I just learned that I could list my congregation in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church at The Gospel Coalition’s Church Directory. If I knew how to take a screenshot or if my machine would let me, I could show you the page where all I would need to do is enter the church name, address, pastor’s name, website and social media links, congregational mission statement, and then click on the box “We Affirm The Gospel Coalition Foundation Documents.” That’s it, at... Read more
A dip into an older book of mine for a Sunday school lesson last week led me to read about anti-Clinton sentiments about a dozen years ago (just short of the 2008 presidential primaries). Here are the first two paragraphs from A Secular Faith: For many devout American Christians, the thought of the president of the United States pausing during a time of national peril or uncertainty to pray to the god of the universe is a comforting one. This... Read more
Chris Gehrz observes well how plastic the word is and so how big a hurdle it may be to “rescue” the term, evangelical, from people who voted for Trump: To this day, the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) defines itself as “an evangelical church” not only because it “stands in the mainstream of the Protestant Reformation,” quotes the Augsburg Confession, and (in some congregations) still uses Luther’s catechism for confirmation, but more because it grew out of the “religious awakening that... Read more
Sometimes the explanations of the number of evangelicals who voted for Donald Trump comes across as a tad simplistic. Consider the following from Nancy LeTourneau (thanks to John Fea): “For the first time since Europeans arrived in this country,” Mutz notes, “white Americans are being told that they will soon be a minority race.”When members of a historically dominant group feel threatened, she explains, they go through some interesting psychological twists and turns to make themselves feel okay again. First,... Read more
Paul Elie reviews Ross Douthat’s new book on Pope Francis. Notice what he leaves out (behind): As a first draft of history, “To Change the Church” is a high-wire act, an effort to maintain a balance between theology and polemics for a wide public. And yet the air is thin up there, the wire narrow and tight. From above, Douthat, seeing every act as a tactical move in the culture wars, pushing every hypothesis to its limit, ignores human experience.... Read more
As a historian and believer keenly aware of the gap between my own convictions, Reformed Protestantism, and born-again evangelicalism, I have long tried to argue that Presbyterians are not evangelical because they don’t believe the same things, don’t worship the same way, and have different conceptions of the institutional church (ordained ministry). I made that case in a 2004 book, Deconstructing Evangelicalism. Back then, reactions to the book were tepid at best. Most were skeptical or hostile. The response was... Read more
Evangelicals have no way of excluding others who self-apply the label born-again. Historic Protestants actually believe that church discipline is a mark of the church. According to the Belgic Confession (1561): The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according... Read more
The legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. continues to play out and The Gospel Coalition is hosting some of those considerations among New Calvinists. Thabiti Anyabwile has been debating white evangelicals’ complicity in racism with James White and that exchange led to this arresting comparison from pastor Anyabwile: Hitler’s Third Reich marched through Europe with hopes to establish his “super race.” Along the way he and his generals killed millions of Jewish people in concentration camps and ovens. He did... Read more
The Gospel Coalition held a conference to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., and according to several tweeters, Russell Moore stole the show with a talk based on Matthew 23. There Christ challenges the Pharisees for honoring prophets like Zechariah even when in the prophet’s day the Israelites refused to heed the prophet’s warning. 29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30... Read more
Your correspondent is as his tagline indicates a fan of Philadelphia sports and this is quite the year for Philadelphia fandom. First the Eagles, which no one saw coming and which, as was the case with the Phillies’ championship in 2008, has tempted city sports’ fans to think about repeat Superbowl rings. One thing Philadelphians don’t seem to have mastered is a sense of history and that championships are rare. That means they should be savored and should not be... Read more
Putting the Protest in Protestant
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