In a recent Trinity Review, John Robbins tackles the work of Richard Gaffin, and spends quite a bit of energy fulminating about the departures of said theologian from the traditional Reformed ordo salutis. In the course of his discussion, Robbins says, “Believers do not die with Christ ‘existentially’ or ‘experimentally,’ but legally. They do not …
Covenant Father
Morbid introspection can work with virtually any doctrinal material. In a traditional Reformed pietistic setting, it tries to pry into the decrees of election to find out the names of the chosen. In the view that a person in conversion does not undergo a change of nature, the guessing would have to involve the inscrutable …
Change of Heart
What are we to say to the view that the Bible does not teach that some people are individually ‘regenerated’? A view that locates perseverance in an ongoing and mysterious wrestling of the Spirit, rather than in a change of nature of those elected to heaven? If the Spirit wrestles with all baptized believers, but …
Sticky for Weeks
“May I please come in?” the new wine said. The old wineskin looked at the new wine with eyes kind of squinty. “I am not sure that would be entirely wise.” “Nevertheless, that is my request.” “Would you promise to be good?” “I can promise to act according to my nature.” “That is what I …
Wineskins and Other Metaphors
A recent letter writer to Touchstone magazine (responding to a review of a couple of D.G. Hart’s books) says this: “If one wishes to locate a separate Protestant “confessional” tradition, where should one go? Conservative American Protestantism is root and branch a tradition that depends for its existence and vitality on revivalism and the historical …
Show Me a Token
Nothing reveals a person’s approach to epistemology more rapidly than trouble-shooting in conflict does. “What’s the trouble here? How did the trouble start?” Almost always the way this kind of question is answered serves to extend and continue the trouble. When Ahab decided to start worshiping Baal, the end result of this was a drought …
Now You Tell Me
One night, after having consumed far too much pizza, an old school Presbyterian minister retired to bed. About two in the morning, after much turning and spindling up in the covers, he awoke in a sweat, and there, hovering over the foot of his bed, in a nimbus cloud of glory, was the Westminster Confession, …
Reformation and our Children
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Mal. 4:5-6). One of …
Heresy Stew
Having become a heretic in the broader Reformed world, I am sometimes asked how I did it. What is the recipe? How might a young man who wants to cook up something similar go about the business? Here is the good news. You probably have the ingredients in your library . . . kitchen . …
Capitol Prayers
Once a fledgling minister was sitting quietly in the back of presbytery. He had not yet learned all the ropes, and was silently enduring until the time came when he would be called upon to speak. He had made it through three meetings of presbytery this way, and it looked as if it was soon …