I’m working on a couple of writing projects at the moment. One (the longer one) involves a study of 17th and 18th century New England election sermons and the other one offers a fairly narrow thesis against Theonomy (since all of that is heating up again). In some ways, the two separate inquiries cohere. It is commonplace to hear Theonomists claiming Puritan New England as an exemplar of their theory. There is all kinds of historical reasons this is wrong.... Read more
Evangelicals love to talk about “common grace.” Some recent examples from some Big Eva big wigs: How does pro-life legislation violate separation of church and state? The state passed the legislation, not the church. There are solid common grace grounds for protecting unborn life. Glad for you to define question further. https://t.co/WlBdlMXLY8 — Albert Mohler (@albertmohler) February 20, 2021 To judge a theory remember both the anti-thetical nature of worldviews and common grace. Christians very friendly to CT often forget... Read more
I’ve been tweeting some snarky things about the cult of “expertise” in academia, the proclivity for rigid gatekeeping of its members. The impetus for my hot-take commentary is the recent incident involving the Veritas Forum’s shameful disinviting Neil Shenvi from an event on race and Christianity at which he was to debate Dr. Willie Jennings. You can read about all of that in this report by the Christian Post and Rod Dreher’s take at the American Conservative, so I won’t... Read more
I recently watched Fight of Faith, a documentary on J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) produced by Nate Morgan Locke (a former classmate of mine at Westminster) just last year. I commend it to you. Its an unorthodox (in the colloquial sense, not the theological sense of the word) approach to Machen, chronicling Nate’s discovery of the figure and engaging with his legacy. Amidst the filming of Fight of Faith, the offense archeologists of Twitter unearthed an old letter that Machen, as... Read more
Kenneth Craycraft’s analysis over at First Things of the likely-to-be-passed Equality Act paints a grim if (probably) accurate picture of the next four years (and beyond). The new president’s record-setting executive order spree in the first few weeks in office is cause for concern as to both form and content of governance, effectively sweeping away the few laudable gains made by Christian conservatives in the preceding term–though conservatives can learn some political lessons therefrom. One of these orders in particular... Read more
Last week, over at the Catholic legal theory blog, Mirror of Justice (which posts some great stuff!), Robert Vischer, dean of St. Thomas Law School, commented on the recent statement from Southern Baptist seminary presidents denouncing Critical Race Theory (CRT). Vischer’s post (“Staying Calm About Critical Race Theory“) features an increasingly common, and I think misguided, take on CRT but one that is worth engaging, nevertheless. First off, our point of agreement should be established: I too do not... Read more
The war in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) over Critical Race Theory (CRT) rages on. Volleys continue to be traded, most of which lack precision or real casualties. On the first of this month, all six of the SBC seminary presidents released a statement denouncing CRT. The official occasion of the joint resolution was the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Baptist Faith and Message (BFM), but the presidents took the opportunity to not only affirm... Read more
I don’t get worked up about much. I think the pandemic is serious—the latest numbers from Europe aren’t looking good—but I’m not too freaked out by it. I certainly don’t want to contract the virus—though I am resigned to the fact that most of us probably will—and I’m willing to take reasonable precautions to prevent that from happening. Accordingly, I’m not all that bothered by the masking thing. (Probably because my transition from graduate school life to real life, in... Read more
Baseless stereotypes surround Puritanism perhaps like no other group of people or social movement. Most of them owe more to H.L. Mencken, Arthur Miller, and Nathaniel Hawthorne than any historical data. Puritans enjoyed the simple pleasures of life (food and drink and colorful clothing) as well as the higher ones (all coram Deo, of course). Their intellectual activity could never be described as boring, one dimensional, or hyper-Biblicism. That they placed a high premium on morals and pure living was,... Read more
The Cantankerous Calvinist
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Vaccine Mandates and the Common Good
Ever since vaccination was deemed the path to salvation (i.e., return to “normalcy”) amidst the COVID-19 pandemic the anti-vaxxers have been out in full force, or maybe they always are. But average (i.e., non-anti-vax) Christians (such as myself), evangelical, Catholic, and otherwise, have also raised legitimate and important questions, both legal and ethical. Per usual, however, such considerations have been treated rather late, as in, after the vaccine (first Pfizer then Moderna then Johnson & Johnson) was being administered. Panic... Read more