The Trinitarian angle on the complementarian/egalitarian debates of the last thirty years has certainly raised the stakes. It has tied sex roles into the divine being, and in doing so has turned areas of reasonable disagreement into areas where charges of heresy could well be, and have been, levelled in both directions. So the disentangling... Continue Reading

Eternal Functional Submission (EFS) proposes a hierarchical ordering of the persons of the Trinity, and thereby teaches a doctrine of the eternal distinction of the persons that runs counter to biblical and historic orthodoxy as enshrined in the Reformed confessions. In addition to the problems this creates for the simplicity of the divine essence and... Continue Reading

I am not anti-alligator, nor am I anti-gorilla. I am, however, pro-sanity and pro-consistency. Until I see protestors outside Disney demanding that someone answer for the “murder” of these slimy, scaly, terrifying, majestic creatures, I will continue to wonder whether there is a species-ist selectivity among people who think that animals and humans are morally... Continue Reading

Dispensationalism is a kind of framework for history that is organized around seven dispensations—seven orders or administrations. Particular to this framework is the eschatological position known as “premillennial dispensationalism” which holds that Christ will return prior to a literal one-thousand-year reign on earth. When I say I am not dispensational, this is primarily what I... Continue Reading

There are only two ways out of this mess—either pervasive statist control (which, of course, is exactly what the progressive left wants) or the recovery of a sense of the transcendent truths that, yes, transcend divisions of race, ethnicity, gender, and class, and provide a sense of individual and community obligation apart from governmental coercion.... Continue Reading

“These ‘ordinary’ means of grace are God’s ways of communicating his great salvation in Christ and by his Holy Spirit. The very fact, however, that the adjective ‘ordinary’ is applied to these means by which God works implies that they are not the only way he works. They may be normative, but they are not... Continue Reading

“Older Christians often have moving stories of God’s redemption and provision. They have seen his love displayed in ways that come only with decades of faithfulness. These stories display in vibrant color some of God’s attributes that might only exist in black and white for children.”   As I was leaving a restaurant recently, I... Continue Reading

Egalitarianism is “the theological view that not only are all people equal before God in their personhood, but there are no gender-based limitations of what functions or roles each can fulfill in the home, the church, and the society.” That position is contrasted by complementarianism.   I’ve got just two articles remaining in this series... Continue Reading

While the “ontological view” falls entirely within the realm of the analogy of Scripture and analogy of faith, it does not do full justice to the exegetical construct of Romans 1:3-4. Much more satisfying is the explanation provided by Warfield, Vos, Murray, Skilton, Gaffin and Ridderbos.   Over the past 150 years or so, there... Continue Reading

At his New York meeting, Trump criticized a 1950s era policy that still prohibits tax-exempt groups like churches from endorsing candidates as an ongoing abridgment of “religious freedom.” And maybe it is an undue restriction on free speech. But more routine church and clergy endorsements for political candidates, whether legally facilitated or not, seem like... Continue Reading