Contents
An Interesting Question
My husband has led us into a congregation that is Arminian with a baptismal regeneration theology, very weak leadership, and works righteousness abounding.
Is it wrong for me to spend free time educating my children to the contrary? Teaching them the catechisms and the scriptures and encouraging them with a reformed theology at home? He doesn’t seem to notice or care when I do so, as he doesn’t seem to really understand the difference in our church’s theology and what I’m teaching the children. There’s a spiritual apathy there that I pray for constantly, but is it wrong to, perhaps clandestinely, make sure our children are taught the truth in contrast to the things being taught at our church?Momma Q
MQ, no, that is fine, provided he really doesn’t mind. But if you are kidding yourself about what he cares about, then your approach would have to be different. And also make sure that no disrespect for dad seeps into the lesson,
Shoring Up One’s Political Theology

I am a young pastor, and Charlie Kirk’s assassination has affected me greatly. One particular way is that I want to get my political theology buttoned up. I have and read your Mere Christendom. What else would you suggest for a Conservatism reading list?
ThanksChaz
Chaz, here would be a handful of books to start off with. Slaying Leviathan by Sunshine, Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos by Junias Brutus, The Conservative Mind by Kirk, and The Virtue of Nationalism by Hazony. That will get you into enough trouble to go on with.
Child Communion
Thank you for everything you do. I wanted to ask for your thoughts on our children partaking in communion. I read an article of yours from 2024 where you say “And perhaps I will even have written in such a way as to make even the strictest advocate of credo-communion turn away from this prospect with some regret, thinking ‘wouldn’t it be wonderful if this were true?’” You certainly accomplished this with the me, though I don’t consider myself the strictest advocate of credo communion. I would absolutely love for my children and all the children in our church to participate in the Lord’s Supper. I have a mental block about 1 Corinthians 11:27-32, though. How will my infant children examine themselves? And that’s even assuming they have honestly believed in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. How did you think through this with your children? And even if I conceded the point about infants and Jesus wanting them to come to Him, where do you draw the line? At a certain age they must refrain if they are either not believers or examine themselves and discern that they aren’t taking it in a worthy manner, right? Or am I misinterpreting the protocol in 1 Corinthians 11?
Thank you,Justin
Justin, first no, they wouldn’t withdraw themselves if a pattern of unbelief or continued disobedience began to manifest. The family doesn’t hold the keys, and neither does the individual. The elders do. If a communing child becomes rebellious, the family should seek pastoral help, and the child could be suspended from the Supper by the pastor or elders, or perhaps even excommunicated. As for examining yourself, if adults should be doing this, then children should be learning how to do this. The kids are squabbling in the back seat on the way to church. Dad says, “children, we are going to worship. Your are going to be taking the Lord’s Supper with your sister, and what you are doing now is not consistent with that. We are all the Lord’s body.” Why can’t a child understand that he shouldn’t be fussing because Jesus died and rose? It is not complicated.
The OT Tithe
I’m writing to contribute a question to the ongoing tithing conversation:
1) The majority of commentators I am reading agree the OT required two, or even three separate tithes, amounting to 20-23.3%.
2) Rushdoony is the only major commentator I can find who believes Christians remain obligated to all three.
3) Why should Christians be obligated to pay 10% but not the whole 20-23.3%? The only explanation I can find is that while the first tithe continues to support gospel ministry, the extras are done away with in the abolishment of the ceremonial law.
This doesn’t seem satisfactory to me. Is there a better argument I’m missing?Douglas
Douglas, I agree that we should not dispense with any tithe arbitrarily. The thing to look at would be outside the Mosaic economy—what did Abraham give to Melchizedek? The other thing that occurs to me is the practical side of things. If all Christians were tithing at 10%, we would have more than sufficient funds for all three lawful recipients of the tithes—the poor tithe, the party tithe, and the support for ministers tithe.
John Knox Still Had Game
I hope you’re doing well. I recently learned that John Knox, of Scottish Presbyterian fame, married his second wife, Margaret Knox, when she was 17, and he was 54. Now, I’m not one of those people who likes to paint our Christian forefathers in a terrible light just because, nor do I want to cause or stir up controversy about them unnecessarily after they died. I also recognize that 17 was marriageable age at the time, and I assume Margaret was trained since childhood to prepare for getting married at/around that age. I also reject the notion that people got married young because they died young (some say most adults before modern medicine died in their 30s-40s, which is absurd—that has been thoroughly disproven). In other words, I’m not interested in controversy for controversy’s sake.
That being said, I know that is still quite the age gap, and it still wasn’t extremely common for that to happen. They did not live in the era of prenups and older gents having one last romp before they go with a “hot young bimbette,” which I am assuming Margaret was not (a bimbette, that is). I know that you are a fan of Knox, and I am curious as to your thoughts on this?ON
ON, I do think it was somewhat odd, but not outlandish the way William Farel’s marriage to a seventeen-year-old was. He was 69 at the time, and his colleague Calvin was pretty distraught over it. But Knox does not appear to have been in that category. He was married twice. Calvin described his first wife Marjory as “very sweet,” and Knox thought of her as his “most dear sister.” She gave him two sons, both of whom died without issue. After she died, Knox married Margaret Stuart, the young woman you mention. More may have been going on than just age in that she was related the royal house, the daughter of Lord Ochiltree—a man who had been faithful to Knox through a lot of rough weather. But both of Knox’s marriages appear to have been happy ones, and Margaret gave him three daughters, all of whom married doughty Reformed preachers.
