Reformation21

I am saddened to learn today of the passing of Robert Webber, who was kind to me in my growing up years and happened to be one of the best professors I had at Wheaton College. It is good to think of him worshiping now in a higher, nobler key. The incidental memories come back first, like eating...

The Protestant Church of Smyrna (modern day Izmir) has sent a letter to their brothers and sisters in the global church detailing the martyrdom of three Christian men in Malatya. An earlier version of this letter has been widely circulated. However, it contained a number of factual errors and...

My friend, the modest, quiet, peaceable master of understatement, Rev David Robertson, has posted an interesting article on the dire situation of ministry in modern Scotland, particularly from a Free Church of Scotland pespective. Not all will agree with every comment he makes, but it gives an...

The latest 9Marks newsletter--devoted to preaching--is now online. In my opinion, this is one of the most helpful resources for pastors being produced today.

Paul Helm reviews John Franke's The Character of Theology. I will argue that Franke has seriously miscalculated what is involved in relating Christian faith to its cultural context, for he has overestimated the ease with which a non-foundational Christian theology may be developed. By a happy irony...

I hear a rumour that disgraced former New Jersey Governor, Jim McGreevey, who left office in a gay scandal, is pursuing ordination in the episcopal church. As if ordaining practising homosexuals wasn't bad enough, ECUSA now stoops to the new low of ordaining someone with the moral qualities which...

At last week's Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology (in, of all places, Philadelphia), Don Carson shared a telling anecdote from a colleague involved with the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship. Women on campus face three crushing cultural pressures: first, to get all "A's" -- a parental and...

"A creed and a grave never did equal the life of anything" -- Wendell Berry

Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in C Minor ("Resurrection") was played at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center last night to rapturous applause. I am sorry that Derek Thomas couldn't have been here for the performance, which was welcomed with four curtain calls and loud shouts of "Bravo" ringing from every...

Phil's blog got me thinking about the whole issue of women in Reformed and conservative evangelical circles in general. On the whole, I don't think the church provides the kind of environment that helps. Two examples: in Britain, certain denominations don't pay their ministers a proper living wage...