By teaching two kinds of righteousness, one imputed and one actual, Hooker makes room for us both to truly become holy and for our works to contribute to that holiness.
Web Exclusives
American Disestablishment: The Conclusion
While the Commonwealth was not the cartoonish inquisition its detractors make it out to be, the Cromwellian regime by no means approached what eventually became the understanding of toleration in the American republic.
“Presbyterians” and the Making of an Informal Establishment (Pt. 2)
So far, I have worked to argue that the English Reformed tradition had already become considerably less magisterial by the mid-seventeenth century. Next, I want to suggest that Cromwell’s move towards supporting a kind of multiple establishment had echoes in the early republic, first in the abortive attempts to create shared establishments that would support churches of various denominations, as was attempted by Jefferson’s enemies in Virginia, then by the creation of an informal evangelical establishment in which Presbyterians and Congregationalists played the central role.
The Decline of the Magisterial Tradition and the Rise of the Cromwellian Consensus (Pt. 1)
After the conclusion of the English Civil War, the tensions between two Puritan emphases began to become apparent: the ideal of the “godly magistracy,” which assumed general uniformity in religious practice, and the tendency towards a “gathered church,” which had encouraged the gathering of the “godly” in separate assemblies.
A Theology of Proportion
A Review of God in Himself: Scripture, Metaphysics, and the Task of Christian Theology, by Steven J. Duby (InterVarsity Press Academic, 2019) When considering how to engage in theology, two inclinations tend to be opposed. The first prioritizes “a speculative doctrine...
Whether One May Flee From a Deadly Plague
The Black Death, which from 1347 to 1350 swept out of China or India to the Crimea and thence into Europe and as far as Iceland, killed one-fourth of the population of Europe.
How the Reformation Vanquished Death
For the Christian, the threat of death, in whatever form it comes, does not have the final word. Jesus said it this way: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).
THE SOUL OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
Colin Redemer discusses the need for Christian education in the midst of the modern secular world.
Jesus and Pacifism: A Correspondence (Pt. III)
Part 3 of a 3 part correspondence on Jesus and pacifism from 2017.
Jesus and Pacifism: A Correspondence (Pt. II)
Part 2 of a 3 part correspondence on Jesus and pacifism from 2017.