A Republic, Not a Democracy
Thank you for your bold, loving proclamations of Biblical Truth. I wish more pastors were like you.
I recently saw your interview on The Young Turks and I applaud your courage to step into that fiery furnace. I thought you did an excellent job, but I do have one important critique: You seemed to concede the argument that we (the US) are a democracy. This is not true, and it would be helpful to correct that at every opportunity. We are a Christian Constitutional REPUBLIC and our Constitution guarantees a republican form of government for every State in the US.
Our Founding Fathers could have given us a democracy. They were very much aware of what democracy is (and isn’t) but they knew that this was not a good idea. Instead, they recognized the importance of the consent of the governed as being necessary for legitimate governance and gave us the House of Representatives to provide democratic features alongside the monarchical and oligarchical features with the Executive Branch and Senate, respectively. All of this was to be governed under Natural (God’s) Law for our welfare, tranquility, prosperity, liberty, and, ultimately , God’s glory.
John Adams echoed the sentiments of many other Founders, as evidenced by the following quote:
Again, I thank you for all of your efforts. Keep fighting for God’s Kingdom and for revival here and throughout the world. May God richly bless you and all your efforts.
In Christ,Adam
Adam, all your points are well-taken, and I agree this is what we are supposed to be on paper, and we are all laboring to get back to. I would only say that you can’t say everything all at once
The Christian Post
Hey, Christian Post had an article about Mr Wilson and, to be frank, it seemed fairly hostile. That said, I do not mention it because it was rude; I mention it because of the content therein, specifically where it referenced “Fidelity” where Doug said that sexual intercourse is not egalitarian pleasuring and then describes the male part of sex as ‘colonizing’ and ‘conquering’ (those were not the only descriptors—but they’re the ones people will pay attention to). I think that I get what he was saying, but I’d like an explanation of what Mr Wilson meant by it straight from him. Thanks!Aidan
Aidan, you’re in luck. Tomorrow’s blog post is going to all about this resurfaced slander, and it is already pretty festive.
Eternal Economic Subordination
It was told to me by a someone in a higher Christian ed role that you’ve employed ESS (eternal submission of the son) to scripturally justify your patriarchal position regarding marriage. I replied that I’ve read multiple books on marriage and family by you (which improved my marriage and my family) and could not recall where you had said that. I recall just simple appeals to NT commands on marriage, Christ and the Church, and in those cases you dig in to the language around “Lord,” “rule,” “obey,” “ submissive” and “gave himself up for” etc etc . . . but Christ and the Father?
This person then replied, “Well, it’s a heresy anyway”
Then I figured maybe its possible and my memory was just poor or it was from a long ago blog post. Where are you at on ESS?
Don’t know how you cope with all the slander, He’s clearly given you an extra measure of grace for it.
Thanks,Jordan
Jordan, I don’t hold to ESS, but I would also say that there are some wooden objections to it that don’t hold up under scrutiny either. A thorough discussion of what I believe can be found in the book below—and an e-copy is in my Mablog shop here for just a dollar. That statement was affirmed by Knox Presbytery (CREC), and it is robustly orthodox.

Concise and to the Point
Over the years I have had occasion to assemble various statements or declarations, or theses. What I have tried to do with these is simply outline the boundaries of a position, defining that position. These statements were not necessarily intended to be a full-bore defense of whatever the position was, but rather simply an articulation of it. There is necessarily some argumentation involved in…
$1.00
Translations and Then Darwinism
I have two questions: why do you recommend only the KJV or NKJV,
and what books do you recommend for believers who have incorporated some version of Darwinism into their belief system ?Gini
Gini, I prefer the KJV because I believe the manuscript tradition underneath it is the most reliable, because I prefer the translation philosophy that governing their translating (e.g. formal equivalence instead of dynamic equivalence), and because it is in the public domain. It is also essential for those who want to be educated in the literature of the English-speaking West. As for Darwinism, I would start with Darwin’s Black Box.
Hold Your Horses
Will Frequently Shouted Questions about Christian Nationalism be released for Kindle? If so, when? Thank you.Eubulus
Eubulus, the answer is yes, it will be. And it should be any day now,
Revival Clean Up
Regarding Revivals . . . and the ‘What Needs to be Hauled Off’ part: Was your intent to describe what needs to be done in order for revival to occur or was it to describe what revival will look like if it does occur?John
John, I was talking about what it looks like as it is happening. Of course, there could be some of that that could be regarded as preparatory,
Revival?
I love the perspective of looking back 12 months to the madness of just last year. One can’t help but reflect on the potential glory of just 12 months from now . . . all the Lord’s doing. Revival? I pray so.
By the way, shortly after Kirk’s assassination, I began to notice a number of parallels between his death and that of M.L. King’s. Not everything is parallel, of course—King was unfaithful to his wife in gross and disturbing ways, for example. But both men were sniped during the course of speaking about that which they believed. Both murders were equally heinous and horrible.
King got a holiday and a bunch of streets named after him. But America got a bunch of tyranny.
While I’d like to see Kirk get a permanent holiday and a street running through every college campus named after him, I’m infinitely more interested to see America get a Reformation.Andy
Andy, exactly so.
I am in complete agreement with you that the Charlie Kirk memorial is the most remarkable thing to happen in American history in . . . well certainly in a really long time. I agree it’s not revival itself, but it sure looks like it’s a major catalyst that God is using for revival.
There were a few things I think were especially noticeable:
The remarkable variety of denominations presenting a unified gospel showed me just how little God thinks of our denominational squabbles. The different denominations are meant to be iron sharpening iron, and different parts of his body serving different purposes.
