Category: Theology and Practice
Pragmatism and the Practice of Theology
By Joshua Heavin Several decades ago, missiologist Lesslie Newbigin wrote about our impulse towards pragmatism in the post-Christendom West: In discussions about the contemporary mission of the Church it is often said that the Church ought to address itself to...
The Surprising Humanity of the Westminster Confession
Though there is no shortage of disagreement over the sources of our current malaise, that we live in a decadent society is, perhaps, one of the few ideas that actually can unite many conservative and progressive Americans. What’s more, in...
Will Complementarianism Die with the Baby Boomers?
In the latest edition of his newsletter “The Masculinist,” Aaron Renn dismissed complementarianism as a baby boomer phenomenon that will inevitably die with that generation. Much of the analysis is both interesting and correct, but it also misses a few key points...
In Defense of Localism
By Sean O’Hare In a recent piece for Arc Digital, Nicholas Grossman examined the viability of an alliance between left-wing identity politics and right-wing localism. Grossman ultimately concludes that common ground between localism and left-wing identity politics is an impossibility...
What Kuyper Gets Wrong: On the Problem with Denominationalism
By Ruben Alvarado Once upon a time, the state shared the public square with the church. The central location of the church building in every European town is mute testimony to this state of affairs. But those days are long...
The Real Place for Conflict: On Keeping Controversy Close to Home
By Justin Frank Social media gives unprecedented opportunities to know about and engage in controversy. Many of these controversies are rooted in places far from us; involve people we’ve never met (and will likely never know); and grow out of...
A Christian Ethic of Sex in a Pornographic Age
By Joshua Heavin In the late fourth and early fifth centuries, the church had no shortage of theological controversies and societal crises at hand. Yet several prominent theologians nonetheless devoted significant time to writing about marriage and human sexuality. St....
On Theological Education and the Church’s Health
By Joshua Heavin In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books, Alan Jacobs described the realization that compelled him to write The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis: “…what was so...
John Milbank: A Guide for the Perplexed
By Peter J. Leithart I. Theology As Master Discourse. I first met John Milbank, my doctoral supervisor, at a welcome event for new graduate students sponsored by the Divinity School of the University of Cambridge. During the meeting, each faculty member...
Living Local Fiction
By S. Dorman On first moving to Maine and seeing a line of tall ledges from a nearby road, I was enchanted, surprised. I’d never seen anything like them before: Mountains like waves of rock waiting to crash over the...