First Word

We have considered Schaeffer the philosopher in part 1, now we will consider Schaeffer the historian. (more…)

C.S. Lewis once said that marking good essays and bad essays is easy, it is the those that fall in between (more…)

This is a brief yet surprisingly thorough and lucid treatment of the issues (more…)

The OPC (Orthodox Presbyterian Church) is in the process of ratifying a new “Directory for Worship.”  It is available on-line by clicking an appropriate link here. The purpose of this essay is to bring some arguments against the proposed revision to the church. (more…)

The book “Reformed” is Not Enough created quite a stir a few years back, inspiring (more…)

At issue here is a practice, reported in some quarters, of Deacons assisting in (more…)

Attached is an mp3 of a Sunday School on Heidelberg Catechism 83-85, (more…)

Attached is the mp3 of a Sunday School lesson I taught yesterday on Heidelberg Catechism 81-82, including a discussion of Wilson’s (and others’) paedo-communion doctrine (more…)

The author was a prominent Church of Scotland man (more…)

The thesis is that the “Easter belief” of the early Christians (a) refers intentionally to a literal, physical (not merely spiritual) raising of Jesus from the dead, and (b) the mode and breadth of this belief can only be explained on the hypothesis that that is what actually happened. The thesis is pursued in specific and detailed interaction with the Leben Jesu literature, most of which denies the resurrection. The characteristic emphasis that we would expect from Wright is (more…)

It behooves us to take an opening stance on the volcano (more…)

The following are notes that a student took during a lecture I gave in May 2001. They are short and contain few examples and illustrations, but there is enough here that may be some help for those interested in the rudiments of presuppositional apologetics. My thanks to Ryan Kidd for taking these notes. (more…)

There are a variety of topics in our current discourse, such as racial linguistic reference, and the question of the desirability of integration in church or state, to which our disputants often have a ready argument: “there will be no race in heaven; therefore we should operate as if that were the case now.” As will prove to be the case again and again, both the major and minor premises of modern truisms are generally dubious. Here I wish to analyze a premise that functions as the “minor” in that argument, and is taken as “obvious” even by intelligent people today. Namely, the idea that “there will be no race in heaven.” (more…)

Paul Schneider was a German Reformed minister whose early ministry coincided with the ascendancy of the National Socialist movement in the 1930s. His critique of the folk’s movement in view of the Word of God as well as a series of stands for the independent rights of the church vis-à-vis the state led to continual conflicts with Party functionaries, and penalties of increasing severity. At length, the conflict culminated in consignment to the concentration camp at Buchenwald, where his life ended. (more…)

Everyone expects me to say “Predestination” or something. But that’s so far down the list that I’ll forget to even mention it.

There are three things that prevent me from becoming a Methodist. (more…)

Roger Williams, because of his views of freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state, and the fact that he was able to implement them in Rhode Island, is celebrated as the founder of American liberties by writers as diverse as nineteenth-century Democratic historian George Bancroft (History of the United States, vol 1, p. 255), Southern Presbyterian theologian Robert L. Dabney (Lectures in Systematic Theology, p. 880) and the writer of the article on Roger Williams at Wikipedia. (more…)

Philip Jacob Spener wrote this initially as a preface to an edition of some sermons by J. Arndt; it became popular in its own right and subsequently was published by itself (more…)

Whenever I meet a Baptist or other Independent in a context where discussion of a slightly confrontational nature is permitted, I always ask, “how do you know you are part of (more…)

Johann Arndt (1555-1621) was a Lutheran minister that was troubled by formalism or dead orthodoxy among the German people. He wrote this book, True Christianity (Wahre Christenthum) to counter this trend, arguing that mere assent to correct doctrines (more…)

In many traditional discussions of the church, a host of definitional distinctions are brought out right away: the church invisible vs. visible; triumphant vs. militant; representational vs. lay; and so forth. All of these distinctions have their place, and in their place are very important. Here, however, I propose to start with the primary lexical meaning of the Hebrew qahal or Greek ekklesia as “the called,” which, in the biblical context, connotes a people called out of the sinful mass of humanity to be the people of God, to worship him in truth, and be constituted as the corporate body identified with the living and true God. (more…)

Review of Robin Bruce Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988). BT 819.5 .B35 1988

Under the rubric of apocalypticism, this book weaves together a story about views of time and history, eschatology, astrology, magic and secret societies in Lutheran Germany in the century following the Reformation.

