Category: Theology and Practice
Moral Formation and Sexual Abuse, Part II: Learning to love what is good by loving one another
Part 1 If human beings were perfectly rational masters of their appetite by default, “Just don’t abuse women!” would be a sufficient response to the crisis of sexual abuse (along with “Punish the abusers!”). One sees a very strong Pelagian...
Moral Formation and Sexual Abuse Pt. 1: The Problem, How We Make It Worse, and How We Can’t Make It Better
As the stories of #MeToo and #ChurchToo have spread across the internet and previously unaware people have come to realize how widespread sexual abuse and harassment are, we are now asking how to prevent men from abusing or harassing women....
Three Notes on Women Professors and Seminary
John Piper caused a bit of a kerfuffle on Christian Twitter the other day with a podcast episode in which he said that only men should teach at seminaries. Though much of the discussion that followed was both boring and...
Notes on Edgardo Mortara from a Protestant Onlooker
Last week First Things, as the colloquialism earthily says, stepped in it. The occasion for this unpleasantness was the publication of an essay by Romanus Cessario, O.P., arguing that the church was within its rights when Pope Pius IX abducted Edgardo Mortara,...
Faithful Extension and the Question of Human Origins
William T. Cavanaugh and Jamie K. A. Smith, eds.: Evolution and the Fall, Eerdmans, 2017. The questions the church confronts most severely at present are questions of human nature, and what to call good and what to reject as broken...
Reading the Hymns: Joy to the World
By Steven Wedgeworth Though it is today one of the most popular Christmas hymns, “Joy to the World,” was not originally a Christmas carol at all. Written by Isaac Watts, “Joy to the World” originally appeared in his 1719 The Psalms...
What of the Baptists? A Response to Samuel James
Joseph Minich also assisted with the writing of this response. As editors of People of the Promise: A Mere Protestant Eccleisology, we were honored by Samuel D. James’ review of our co-writers’ primer in Christianity Today. And while James tone...
Mary Did You Know? A Mere O Symposium
By Christian Young, Susannah Black, Jon Coppage, and Jon Askonas Today we will be discussing a much loved, but also much hated, Christmas song, “Mary, Did You Know?”
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...
The Real Presence and the Presence of Reality: In Defense of Reformed Sacramentology
This lecture was originally delivered at Hillsdale College. A PDF version of this essay is also available. Last year, one of Hillsdale’s most famous alumni, Peter Leithart, wrote an essay called “Why Protestants Can’t Write” that began with the line...