The worship was . . . absolutely divine. Regardless of what one might think of for worship within a church, for a worship event in a stadium it was perfect. But speaking of . . . what did you think of it? Did the powerful presence of the Spirit in that worship revise your opinions regarding either instrumentation or writing?
Thanks,Ian
Ian, I did not object to what little I saw of the worship music, but I didn’t see very much of it. The version of the service we watched was simply all the speeches.
Reformation History
Despite being (somewhat reluctantly) Roman Catholic, I have a great fondness for the Reformers and the Reformation. I believe there’s plenty of blame to go around about the 16th century split, and I don’t accept either group’s triumphalist claims. They’re mostly garbage.
When I saw a 31-day journey through the Reformation, I signed up. It might fill in a detail or two I have forgotten about the Reformation, and it might be a fun daily read.
The very first entry is (appropriately) about John Wycliffe. It includes this whopper.
“According to Roman Catholic law, translating the Bible into a vulgar, common language was a heresy punishable by death.”
This is such a horrendous misrepresentation that it easily fits into this other word: Lie.
There was no such law. Parts of the Bible had been translated into English before Wycliffe. The issue wasn’t the translation, it was Wycliffe’s theology, and it saddens me that someone claiming to be a scholar would say such a thing in 2025.
Shame on you, Desiring God and Stephen Nichols. Do better.Greg
Greg, surely you aren’t maintaining that there were no legal restrictions on the simple act of translating the Bible?
An Autobiography?
I was wondering if you ever considered writing an autobiography of your life? You have obviously learned quite a lot over the years and in the Lord’s providence played a formidable role in many institutions and circles, and so (especially given that you are a prolific and interesting writer) I thought that might be something worth writing for the benefit of the reading public. Just a thought. Sincerely grateful for your ministry (even though I don’t agree with everything ha ha!).John
John, yes, actually I have thought about it. I have written bits and pieces which have been posted here with the tag Autobiographical Fragments. I have thought of editing those, and writing more to fill in the gaps. But there is a band width issue. The only thing I have settled on is the title—But Enough About Me.
Thanking God for All Things
I’ve gone through your post from last month “Trusting God in a Hard Providence” a few times, and I saw your reply to GH in the letters a few weeks ago, but I still don’t get how we’re supposed to thank God for our sin. “Thank you for my lying, lusting, gossiping, losing my temper, coveting, and knocking off Grandma for the insurance money” just seems too weird to me. Is that included in the sample prayer you gave near the end of the post or how would you reword that sample prayer when the hard providence is a besetting sin?
(And just for the record, I may or may not have committed some of the sins in my list, but I was not named as a beneficiary on Grandma’s insurance policy.)Gloria
Gloria, obviously it is psychologically impossible to thank God for the sin while you are committing it, or even while you are repenting of it. But when you are looking over your life, and thanking God, you are thanking Him for the whole story. Think of Joseph’s comment to his brothers—you meant it for evil, but God used it for good. Shouldn’t they have agreed with Joseph about that? A single mom can repent of her fornication, but still have a child who is dear to her—and thank God for drawing straight with crooked lines.
Bible Escapism
I have had a tendency in many seasons to read my bible to escape from the problems in my life rather than to become equipped through my time with God and His Word to engage and attack the problems in my life. I need to force myself to reframe it as courageous refueling rather than cowardly escaping. Do you have any practical advice for making this my default state rather than something that I constantly struggle to do?
Thanks,Chase
Chase, first keep in mind that it is possible you are being too hard on yourself. But if you have noticed that you do this, I would suggest writing out a prayer that addresses the temptation clearly and straight up the middle. Print the prayer out, and use it as a book marker in your Bible. Laminate it, and pray that prayer every time you read.
A Church Dilemma
I belong to a WELS Lutheran church, a conservative Lutheran denomination, holding to sola Scriptura, 6-day creation, etc. I’ve been at this particular church for over 8 years from high school on up. I have many great relationships, and my siblings and parents go here too. However, after finding you and other Reformed folks, I’ve found myself more persuaded by Reformed theology, but it’s not as though I’m coming from a Arminian Baptist background.
I have no desire to leave my church, but our denomination has strict fellowship rules on doctrine. There are very few Presbyterian churches near me (PCA/OPC), and no CREC churches anywhere near here.
How should I evaluate whether I should exit or not? I’m aware that PCA/OPC churches aren’t perfect either. If I do feel I need to leave, how can I do so peaceably? I am a single young man as well, so there are finding a wife aspect to this as well. Any advice would be beneficial. Thanks.Jeff
Jeff, I guess the question would be “what would the pastor say if he knew of your doctrinal shifts?” If he were to say that you have to go, then I think you would need to. I would try the OPC and the PCA.
Early African Christianity
I wonder if you are familiar with Thomas Oden’s work on the church’s progress/development in Africa before Augustine. While it is a thin and particular slice, a couple of his lectures on the church in ancient Libya are/were on YouTube. The book to read first makes the case and then lays out a preliminary research aspiration for investigating the African church before Augustine and before Islam. I’m a geek, but it is rousing. Oddly, I have not found familiarity with it among folks who underline that Christianity is not a white man’s religion. If you’re not familiar, here’s a link.Ben
Ben, I appreciate Oden’s work, but was not familiar with that part of it. Thank you.
