“The Anglican position, on the other hand, by freeing the prince from this strict dependence on scripture and yet making adherence to the prince’s church compulsory, leaves the religious life of every individual in bondage to political power. Whatever they say, even whatever they wish, the puritans are driven to put the Church above the …
Proclamation and Appeal
“Fundamentally, [the apostolic kerygma] consisted of only two parts, which we may perhaps call ‘proclamation’ and ‘appeal'” (John Stott, The Preacher’s Portrait, p. 40).
Slavery and Islam
“While much has been written concerning the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, surprisingly little attention has been given to the Islamic slaver trade across the Sahara, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. While the European involvement in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to the Americas lasted for just over three centuries, the Arab involvement in the slave …
Inverted Sentimentality
“The idea that, after an event such as the Great War, an artistic celebration of the world is no longer possible is nonsense, compounded of strangely twisted romanticism and inverted sentimentality . . . But this is simply a pose: supposing an Adorno-like figure had said, ‘After the war, sexual pleasure is no longer possible,’ …
A Useful Job
“If the cross of Jesus Christ does not save drunkards, liars, thieves, cheats, and philanderers, then the ministers of the gospel should go out and get a useful job down at Wendy’s” (Mother Kirk, p. 218).
How to Hinder
“When God would hinder the work of building Babel, He came down and confounded their tongues so that they could not join together in it. Thus, when the devil would hinder the work of Jerusalem, he knew no way more likely than by dividing the hearts of those who were employed, if he could, that …
Absurdly Maligned
“Never, I believe, were men so little understood and so absurdly maligned as the Puritans” (J.C. Ryle, Light From Old Times, p. xiv).
What Would Hodge Do?
The Federal Vision controversy has had no shortage of examples of plain old doctrinal confusion, straight up the middle. A good example of that can be found here. But my point is not so much as to take issue with the characterization there of FV thought as Arminian. As I have pointed out elsewhere, this …
The Disciples
The Bible teaches us that the twelve apostles are in an important sense foundational to the Church. We are the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Himself as the cornerstone (Eph.2:20). We too often think of only the cornerstone, forgetting the rest of the foundation. “But Jesus …
The Merry Puritans
“To [Cardinal Allen], as to all the Roman writers, Protestants were the very reverse of ‘puritans’: they were ‘soft physitions’ . . . against whom he must assert a doctrine admittedly sterner and darker, ‘the behoulding whereof must neades ingender som sorowe and sadnesse of minde’ and even (such is our ‘frailetie’) ‘a certaine bitter …