“I and others have emphasized the contrast between Ben Franklin’s self-professed Deism and his longtime friendship with the Calvinist evangelist George Whitefield, but Lepore convinced me that his sister’s influence likely had an even stronger tethering effect connecting Ben to the faith of his childhood.”   In my Baylor graduate seminar on the American Revolution,... Continue Reading

“Before Langton (1150-1228), several people had tried to divide the longer books of the Bible into more manageable chunks. But his version was the one that stuck and is the basis of the chapters we use today.”   Anyone who knows about Magna Carta and King John has probably heard of Stephen Langton, the Archbishop... Continue Reading

He joined the faculty in 2006 after several years of teaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he served for several years as Assistant and later Associate Professor of Systematic Theology. In fall 2012 he took on administrative duties as Academic Dean, and his service in that role involved the addition of three new faculty... Continue Reading

Astonishingly the religiosity of Congress is considerably higher than America at large. Seventy-one percent of Americans describe themselves as Christian, according to Pew statistics. While significant, the proportion of Americans who identify as Christian remains nearly 20 percentage points lower than members of Congress. In particular, Catholicism and the four major Mainline traditions were overrepresented relative to the American population.

Brunson and his wife, Norine, who have lived in Turkey for over 20 years, were reportedly summoned back in October to discuss their application to renew their visas, but were instead arrested by Turkish police. While Norine was released 13 days later, Brunson was charged with having links to terror organizations.   A Turkish court... Continue Reading

Rightly motivated devotional habits are never legalistic. Neither the strictest obedience to the Word of God nor the most zealous pursuit of holiness is ever legalistic if one’s motives are right. The measurement of legalism is not the consistency of one’s devotional practices but the heart’s reason for doing them. Finally, you’ll likely never be less... Continue Reading

Hodge and the Princetonians never seemed prepared to accommodate the egalitarian, populist tendencies within evangelicalism, a fact that limited Hodge’s appeal to rank-and-file believers. Indeed, Hodge seems representative of those in the Reformed segment of evangelicalism who struggle to sympathize with their more “democratic” Christian brethren. This tension persists today, as Reformed folks routinely lament... Continue Reading

The Presbyterian hierarchy simply responded — with a hammer, mind you — to Machen’s provocations. That could have been the case but no one argued that. They largely reduced Machen to a cantankerous figure who got what most of us would expect if we rock the boat the way he did.   Reformed Protestants 50... Continue Reading

But as he took stock of the rest of his life, Campolo decided that there was no reason an atheist couldn’t still be a minister too. Instead of comforting people with the good news of Jesus, he’d preach secular humanism, a kinder cousin of atheism. He’d help them accept that we’re all going to die, that this life is all there is and that therefore we have to make the most of our brief, glorious time on earth. And he would spread this message using the best evangelical techniques — the same ones he had mastered as a Christian.

We should pray with gratitude when we think of our minister: “Merciful Father, we thank Thee that it pleases Thee by the ministry of men to gather Thy church out of the lost human race to life eternal. We acknowledge the gift of this thy servant, sent to this people as a messenger of Thy... Continue Reading