Psalms: the Savage Parts
Thank you for your labors for the church. I have a question regarding liturgy. I am responsible for assembling the bulletins for our church, and it is our practice to do the Psalm reading responsively. Well, this week is Psalm 137, and when I realized that the entire congregation would be calling for a blessing on those who dash children against the rock, I said to myself, “You can’t do that.” Of course after thinking of censoring the Bible I realized I couldn’t do that.
Are there any instances that you would omit text from a responsive reading? And if this is a meant by the Lord to teach us, what do you think He intends for us to gain by this passage?Matthew
Matthew, we have a part of the liturgy where we have a responsive reading from the Psalms also. We abridge them for time considerations, but not to keep out the gnarly bits. We sing the psalms as well, and we do sing that passage. “How happy he who shall, devoid of pity/Dash on the rocks the children of your city.” The ancients had a more realistic understanding than we do of what warfare entailed. We tend to pray things like “please protect our boys in uniform,” and we then consider it good manners to avert the gaze.
To apply it in an edifying way in a new covenant sense, remember what Jesus taught: “And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder” (Luke 20:17–18). To fall on the rock is to be broken in conversion. To have it fall on you is to fall under judgment.
But to finish the discussion, always remember the old Scots version—”Oh, blessed shall the trooper be/comes riding on his naggie/who takes your wee bairns by the taes/and dings them on the craggie.”
To apply it in an edifying way in a new covenant sense, remember what Jesus taught: “And he beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder” (Luke 20:17–18). To fall on the rock is to be broken in conversion. To have it fall on you is to fall under judgment.
But to finish the discussion, always remember the old Scots version—”Oh, blessed shall the trooper be/comes riding on his naggie/who takes your wee bairns by the taes/and dings them on the craggie.”
Thanks for Visiting
This is not in response to a particular post, but I wanted to share that my family and I had the opportunity to visit and worship at the Christ Church plant in Washington DC two weekends ago during a short family vacation in the city. We had our three young children with us and weren’t quite sure what to expect, but we felt very welcomed by the kindness of the congregation toward us (sharing bulletins, introducing themselves) and the thoughtfulness of how the worship space was arranged to accommodate wiggly little ones without excluding them (and their mothers who are watching over them). It is one thing to observe the Moscow Mood approvingly from afar, but a much better thing to experience its warmth in person. I pray that the congregation continues to grow and bless the city through faithful worship, community, and evangelism.
P.S.—The red-robed protestors were a wonderful addition to the experience. It makes it very easy to tell you’re headed to the right place from a distance.Cody
Cody, thank you for visiting, and glad it was edifying and helpful.


Doug, I understand that in UK the KJV copyright is claimed by the Crown. Don’t know if it is valid, but worth mentioning. John, read Doug’s father’s autobiography, Grace Upon Grace.
The Son of God, teaching his disciples: 23 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When His disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?”26 But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things… Read more »
By the very fact that you own a device that could leave this comment and had the leisure time to do so, you are indescribably rich compared to a good chunk of the global population. I assume you aren’t giving away everything you own as a consequence. You are likely muddling through how to apply Christ’s teaching, which is all these questions and answers are doing too. Comparison to the Pharisees and vague drum-circle intonations that we should have “pause for thought” are unhelpful. The thinking is happening, in the questions and answers and discussion you are deriding. Just totally… Read more »
You interact with a straw man, rather than with what I wrote. I didn’t say that Jesus’ instruction to the rich man was universal. However, Jesus did still make a statement about rich people in general, which we still need to grapple with, and you haven’t added anything to the discussion there. I’m quite aware that I’m one of them.
I don’t mean to come on quite as strong as Yorba, but I can’t help but wonder what exactly was your point? “Why did nobody at this point clarify that actually the main thing needing to be resolved was whether we’re talking about 10% or 23.3% of income or something in between?” Because the topic of conversation is 0% about wealth and giving and 100% about the insufficiency of man in earning their own salvation. None of that has anything to do with the topic at hand, which is settling on a reasonable day to day livable policy. ” The main… Read more »
Concerning Old Testament rules about tithing, we are not parties to the Old Covenant, and therefore teaching within its positive laws about the precise percentage to be given for the upkeep of God’s house and the priesthood are of only very limited help to us in deciding what to give. Making those laws into universal prescriptions for the total percentage of your income you give is a recipe for fog and confusion. Concerning the area in general my overall perspective aligns generally with Randy Alcorn’s and I’d recommend his books to someone asking about such issues. As concerns my particular… Read more »
If I have any issue with tithing for NT believers, it is putting them back under the Law. To me this negates a whole chunk of very important New Testament teaching.
Ken, right on.
It could reasonably be suspected that the reason these teachers try so desperately to pull tithing into the New Covenant is simply that they need the flow of money to fund the formal institutions they’re trying to build and to ensure their own ongoing paychecks.
Maybe a bit on the cynical side, but when one sees that—aside from moral law—tithing is their main import from the O.T., it raises these questions of motivation.
Yes but also Paul says he would have been justified in requiring money from them to pay his expenses
I agree that looking at the precise regulations for the upkeep of the institutions of the Old Covenant theocracy to deliver us answers to questions about what percentage of our income to give to different needs, makes no real sense and is not a recipe for useful discussion. Yes, some mention might be made of what they gave, but it’s not going to take us far at all.
