Essay / Theology

The Center of Athanasius’ Theology

Most people who read the writings of Athanasius are struck by his singlemindedness. Most of his writings are ad hoc, responses to provocations in the hectic, decades-long argument with Arianism. Yet his theological vision is undistractable. He seems to be a pastoral satellite orbiting one

Essay / Theology

Sacramental Punctuation

One of the interesting moments of disagreement at the recent Future of Protestantism discussion was when Leithart and Trueman tried to come to terms with each other on the place of sacraments in Christian worship. Leithart spoke movingly of the Lord’s supper as the high

Essay / Theology

Oneness Pentecostalism: An Analysis

Not Your Grandpa’s Anti-Trinitarianism It is a disturbing fact that the most vigorous form of anti-trinitarianism currently on the market is to be found within the sphere of conservative evangelicalism. In the nineteenth century, the dominant variety of anti-trinitarianism was the old-world Unitarianism which found

Essay / Theology

The Difficult Art of Obscuring the Trinity (Reimarus)

Christians have long claimed that they got the doctrine of the Trinity from the Bible itself. While admitting that they had rendered the doctrine more explicit, and also admitting that they had crafted a set of non-biblical terms (like person, nature, triune, etc.) to help

Essay / Theology

Symposium on Soulen’s The Divine Name(s)

The Winter 2014 issue of Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology features a 58-page symposium on Kendall Soulen‘s important 2011 book The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity: Distinguishing the Voices. That seems like a lot of pages of commentary, but they are well deserved: Soulen’s

Essay / Theology

Saying Stuff (about the Lord's Supper)

This is the Lord’s Supper meditation I gave at Grace Evangelical Free Church in La Mirada on Dec 2, 2012. Sometimes people stand up in front of a group and just start saying stuff. They just have a microphone, and an audience, and some ideas in their head,

Essay / Theology

The Broken Trinity (Forsaken pt. 1)

See the other essays in this four-part series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. Tom McCall’s recent Forsaken:  The Trinity and the Cross, and Why it Matters (IVP, 2012—thanks to IVP for a copy!) is a very stimulating little book. Its four short

Essay / Theology

Sanctification: Two Meanings

First you’re justified, then you become sanctified, and finally you’ll be glorified. To make progress as a disciple is to grow in sanctification. Right? Yes, this is how we talk. And when we talk this way, we know what we’re talking about. The word “sanctification”

Essay / Theology

Lenten Asceticism

As most of you know, we are nearly two weeks into Lent, that forty day period that we set aside before Easter to prepare ourselves for the remembrance of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s an important season in the church calendar

Essay / Culture

New Year's Resolutions and Biblical Renewal

I stood in church and watched two baptisms on the first day of 2012. Just a few hours before, a couple of friends and I had raised glasses and toasted the new year. Then, there in the sanctuary, two heads were lowered and splashed in that old reenactment of Christ’s new life.

Essay / Culture

Pietism—What Is It Good For?

It is a truth universally acknowledged (among theologians, or at least most of them), that a Christian in possession of a Pietistic spirituality, must be in want of a social ethic. Pietists, those champions of heart religion, those prototypes of today’s experience-driven religion, were so

Essay / Theology

Here Comes Pentecost: Good Books on the Holy Spirit

Hey, according to the liturgical calendar, it’s Pentecost Sunday! Quick, think about the Holy Spirit. Here are some of my favorite books on pneumatology, off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m leaving out a few even better books, but there’s an embarrassment of