Prof. Barnes (of Davidson College) defines apocalypticism as a view of the future combining prophecy and (more…)

In the comments section to a previous post, somebody asked if (more…)

The following article is from the current edition of Faith for all of Life, the bi-monthly publication of (more…)

The following is an letter I wrote to a friend who had questions about the reformed doctrine of “limited (more…)

The following article was part of the Minority Report of the Committee to Study the Framework Hypothesis for the Presbytery of Southern California of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, October 15-16, 1999. It is also found in Kenneth L. Gentry and Michael R. Butler, Yea Hath God Said: The Framework Hypothesis/Six-Day Creation Debate (Eugene Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2002). (more…)

Although Christian theologians have debated whether it is ever permissible to lie, there has always been universal assent to the proposition that God himself does not lie – at least until (more…)

My colleague has done some very important work that answers several of the standard criticisms of vantillian apologetics.

In my opinion, the most important one is the so-called “uniqueness” claim. That is, the question arises, how does the presuppositional method prove Christianity in its concreteness, as opposed to merely showing that something like Christianity– say, affirming a Quadrinity rather than a Trinity– is a necessary precondition of thought?

This is reprinted from a chapter in The Standard Bearer.

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According to one estimate, the Eastern Orthodox Church in America has over six million members, making it the fourth largest religious body in the country. Historically, most Orthodox Americans have been immigrants from eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Russia, Ukraine). While this is still the case, the last twenty five years have witnessed a number of high-profile conversions to Orthodoxy. Surprisingly, many of these converts have come from evangelical roots.

Peter Gillquist and other former Campus Crusade for Christ staff members led a group of people into Orthodoxy during the 70′s and 80′s.¹ Charles Bell led most of his Vineyard Christian Fellowship congregation into the Eastern church in 1993.² Perhaps the most high-profile conversion was that of Franky Schaeffer, son of the late Francis Schaeffer, who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1990.³ The trend East hit home in 1995 when a minister of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the denomination of Machen, Van Til, Murray and Bahnsen, demitted the ministry and converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. Even the thought of such apostasy would not have occurred twenty-five years ago. (more…)

Advocates of the Framework Hypothesis recognize that considerations of the literary structure of Genesis 1 is not in itself sufficient to establish their conclusion that the narration of the six days of creation in Genesis 1 is topical and figurative rather than chronological and literal. They, therefore, have put forth a supplementary argument based on considerations from Genesis 2:5. Meredith Kline is the originator of the argument, but many others have picked up on it. Mark Futato summarizes it thus:

The ["Because It Had Not Rained"] article demonstrated that according to Gen 2:5 ordinary providence was God’s mode of operation during the days of creation. Since God’s mode of operation was ordinary providence, and since, for example, light (Day 1) without luminaries (Day 4) is not ordinary providence, the arrangement of the six days of creation in Genesis 1 must be topical not chronological.

Kline and Futato contend that Genesis 2:5 provides an important insight into how we are to understand the creation week. Since, on this interpretation, God used ordinary providence (rain) to maintain earth’s vegetation, we should infer from this that ordinary providence was the modus operandi of the creation week. That is, God’s ordinary way of maintaining his creation obtained during the period of his creation of the heavens and earth and was only punctuated at certain intervals by his creative fiats. This being the case, it is obvious, for example, that the creation of light on one day and light bearers on another is a violation of ordinary providence. And so we are not to read Genesis 1 as a chronology of God’s creative works, but as a “semi-poetic” topical arrangement of how God fashioned the world in its present form. (more…)

This essay is based on a lecture delivered by MRB at a 1998 conference.

Introduction

The title ”The Fossils Don’t Speak!” is intended to evoke curiosity from those familiar with creationist literature. It is, of course, a reversal of the title of a book written by Dr. Duane Gish. However, the contradiction may or may not actually be a corrective to the work of Dr. Gish or his creation-science colleagues, as we will see.

The thesis I will argue for is that the debate between Christianity and Darwinism is conducted at the wrong level. The level that it is commonly carried out on is what we can call the evidential or factual level. One side puts forth evidence in support of Darwinian evolution while the other proffers evidence against it. The debate, then, is to be resolved by judging which side possesses the preponderance of the evidence. Obviously the Darwinists think the weight of evidence leans on the side of evolutionary theory while creationists think the scale is tipped in the other direction.

I do not maintain that scientific evidence is irrelevant to the creation-evolution debate – such a claim would be patently absurd. Nevertheless, scientific evidence in itself is insufficient to decide the issue either way. By this I do not mean that I think the evidence is ambiguous. I firmly believe that the scientific research that has been done clearly indicates that every living (and non-living) thing in the universe is the result of direct act of creation by God and not the product of an evolutionary process.
However, I also believe that a debate of this issue on purely scientific evidence will get nowhere. The debate must take place on a different level before any resolution is possible. Thus my present objective is not to refute Darwinism and vindicate creationism. Instead I will endeavor to realign the terms of the (more…)