Exactly what is the relation of the church to God’s kingdom? Are they the same thing? Are they distinct? Abraham Kuyper responds to these questions in the following quote, taken from his address to the Free Church in Amsterdam, now translated in the volume Rooted and Grounded: The Church as Organism and Institution (Christian’s Library Press, 2013): […]
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In Defense of Worldview
January 4, 2016 
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The term “worldview” is thrown around a lot in evangelical circles—especially in the world of Christian education—but very rarely is it defined with any care or precision. Much less do many Christians realize just how controversial it is. After all, the term doesn’t come from Scripture or even from Christian theologians, but rather from modern […]
Continue reading Review: One Kingdom: The Practical Theology of John M. Frame, by John Barber
December 24, 2015 3 Comments
John Barber. One Kingdom: The Practical Theology of John M. Frame. Lakeland, FL: Whitefield Media, 2015. 346pp. Disclaimer: Although I have never personally met the author, we have been friends via social media for several months. When I heard that his book was being published, I offered to write this review for him. Dr. John […]
Continue reading Grace, Truth, Worldviews and The Ongoing Abortion Debate
October 16, 2015 1 Comment
I’ve mostly watched the recent abortion debate on my social media feeds with interest, hope, excitement, compassion, and anxiety. My excitement comes from my hope that our society may move closer toward the theological and philosophical position that human life at every stage is valuable. My compassion shows up when I think about people I have who have […]
Continue reading Setting the Record Straight on Lutheranism: Four Myths
September 22, 2015 5 Comments
Calvinists and Lutherans have a complicated history. Both traditions are rooted in the Protestant Reformation understandings of justification (sola fide) and authority (sola scriptura). Calvin himself acknowledged his debt to Luther and was even accused of being a Lutheran. In their early years, the two movements were able to find much common ground, and at […]
Continue reading Who Belongs in the New Covenant? Three Views and their Implications for Infant Baptism
September 11, 2015 3 Comments
Note: I originally presented the following paper in January 2013 for the second annual meeting of the Theological Fellowship at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. Introduction One of the ongoing debates within the evangelical world centers on the question of infant baptism—that is, should we baptize professing believers only, or should we baptize both […]
Continue reading A Neocalvinist Ecclesiology
September 9, 2015 0 Comments
Over at Cardus, Professor David Koyzis (whose book Political Visions and Illusions I have recently reviewed here) has written this article on the institutional church. The distinction between church as organism and as institution lies at the heart of Kuyper and Bavinck’s ecclesiology, and it is worth repeating some of Koyzis’s main points here (and I paraphrase): The […]
Continue reading Review: Political Visions and Illusions, by David Koyzis
August 24, 2015 3 Comments
David Koyzis, Political Visions and Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies (IVP Academic, 2003). All humans long for redemption. We cannot escape the feeling that the world is not as it should be, and things need to be set right. Christians find the answer in Jesus Christ, whose coming kingdom will one day […]
Continue reading From Culture War Burnout to Cultural Faithfulness
August 13, 2015 1 Comment
The question of Christianity and cultural faithfulness has been one of my most passionate and personal questions; it’s also one of the more contentious questions facing the American Church today. The more you read, the more complicated the question becomes. As a friend of mine says often, “Everything is complicated and everything is connected.” How […]
Continue reading Review: Spiritual Friendship by Wesley Hill
August 10, 2015 1 Comment
Wesley Hill, Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian (Brazos, 2015). As an unmarried seminarian, I found myself surrounded by classmates who were married, many of them with children. It wasn’t uncommon for professors to verbally acknowledge and extend academic grace to students who were behind, tardy, or absent due to a […]
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