The Church

As we celebrate the 500 th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, it’s good to travel back about 1400 earlier, when a concerned pastor and missionary to today’s France sat down to write a well-informed and comprehensive work, in order to provide some clarity in his confused theological times...

In the previous articles, I have suggested that C.S. Lewis’s article, “First and Second Things” provides an understanding as to why pastors experience burnout. Lewis said that when first things are eclipsed by second things both are lost. In the first post, I suggested that a way of avoiding or...

Pastoral burnout is a significant problem in the church today. In the last article, I suggested that C.S. Lewis’s article, “First and Second Things” might be helpful in diagnosing the problem. Lewis said that when first things are eclipsed by second things both things are lost. In that first post,...

Katherine Parr’s life is punctuated by danger, action, and scandal. We usually remember her close brush with death, when a powerful group of courtesans plotted to destroy her. Some may remember her contested marriage to Thomas Seymour, who kept the gossiping tongues of London happily wagging...

Giulia Gonzaga’s early life sounds like a fairy tale. At age 20, she was already one of the most envied women in Italy. She owned large properties and her castle was a favorite meeting place for artists, poets, and musicians. She was considered the most beautiful woman in the country. Yet, she was...

"Let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me…" (Jeremiah 9:24a) That verse captures the goal of Trinitarian theology: to know the amazing God that we worship. It is a task in which we must confess our impotence, for we are limited by both our own fallible reason and the...

I don’t know about you, but I find it interesting that Hebrews 13 ends with an encouragement to obey and submit to the elders of the congregation. In fact, leaders are mentioned three times from v. 7 to the end of the chapter. Now, we’re not told why it ends this way but one certainly wonders. And...

The Jesuit Jean Pelletier, called by Duke Ercole II of Este to put a stop to the dangerous “Lutheran” practices of his wife Renée, was not impressed by his conversation with the duchess. “The poor woman has no education,” he wrote to his Father Superior, Ignatius of Loyola. “She only knows a few...