Jordan, Douglas Wilson says that he rejects the label “eternal subordination of the Son” to describe his views; nevertheless, at the same time, he does in fact affirm the teaching that is meant by that label. For example, here is his review of James Dolezal’s “All That Is In God” – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2382884346 – “I also want to note that his discussion of the authority of the Father ad intra (pp. 132-134) is, in my view, inadequate. Authority and submission within the Godhead is no more incongruous than a Father and Son within the Godhead, provided it is articulated in the… Read more »
Follow-up KJV question (from a different Jake): What *version* of the KJV do you recommend? I recently thought of the verse, “Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard?…” (Isaiah 40:21) and was surprised to find that my two copies of the KJV have “have” rather than “hast.” Whateth NKJV villainy art this?! (As an aside, I don’t even know where I got “hast” in my head for that verse from!) I was thinking I had just remembered wrong, but if you google “hast thou not heard” you do find KJV references to it. In fact, at this moment I’ve… Read more »
Are you sure that Isaiah 40:21 itself actually is different in various KJV editions? Compare verses 21 and 28. It looks like verse 21 is plural (“have YE”) and verse 28 is singular (“hast THOU”), making the verb form different.
Oh my goodness. Thank you, John! That’s got to be the main issue, especially with my report of the Bible Gateway web pages referencing the same version but having different words: it appears (based on what links I show that I’ve clicked) that that’s exactly what happened. One was definitely 40:21, since that was what I searched for, whereas the one with “hast” does indeed appear to have been 40:28 the whole time. I just missed that entirely. (I haven’t verified in my physical copies at home, but I can clearly see both in the online versions, so that’s almost… Read more »
Greg, I’m afraid you’re wrong there. In Wycliffe and later in Tyndale’s day, translating your own version of the bible could cost you your life–for a very good reason: peasants, uneducated folk, or impressionable students or clerics might be taken in by your own, personal rendition of The Word of God. This would’ve been particularly grievous for wider society (as well as yourself) were you to spout newfangled and dangerous ideas through your re-working of sacred scripture (think the JW translation of John 1:1). I believe the Catholic Church of the day was right to discourage virtuoso translations of the… Read more »
Catholic church: We gave you the Bible, but we have to ban it to protect you and if you’re caught with one, then we’ll kill you.
You don’t need independent verification of our claims. You can trust us. We’re infallible. Because we said so. In Latin. Now excuse us while we go bless this block of ice.
And you Catholics sit there, scratching your heads, wondering why the Reformation happened.
An acquaintance of mine who has gone to Spain to do evangelism and building up a church related that in Franco’s time the Catholic Church forbade by law anyone getting together and simply studying the bible for themselves. It had to be done under the auspices of thr Church.
Things have changed in the meantime, but that is not all that long ago.
Sounds like right-wing anti-democratic Christian nationalism has some potential downsides, who could possibly have guessed?
Btw, what has “changed in the meantime” is first a democratic revolution, second joining a globalist project (the EU) with universalist values (freedom of religion) of the sort now being opposed by Doug’s boys in Moscow and Budapest.
So which side are you on? The side of religious liberty, or the side of Christian nationalism? Only one of these lets you worship as you see fit, and it’s not the one Doug advocates for.
I am looking for a city whose builder and maker is God. This means it will not come about by the institutional church being successful in politics.
You won’t find that around these parts.
The next thing you’ll be saying fp is that Catholic Church teaches that the bread and wine of the Eucharist “literally” become the flesh and blood of Christ–toe nails included. And of course in your gross ignorance you’ll also want to contend that the Catholic Church does not teach “justification by faith.” Like most evangelicals you lack any sense of historical awareness. The word “infallible” is actually the foundation of stone of modern evangelicalism, it is never bandied about by the papists as much as it is by American fundamentalists. In the sixteenth century Reformation Protestants were the first to… Read more »
When Roman Catholics say the transformed bread and wine are actually the real body and blood of Jesus but retaining the accidents of appearance as bread and wine do they mean?
They mean it is not literally the body and blood of Christ. The Eucharistic elements are “sacramental,” therefore point to something beyond themselves, namely to the spiritual presence and spiritual availability of the incarnate and resurrected Lord who makes his presence known and felt and with whom we can be spiritually (not physically) nourished. They are not merely symbols, therefore, but the means through which we can actually partake of his saving life and death. We feast on him, the bread of life, as we lovingly remember the death he died for us. Something real and special happens when we… Read more »
Thank you. But if I’m understanding you, that doesn’t sound like something it makes sense to call transubstantiation. It just sounds like the spiritual presence of Christ, but no material transformation. It doesn’t sound like what I mean when I say Jesus actually, as in literally physically, rose from the dead.
I actually prefer the term “Transignification” used by the Catholic theologian Edward Schillebeeckx (cf a good article on the term on Wikipedia). What I would say in answer to your entirely reasonable question is that you cannot divide or separate the body of the transformed, glorious, resurrected physical Lord, from his spiritual presence. They are one. Christ “in you,” the hope of glory. The Catholic Church falteringly tried to understand this mystery with respect to the Eucharist because in the NT Christians understood this to mean a “participation” in the body and blood of Christ–that could cost you your life… Read more »
But doesn’t saying Christ is spiritually but not physically literally present in the Eucharist separate the body of the resurrected Lord from His spiritual presence, as you say we cannot do?
John, thanks. I’d put it this way on a more simplified level because I think it brings us closer to the truth. The bread and wine don’t change molecules for the stuff of human flesh and bone. In the Eucharist God hits the reset button on reality so that the every day elements of food and drink that nourish us become instead, at a deeper level, the locus of Christ’s full, undivided and real presence which in contrast, feeds and nourishes us with the true, everlasting Bread of Life which has come down from heaven. So when we share, participate… Read more »
I agree with sentences 3, 5, and 6. Most Reformed people would. However we would see it as Christ meeting us spiritually rather than God circumventing reality so that it can both be Jesus and not Jesus.
