The Church

Guns in the Church

Dan Doriani
Nov 15, 2018
Guns in Church When I was a pastor, ten years ago, I learned that a married couple, both FBI agents, joined my church. We already had two police officers in attendance, but I welcomed the news in a day when church shootings, like school shootings, were in the news. "It makes me feel safer," one...

Worship in Redemptive History

Mark Johnston
Nov 9, 2018
The ‘wars’ that have raged around ‘worship’ are anything but new. Even though they may only been expressed explicitly in these terms in the recent history of the church, they are as old as the church. Indeed they are as old as our race itself. The very moment the serpent questioned the principle...

The Statement on SJ&G Explained: Article 8, The Church

Josh Buice
Oct 17, 2018
[Editorial Note: This is the eighth post in a series of posts in which we have invited the authors of "The Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel" to expound upon the statement's affirmations and denials. We encourage our readers to take the time to read through our prefatory editorial note at...

Anne of Bohemia and her Multilingual Scriptures

Simonetta Carr
Oct 9, 2018
On December 18, 1381, 15-year old Anne crossed the British Channel with her large entourage. It was a wretched time for travel, but she was on her last stretch of her 700-miles journey from Prague. It was the season for storms, but thankfully the winds rose only after her crossing, destroying her...

Prudentius of Spain – A Classical Christian Poet

Simonetta Carr
Sep 18, 2018
Around 392 AD, 57-year old Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, native of Spain, decided to examine his life. The years had flown by, and he found himself suddenly old. He was, in reality, old according the standards of his time, and his white hair (“the snow on my head” [1] ) stood as witness of the many...

Still Protesting, a Pastor’s Perspective

Tim Bertolet
Sep 14, 2018
Let’s be honest: the evangelical and Protestant church has seen better days. We have our own scandals. In a fast-paced world, our faults are replicated through our communities at a much quicker rate than in previous generations. We may not have a pope but we certainly have a celebrity culture of...

'Til Kingdom Come

Nick Batzig
Sep 12, 2018
So much recent debate surrounding social justice seems to boil down to fundamental disagreements and misunderstandings about the relationship between the "Kingdom of God" and the "Church." Many have conflated these two biblical concepts so as to lose the clear lines of demarcation regarding the...

In it Together

Mark Johnston
Aug 30, 2018
Ours is an age of rapidly rising social disintegration. Loneliness and isolation are major issues – not just for the elderly, but for every other age group as well. It would be naïve not to see some connection between these issues and the steady erosion of the classic concept ‘family’ in Western...

Ratramnus of Corbie and His Book on the Lord’s Supper

Simonetta Carr
Aug 28, 2018
Little is known about Ratramnus. He was a Benedictine monk at Corbie Abbey, in Picardy, France, who had gained an excellent reputation as scholar and writer. Besides his work on the Lord’s Supper ( On the Body and Blood of the Lord ), he wrote several books, including a popular treatise in four...

Maximus the Confessor and The Two Wills of Christ

Simonetta Carr
Aug 25, 2018
At the beginning of the seventh century, the decision of the Council of Chalcedon that Jesus had two natures, human and divine, indivisible but distinct, was still not universally accepted. Even if the Council had specified that the expression “two natures” doesn’t mean that Jesus is “parted or...