Category: History/Church History

Lessons from Valladolid: On Being Decent in an Indecent Age

By Catherine Addington When a Christian is caught between a political economy hostile to human flourishing and a Church all too often comfortable with the status quo, it is demoralizing to have recourse to an ugly, embattled public square. Who...

/ June 11, 2018

The Evangelical Center After Billy Graham

It’s a fairly banal observation, at this point, to note that the success of Billy Graham and other mid-century evangelicals, like Carl F. H. Henry and Harold Ockenga, came from their ability to formulate a centrist vision of American Protestantism....

/ March 6, 2018

How to Celebrate the Reformation

Today marks the 500th anniversary of the day that Martin Luther (might have) nailed his famous 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg. While the historicity of that famous event is in dispute, what is not in question is...

/ October 31, 2017

Patience and Hermeneutics: On Brian Zahnd, Marcion, and Origen

I’m pleased to publish this guest essay from Dr. Mark Randall James. Brian Zahnd’s new book, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, has invited comparison with one of the greatest of early heretics, Marcion. In a long and...

/ August 28, 2017

The Church Has Always Known Theological Controversy

“Not again.” That was my first thought when Eugene Peterson’s comments on gay marriage came out. Regardless of the retraction, I knew the next few days would be ugly online. Various think-pieces (good and bad) would come, as would the...

/ July 21, 2017

Martin Bucer’s Strenuous Life

Reading Sen. Ben Sasse’s recent book The Vanishing American Adult reminded me of a chapter I read about the home life of Martin Bucer, a 16th century pastor and leader in the Protestant Reformation. Though his lifestyle was not that aberrant amongst the...

/ May 31, 2017
carl-mcintire

The Religious Right Is Not a Subsidiary of the Alt-Right

In a recent essay for The New Republic, religion reporter Sarah Posner contends that the Religious Right has “effectively become a subsidiary of the alt-right, yoked to Trump’s white nationalist agenda.” By effectively wedding themselves to Trump’s narrative about ‘American...

/ March 27, 2017

Reviewing Radicalism: When Reform Becomes Revolution

In 2017, many Protestants will observe the 500th anniversary of their revolution—or at least of its most celebrated image: the promulgation of Luther’s Ninety-five Theses. Though inevitably drowned out by triumphalism, some such observances will be understandably ambivalent about the...

/ February 10, 2017
book-reviews

Reviewing “The End of Protestantism” by Peter Leithart

I am pleased to publish this guest review from Dr. Coyle Neal of Southwest Baptist University. Has the modern church reached the point in history where it is time to set aside the albatross of denominations and embrace a “Reformational...

/ January 18, 2017
francis-schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer and the Arts: A Retrospective

I am delighted to be able to publish this guest feature from Dr. William Edgar of Westminster Theological Seminary. Dr. Edgar is the author of Francis Schaeffer on the Christian Life: Countercultural Spirituality published by Crossway.

/ January 10, 2017