Leading the way not just in word, but in song, was Martin Luther. He wrote nearly forty hymns, many of which he composed not only the words but even the music. His most famous, of course, “A Mighty Fortress,” often is called “The Battle Hymn of the Reformation.”   The Reformers didn’t just protest; they... Continue Reading

Does modern evangelicalism suffer from a lack of tradition and historical awareness? Not so fast, says Kenneth Stewart, a theologian teaching at Covenant College. His book, In Search of Ancient Roots: The Christian Past and the Evangelical Identity Crisis, tells a different story than we’re accustomed to hearing.   About 20 years ago, theologian D. H.... Continue Reading

To be able to point Christians to a sovereign God who has revealed himself as gracious in Christ is perhaps the single most important thing that a pastor can do. When the problems of this fallen world close in on us, as they inevitably will, there can be a tendency to see our sin or... Continue Reading

“What’s the church to do? Do we take up arms to fight a culture war, even though we have rarely waged such wars in a faithful or loving way? How do we proclaim the gospel of Christ while simultaneously affirming the lordship of Christ over human design and the nature of truth?”   The recent... Continue Reading

…Third, Davies was one of the first American ministers to actively labor among the African slaves, and received many of them into membership in his Hanover congregation. Fourth, he started a mission to the Overhill Cherokees along the western borders of North Carolina and South Carolina. Fifth, his sermons were among the most popular in... Continue Reading

When did America become uncoupled from reality? In Anderson’s account, we were already losing our grip when our nation was founded. Although school teachers tell the story of our founding with almost exclusive reference to the Pilgrims, America’s real founding fathers were the Puritans, members of a “nutty religious cult” who believed in “fantasies” such... Continue Reading

One of my three favorites among new biographies is Scott Hendrix’s Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer (Yale, 2015), which shows how “separating religion from moralism was Luther’s revolutionary innovation.” Moralistic religion meant designating holy ground, building temples as places to make sacrifices, creating ceremonies, and going through procedures that, when checked off, would guarantee eternal rewards. But Luther... Continue Reading

Christina explains that this is what sisterhood is all about. It’s about meeting physical needs. It’s about mourning together and rejoicing together. It’s about exhorting and encouraging each other, spurring each other on in the race. And it’s about not pretending we have it all together: How do we pretend? We put on our very best... Continue Reading

“This psychologizing of sin and salvation has an immediacy about it that is appealing in this troubled age, this age of broken beliefs and broken lives.  The cost, however, is that it so subverts the process of moral understanding that sin loses its sinfulness, at least before God.  And whereas in classical spirituality it was... Continue Reading

“That the people here  intended (in Heb. 6:4-6) are not true and sincere believers, in the strict and proper sense of that name, at least they are not described here as such; so that from this nothing can be concluded concerning them that are so, as to the possibility of their total and final apostasy.... Continue Reading