Author: Fred Sanders
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Finney, Finney, Finney
Today (August 29) is the birthday of Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875), whose accomplishments as a revivalist preacher are staggering. The most striking statistic usually reported is that when he came to Rochester, the population tripled but the crime rate dropped by two-thirds. Other preachers might be bold enough to preach against the evils of saloons,…
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Who Said “The Trinity: Try to Understand It, and You’ll Lose Your Mind”?
Read Fred Sanders’s follow-up here. Here is a saying that you run into frequently in popular books on the Trinity: The Trinity: Try to Understand It and You’ll Lose Your Mind. Try to Deny It and You’ll LOSE YOUR SOUL! This aphorism is usually introduced with the vague reference, “As somebody has said…” In fact,…
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How Augustine Died
Today (August 28) is the day Augustine of Hippo died in the year 430. His first biographer, Possidius, tells us how it happened in his Life of Augustine. Augustine died in the city of Hippo, which was under siege by barbarians throughout his final illness (he contracted a fever “in the third month of the…
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Griffith-Thomas: Principles of Trinitarian Theology
William Henry Griffith Thomas (1861-1924) wrote an excellent one-volume systematic theology called The Principles of Theology. Published in 1930, it takes the form of an evangelical commentary on the 39 Articles of the Church of England. According to J.I. Packer, the book “may be said to have rounded off a four-hundred year era of Protestant…
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Caesarius of Arles
Today (August 27) is the day Ceasarius, Bishop of Arles, died in the year 542. He is most important because of things he didn’t write. Caesarius never wanted to be original, and he wasn’t. He was a conservator and transmitter of the Christian tradition as he received it. He had been a monk at Lerins…
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Karl Bahrdt, Worst Theologian Ever
Today (August 25) is the birthday of Karl Friedrich Bahrdt (1741-1792), a theologian so bad that it is hard to find anything good to say about him. (He liked tolerance. There, I said one good thing about him.) He was, says one encyclopedia, “a caricature of the vulgar rationalism of the eighteenth century.” A Lutheran…
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What the Trinity is For
What is the Trinity for? I hear this question all the time, in churches and classrooms. It comes from different kinds of people: From well-established Christians who have the basics of a life of discipleship figured out, are spiritually healthy, and who are getting along just fine without thinking often of the Trinity. From apologists…
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Bultmann and Tillich: Same Birthday, Same Problem
Two of the most influential academic theologians of the twentieth century share today, August 20, as their birthday: Paul Tillich (1886-1965) and Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976). What an odd coincidence. I wonder if they ever celebrated it together. Both men were prolific, and their theological projects were very different: Tillich was above all a theologian of…
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Happy Birthday, Cyrus Scofield
Cyrus Ingerson Scofield was born this day (August 19) in 1843, and died in 1921. A confederate veteran, Scofield had a shameful life (alcoholism, prison for forgery, divorce, etc.) before his conversion and call to pastoral ministry. His fame is linked to his 1909 Reference Bible, the resource that put the first draft of dispensational…
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College, Can I Trust You With This?
A parable from pastor Voddie Baucham, Jr.: It was a cold winter night. Jack was sitting in front of the fire carefully lining up the pieces from his gun cleaning kit. He had cleaned his gun before, but tonight was different; tonight the cleaning had a dual purpose. One purpose was to see that his…
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Trinitarian Gallstones of Clare of Montefalco
What you need, as a Christian, is Jesus in your heart and the Trinity in your guts. At least that’s what Clare of Montefalco had. Today (August 18) was the day that Clare of Montefalco (1268-1308) died. Clare entered the Augustinian convent at age nine. By the end of her life she was abbess of…
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William Carey’s Birthday, and India’s
Today (August 17) is the birthday of William Carey (1761-1834), whose name is “synonymous with the heroic age of the Protestant missionary movement” (according to Timothy George). And the birthday falls two days after Indian Independence Day (August 15, 1947). The case for William Carey’s impact on India has been put maximally by Ruth and…