You learn a lot about what matters to someone by what drives them to extremes. Think of a person camping out, lining up in the rain, to get concert tickets. Think of a couple paying physical and emotional costs to…
There is something transcendently unifying when a group is engaged together in a singular, heroic cause. For instance, historians have often highlighted the camaraderie and esprit de corps they have found among the members of the Marine Corps. The Marine…
Some years ago, our friend Terry Johnson (senior pastor of Savannah’s Independent Presbyterian Church) wrote an article suggesting an opportunity for constructive dialogue in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Terry classified the two main PCA camps in positive terms,…
You will have heard of the “Benedict Option” for coping with the culture wars. I would like to propose to Reformed Protestants the “Zwinglian Option” for ending the worship wars: eliminate all music from our public services. Zwingli, the outstanding…
Without in any way wishing to take away from the ongoing conversation about the dire need for the church in North America to focus on attaining unity among ethnic diversity by means of the Gospel, I have long felt the…
In his Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation of 1520, Luther takes aim at the Roman Church’s “flimsy and worthless” claim to possess the exclusive authority and ability (by virtue of some unique spiritual gift) to interpret…
I’ve been slowly working my way through Katherine Sonderegger’s Systematic Theology Volume 1: The Doctrine of God. Released this year, it is the sort of book that pastor-theologians or theological students could make the focus of a reading group. It…