I’m not sure which post you’re referring to. I personally feel that transubstantiation was the wrong route to go down–but Aquinas employed this idea to divert people away from the toe-nail/giblet idea of eating Christ’s actual/non-symbolic flesh and blood. I’ve recommended some useful books in various posts written by contemporary Catholic theologians who give a better, more nuanced understanding of what they call the real presence. It has nothing to do with “circumventing reality” but experiencing it more deeply and richly transformed in the new age of Christ’s resurrection and glory, so in the Eucharist Christ is more fully, incarnationally… Read more »
BTW I am a Roman Catholic whose spiritual life is nourished by the Latin Mass, the monastic Daily Office, and Lectio Divina. There are some aspects of Catholicism that I am at war with, such as Mariology and petitioning saints. But overall the spiritual practices I mentioned above are very nourishing and enriching. I seek reform in the Catholic Church and in my personal life too.
“Reset button on reality
if he is present bodily, than show me the body. If it is the bread and wine yet bread and wine are not materially changed then there is a contradiction. You cannot simultaneously argue for full material presence and only spiritual change.
None of us are arguing it is a memorial.
I think this is an area where we have to start drawing very clear lines between what the Roman Catholic church officially teaches and what the majority of western Catholic laypeople tell poll takers they actually believe. We also have to be very clear about definitions. The central issue is the Real (versus symbolic) Presence of Christ in the Eucharist–that the bread is Christ’s body and the wine is Christ’s blood. The Real Presence is a doctrine held by Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, many Anglicans, and many Lutherans. Transubstantiation was originally a theory explaining the “how.” Although it was first adopted… Read more »
Thanks Jill. So, per what you quote above transubstantiation does mean that the bread and wine are transformed in material substance, and not only in some way spiritually, into Jesus’ flesh and blood? In which case some Protestants, while they might state it crudely in a way no Roman Catholic ever would, are not so far off?
I would omit the word “material” and go with the word “substance.” “Material” suggests the outward characteristics of bread and wine which remain unchanged. Microscopically examined, the bread and wine will look like bread and wine. Physically and chemically, they will retain the properties of bread and wine. But the entire “substance”–the essential nature of a thing, what it truly is–of the bread and wine literally–not symbolically, not just spiritually– become the body and blood of our Lord. This is core Catholic teaching.
Brendan, I think we have to be careful with words here. Are you drawing some kind of distinction between “literal” and “real”? If so, what is it? According to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The transformed bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ and are not merely symbols… Though the bread and wine appear the same to our human faculties, they are actually the real body and blood of Jesus.” If we took a consecrated host and put it under a microscope, it would obviously still look like flour and water molecules, not flesh. In that sense,… Read more »
Jill, thank you. What I’ve been trying to make clear in my posts is that Protestant notions of Christ’s flesh and blood in the Eucharist being “literal” in the sense (as some of them have cynically argued from the time of the Reformation onwards) that we “literally,” are “really” ingesting therefore Jesus’ hair, limbs, toe nails, etc., as might a cannibal. Over against this I argue that this type of understanding of what we share in at the Eucharist was kicked into touch in the High Middle Ages by Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, and a few others. They were protesting at… Read more »
Brendan is being unhelpful here and doesn’t even mention Accidens. It is based on the Aristotelian belief that outward reality proceeds from inner true things. So bread is bread because of interior breadness. The accidens is the physical manifestation of the pure breadness. Official RC doctrine states that the substance (breadness) changes into fleshness while the accidens remains bread. Same for the wine but with blood. The other three views are that Christ is spiritually present and we feast upon his body and blood spiritually, his body and blood substance permeates and is around without transmuting the bread and wine,… Read more »
As a Catholic, I suppose you’d expect me to use deception and sleight of hand. But I commend the following books which address the question I had raised, viz., Does the Catholic Church teach that the elements, the bread and the wine, “literally” become the “physical” body and blood of Christ. Note that: literal-physical–as in toe nails, hair and skin and bone, because that’s what physical refers to in connection with the body. The answer, as you inadvertently imply yourself is no. Check out the following volumes: *Edward Schillebeeckx, THE EUCHARIST (Continue, 2005); *Brett Salkeld, TRANSUBSTANTIATION: THEOLOGY, HISTORY AND CHRISTIAN… Read more »
It should be noted that Edward Schillebeeckx was most definitely on the liberal end of the theological spectrum. He was closer, in spirit, to the PCUSA than to Pastor Wilson’s church.
While his writings on the Eucharist may not be heretical per se, his theological works are held in low regard by most conservative Catholics.
The Vatican’s assessment of him during one of a number of investigations into his writings was that his “own position remained ambiguous on fundamental points of the Catholic faith” (letter from the CDF, November 1980).
That’s a fair comment, John. But his volume, THE EUCHARIST, is still the “go to” book for thinking Catholics of every hue. I was first introduced to it by the Augustinian Friars in Dublin who couldn’t praise highly enough. It’s simply a superb historical analysis of the doctrine in which (here and there) he does not spare the magisterium blushes for getting things arse ways at times.
