Reformation21

Lila is a swelling tide. The prose and themes slowly overwhelm, lifting and submerging the reader on grace's stormy sea. For Lila, the novel's namesake, flailing in this tide comes naturally. As you lay in your blood, I said to you, "Live." My own fascination with Lila , and with Robinson, arises...

Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul . Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015. pp. 128. $14.99/£10.99 Gathercole's introduction begins by asking the question raised by the old spiritual: "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" If we...

Death and darkness dominate America's Halloween celebrations. Children dress as ghosts and ghouls, and October is the season for horror films. Many Americans, both Christian and non-Christian, think that this fascination with the macabre must be anti-Christian, but actually Halloween is a Christian...

Over the past months, we have been looking at some specific, recent objections to a Covenantal (presuppositional) approach to apologetics. In this article, we reach the end of this series on "responses" to objections. There is one final objection to Covenantal apologetics that is offered and that...

In debates about immigration a crucial issue is the moral and political status of borders. Do we think borders are good or bad, a necessary evil or a moral necessity? My contention is that those who argue for open borders undervalue a sense of place and the integrity of nations like Britain and...

As we inch towards the end of 2015, I thought it might be helpful for some of our contributors and a few of our frequent guest writers to offer some reflections on books they've especially enjoyed this year. I trust you'll find the nominations fascinating and the glosses offered instructive, too ~...

John H. Walton. The Lost World of Adam and Eve . Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015. 253pp. $17.00 In 2009, John Walton, professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, challenged the evangelical world with the publication of his The Lost World of Genesis One . He argued that contrary to a...

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with Karen and Carl Ellis to discuss some issues surrounding the Church's role in the discussion over Islam, how reformed theology can speak into the exchange between both faiths, the situation surrounding Dr. Larycia Hawkins and Wheaton College...

Last time, we noted that God himself initiated a relationship to his creation by way of condescension. "Condescension" is a metaphorical term. It means "to come down." But God does not "come down" by occupying a space that he did not otherwise occupy. So what does "condescension" mean when it...

Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) served as the professor of dogmatic theology at the Theological School of the Secession Christian Reformed Church in Kampen, The Netherlands, from 1883 to 1902, when he left Kampen for Abraham Kuyper's Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. His primary teaching responsibility in...