking the wrong position. Presbytery exams that take up the issue threaten to devolve into shouting matches among elders in the church. Facebook comments on […]
Max Weber, a nineteenth-century German sociologist of genius, put forward a theory that still remains influential, particularly among those who are not historians. In a classic work first published in 1904, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,1 he suggested that there was a causal link between these two phenomena, more particularly between Calvinist Protestantism […]
When you hear the phrase “Christian society,” your mind likely turns to Christendom. In his book The Religious Crisis of the 1960s (Oxford University Press, 2007), historian Hugh McLeod described Christendom as a place where Christian leaders have close ties to civil authorities, where laws originate from Christian convictions, everyone is assumed to be a […]
From Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the "earth" as it was then known, the gospel went forth in the early decades and centuries of the new millennium, and daily many were added to the community of saints. From the perspective of the Roman Empire, Christianity went from a persecuted movement on the fringe of […]
Recovering the Message of Scripture In this special section of our "Rightly Dividing the Word" issue, nine pastor-theologians help shed light on some popular texts of Scripture that tend to lose their true redemptive-historical significance in a culture of interpretive narcissism. It is common to hear Christians claim that America is a "Christian nation." Because […]
Epilogue The Calvinist view of liberty, wherever it spread, gave citizens confidence and protections. Within a century, the American colonies would exhibit these Calvinistic distinctives. Not incidentally, one of the first colonial law codes was named “The Massachusetts Body of Liberties.” So close were law and liberty that Calvin’s disciples customarily associated law codes with […]
In the context of the clash of European empires for the American colonies, Presbyterian preacher Samuel Davies (1723-61) turned the colonists’ attention to Christ’s kingdom as “the best refuge from this boisterous world” of violence and domination.1 “My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus said, as much as to say, “I do not deny […]