In which case you have redefined literal
The conversation has spread too wide. I originally made an off the cut comment that many Protestants (and Catholics) think that transubstantiation is about the bread and wine literally changing into Christ’ s flesh and blood, but that’s not the case. Thomas Aquinas introduced this the idea of transubstantiation precisely to guard against this notion. Alas, he was a man of his time and many Catholic theologians today are unhappy with the term. But Aquinas employed it as a means of warding off cannabilistic interpretations of feasting on Christ’s flesh and blood. The Council of Trent also painstakingly stresses that… Read more »
Once again you aren’t even equivocating literal you just redefined it to mean something it doesn’t mean. I know exactly what transubstantiation means, I know there are no toenails involved, and I know that I disagree. I also know that the word literal does not mean physical, it means not figurative, and if there is anything that transubstantiation is it is not figurative.
If you know these things then you are blessed with wisdom and insight, but most evangelicals (and Catholics) don’t know these things. I would want to add that among Catholic theologians there are multiple interpretations of “transubstantiation” (so-called), and in these heady post-Vatican II days there are even scholars who are prepared to cross-swords with Thomas Aquinas and official Church doctrine. There is more latitude than there used to be.
It might be more accurate to say that we’ve moved on to a post-post-Vatican II world. The heady days for Schillebeeckx and Küng were the 1960’s to 1990’s. The Church (and the world at large) is now moving back in a more conservative direction.
While our host here might be more comfortable with some of the theological language used by the most liberal Catholic theologians, I would wager that temperamentally and attitudinally he’d be much more in tune with the most conservative of Catholic theologians.
John who is the “host” you refer to?
Doug Wilson, the proprietor of this blog.
He was just interviewed by Ross Douthat of the New York Times. The discussion was released this morning and began with questions around the understanding of God’s salvific grace from a Calvinist perspective.
Thank you–interest comments!
Nice red herrings you’re frantically waving around there, Brendan. Be a shame if something were to happen to them. The Catholic church indeed teaches justification by works. You ought to try reading your own canons and catechisms sometime. Start with the Council of Trent, Canons on Justification, Canon 9, Canon 14, Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) par. 2010, 2023. To hear the One True Church talk, words don’t actually mean what they say. Which is why you’re here, twisting yourself into pretzels trying to explain why transubstantiation doesn’t actually mean transubstantiation and hope to God nobody notices what a… Read more »
The problem arises when Catholics, in the interest of ecumenism, try to water down Catholic teaching in the hope of harmonizing doctrines that I don’t think can be reconciled. What the Catholic church means by justification by faith, even without works, is not what evangelicals mean. But, yes, justification may be insufficient without works unless you die young and very holy. For the Catholic, justification is a divine act of grace that makes you a son or daughter of God, cleanses your soul of original sin, opens it to sanctifying grace, and gives you the gifts of faith, hope, and… Read more »
Jill, I’d want to direct you to Hans volume on JUSTIFICATION. The great Reformed theologian, Karl Barth, who was ardently anti- Catholicism, states that Küng has articulated to his satisfaction the compatibility of Catholic with Reformed Protestant views on Justification. (I’m reading the book again at the moment.)
This would be the same Hans Kung who the Vatican officially declared “ha[d] departed from the integral truth of Catholic faith, and therefore [could] no longer be considered a Catholic theologian nor function as such in a teaching role” ? Are we not just going in circles here?
Yorba, his censure had nothing to do with Küng’s book on JUSTIFICATION (which upheld the teachings of the Council of Trent and Vatican II on the subject).
Most Evangelicals would prefer to put it that the person justified by faith is pardoned rather than say they are guiltless.
You need to check out Catholic theologian Hans Küng’s acclaimed volume, JUSTIFICATION (Westminster/ J Knox Press, 2004). Here he provides conclusive evidence that the RC Church teaches justification by faith alone. He dedicated the book to Protestant Reformed theologian Karl Barth who wrote the Forward in which he states that Küng’s articulation of the Catholic doctrine of justification is compatible with his own reformed understanding. Barth, an actually anti-Catholicism theologian, highly praised the book which he found chastening and humbling. Now here’s the thing: the default position of unregenerate” Catholics and Protestants— and all religious peoples such as Judaism, Hinduism,… Read more »
James Akin proposed a harmonization of “faith alone” with Catholic theology in a short article back in the early days of the internet. He distinguishes fides formata (faith formed by charity) from fides informis (faith unformed by charity, which is the kind described in James 2:19).
http://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/justification-by-faith-alone-1153
Love this! Thanks.
It’s an improvement, perhaps, when Catholics engage in civil dialogue over transsubstantiation rather than burning their opponents at the stake as they did in centuries past—even if their civil dialogue is occasionally disingenuous and misleading. Moving in the right direction.
Thus speaks a Banner of Truth reformer. Be humble now. In England Protestants burned Catholics before the evil papists returned the compliment.
These “no quarter” hypocrites would burn us all again if they could.
Sounds like they’ll first have to fight the Qatari military in their own backyards, tho.
Not so. Thomas Bilney was burned for “heresy” in Norfolk in 1531. Patrick Hamilton met the same fate even earlier in 1528 in Saint Andrews.
Hamiton was burned in Scotland, I was talking specifically about England. You are right about Bilney though–but only just. Once Henry VIII passed the Act of Supremacy in 1535 Catholics started to protest. In the 16th-17th centuries about 600 Catholics were executed for treason in Britain, about 280-300 Protestants died in the same period under Catholic rule.
Henry was an equal-opportunity oppressor. He persecuted Protestants (“Lutherans”) as vigorously as those Roman Catholics who opposed his ever-evolving religious proclivities. Nice hair-split regarding the oppression in Scotland, as if the contemporary religious atmosphere was any different between the two kingdoms. We could also make mention of the often-lethal suppression of the Lollards, which had been going on sporadically since Henry V’s day a century earlier. By the way, what precisely was the English crown’s (mainly Elizabeth’s) motive for its harsh policies toward some Roman Catholics?
