The Church
Christianity and Liberalism comes to bear on the final chapter as Machen urges the recovery of a high view of the church.
The abiding value of Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism will be lost on those who fail to give his last chapter a careful study. A church that locates its calling in the flourishing of an individual’s personal religious experience is one that has succumbed to worldliness. Machen directs us instead to see the church’s calling as stewarding the... Continue Reading
Christianity and Worldly Philosophy
The great purpose of Machen’s book is to insist that only true Christianity can answer the challenge of materialism and to show that true Christianity is entirely different from and opposed to liberal or modernistic pseudo-Christianity.
His reflections on the nature of true Christianity in each chapter show the profound and powerful importance of these truths. But before he develops this great theme, he reflects briefly on the broader issues confronting Christians in our times, particularly naturalism and materialism. “Material betterment has gone hand in hand with spiritual decline,” he writes. As... Continue Reading
The Modernist Conflict in the American Church
The rejection of God and the dismissal of religion sit atop the list of modernism’s endeavors.
Christianity and Liberalism may be even more applicable today, one hundred years after it was first published, than it was originally. As we contend for the faith in the perennial, ceaseless struggle as it manifests in our day, we can give thanks to God for Machen and his book, and we would do well to spend... Continue Reading
What are We Here for? Sproul and Worship
This brief volume by R. C. Sproul is a little gem of a book.
Moses and the Burning Bush (Ligonier Ministries, 2018), it of course deals with what we find in Exodus 3. And it appears to be a reworking of some of his earlier material, and those who are familiar with his work will find much recognisable material here. But still, for Sproul fans, it is worth adding this little book... Continue Reading
Review: The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry
Louise Perry exposes some very dark aspects of the sexual revolution.
Perry can see the problems and where our cherished “freedom” has led us. The powerful abuse their privileges. The weak and the poor are exploited. Many of our desires are damaging or outright evil. Perry can see and feel the damage these things do, and her common sense—under the sway of common grace—helps her to... Continue Reading
Trinitarian Heterodoxy Eclipses Marriage (Once Again)
Brief analysis on the theological appropriateness of using unqualified persons of the Trinity as an analogy for marriage.
Within the economic Trinity there is a Divine Person with a non-divine will that makes Jesus’ submission to God both possible and fitting. Accordingly, the Christ to God authority and submission is not a Trinity consideration per se but a limited consideration of the union of two natures in one hypostasis. Yet the submission of wife to husband finds its analogy to Christ to God not in an ordering of being but in creative design just the same. A... Continue Reading
The Spirit’s Work of Conviction through the Conscience of a Sinner
Conviction of Sin
Conscience is the territory or dominion of God in man, which he has so reserved unto himself that no human power can possibly enter into it or dispose of it in any wise. But in this work of conviction of sin, the word of God, the Scripture, enters into the conscience of the sinner, takes... Continue Reading
Douglas MacArthur, Christianity and Japan
What General MacArthur managed to do in Japan after the war was nothing short of remarkable.
Supreme Commander: MacArthur’s Triumph in Japan by Seymour Morris, Jr. (Harper, 2014). What a huge task MacArthur had. This was a militaristic society that had engaged in some of the worst wartime atrocities ever (recall the Rape of Nanking, the Rape of Manilla, their pursuit of biological warfare, and so on), and here was an American general tasked with... Continue Reading
And Then There Was One
Book Review: An Emotionally Raw Journey Through Spousal Grief
Echol’s book is not a theology of death, yet teaches that God reigns over death and provides ultimate hope beyond it. This is a beautiful, hopeful little book and one I’m glad to recommend. I don’t know what it is like to lose a spouse. I don’t know what it is like to bid... Continue Reading
Basic Axioms on The Holy Spirit
The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, composed in A.D. 381, sums up the considered biblical exegesis and doctrinal commitments of the church at the time.
Given that the Spirit is one with the Father and the Son from eternity, he is to be worshiped with them in one united act of adoration. We were all baptized into the one name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Since God is one indivisible being, it is inconceivable that the... Continue Reading