Yes, Henry executed anybody that got in his way–irrespective of their faith. I deliberately referred to England because that’s where the greater preponderance of heresy hunting and executions took place–few Protestants faced death under Catholic rule in Scotland during the 16-17C. And yes, some Lollards (again small numbers) suffered the death penalty under Catholic rule before the Reformation, but that I think is different from the levels of retribution that accompanied the reigns of Henry, Mary and Elizabeth in particular. Most of the persecution under Elizabeth mainly had to do with the threat of invasion from Spain and fears that… Read more »
The popes had also put Elizabeth under outlaw, excommunicating her and declaring her illegitimate, creating tacit encouragement to those minded to assassinate her and replace her with a Roman Catholic successor. She and her chief of security dealt with a number of such plots. This poisonous atmosphere, exacerbated by Spain’s Philip II’s efforts to invade and overthrow her via the Armada, the machinations around Mary Queen of Scots, and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, created great suspicion and antipathy toward Roman Catholics in England in the 17th century. It was intensely patriotic in England then to oppose international Roman Catholicism.… Read more »
This discussion has been an excellent case study indicating why — if either institution is to thrive — the walls of separation between church and state must be very, very high indeed: the never-ending “no you started it!” cycles of repression and death can never end with such a wall being erected.
This was certainly the history that motivated the Founding Fathers of the USA to propose — for the first time in recorded history — a secular nation-state based on consent of the governed, with sharply divided powers and many overlapping checks and balances.
But notice again, that burnings were not done by protestants in England. Henry XIII burned heretics after he broke from Rome, but that was only for professing protestant doctrine. Roman Catholics were killed, but not burned, since he viewed their crime to be treason, not heresy.
No, protestants didn’t burn Catholics. Give me a single name. Catholics were killed sometimes, but not burned•
It’s a bit complicated. There were many perfectly legal translations of the Bible into Anglo-Saxon and Middle English prior to 1408 when the Synod of Oxford passed a law banning the dissemination (or private reading) of English translations that had not been authorized by local Catholic authorities. This law was passed in direct response to Wyclif’s translation which was considered to be inaccurate, corrupt, and full of heresies. Tyndale, a priest who had already survived one trial for heresy, applied for permission to translate the Bible into English and was turned down. He went to Germany where, very much under… Read more »
By the 16th century, Rome was not so able to quash the examination of Hebrew and Greek sources independently from her own translations. Much of Tyndale’s translation work persisted in Henry’s own Great Bible of 1539, the Bishops Bible, and the KJV. I suspect that many of his “heretical,” Luther-leaning side notes were vindicated in the later English Reformation.
Also, was there a complete Catholic English Bible from the original languages before Douay-Rheims (1609, NT 1589)? Or were there only portions (for example, the lections), and only from the Vulgate Latin?
I think Tyndale’s translation was the first to use Greek and Hebrew texts but it obviously can’t be considered approved by the Catholic church. Wyclif’s translation was the first complete one in English (Middle English) but he didn’t have access to Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, only to the Latin Vulgate. The first formally approved English translation is Douay-Rheims. I believe that all earlier works (King Alfred’s, Bede’s, the Lindisfarne Gospels) were based on Latin manuscripts only. I believe that the Geneva Bible (first published in London in 1575) was the first Bible in English to be entirely translated from the… Read more »
Excellent!
Thomas More wrote extensively regarding Tydale’s translation. More noted that Tyndale
He was particularly concerned with Tydale’s translation of agape as “love” instead of “charity”, emphasizing raw emotion rather than beneficial action.
Fascinating. I always tell Greek and Hebrew students that there’s no “English” word behind the original–which is why translation can be a moral test as much as anything else.
Mommy Q–you might want to maximize showing your children things in the Bible–“What does this say?”–to cut down on you vs husband or you vs church. FWIW, from reading about a wife in a similar situation.
Chaz–as a good short (20? pages?) intro to Christian nationalism, Rich Lusk’s “Notes on Christian Nationalism” is one I like a LOT: short, clear, some dissent from Steven Wolfe on race…Good for the curious, good for enemies wanting to deal with CN at its best, good review for CNs of various stripes.
Justin: sure examine yourself, examine how you’re doing with God, examine how you’re doing with your neighbors (‘If you’re at the altar with a gift and there remember your brother has something against you…’), all of that, but in I Cor 11 note the context, and what the examination was supposed to do, the problem it was supposed to solve: the problem of not carefully including in the meal/Supper all who should be included. Failure to include makes it “not the Lords’ Supper” that you eat. (The man having his father’s wife in chapter 5 needed “handed over to Satan… Read more »
Chase, MAYbe there’s something you think Biblical, or run across, that you haven’t been doing and it seems you should. Do it, eh? Don’t be stupid (use your head), don’t go to be weird (take cget good advice), and of course don’t be a mocker as Rachel Held Evans seems to have set out to be…but MAYbe there’s some sticking point that needs to budge???
Matthew–note also Jeremiah 18:7-10: When God pronounces judgment against a nation, if it repents, so will He. So seems to me if we pray for judgment on a person or institution, we should keep in mind, and desire, the possibility that they repent as king Manasseh did (II Chron). We may not pray for repentance every time, but at least be open to the possibility.
Doug, note that you have watered down “translating the Bible into a vulgar, common language was a heresy punishable by death” to “there were [] legal restrictions on the simple act of translating the Bible.”