Category: Evangelical Calvinist

Leave it to Barth to see an analogy of the incarnation (the hypostatic union) as the inner-theological basis of the Great Commandment found in Matthew 22:37–40. Let me share that now, with a concluding remark following. It is taken from Barth’s Church Dogmatics III/2 §45: For a true understanding, we can and must think of what is popularly called the twofold law of love—for God and neighbour (Mk. 12.29-31 and par.). It is no accident that it was Jesus who summed up the Law and the prophets in this particular way. He was speaking primarily and decisively of the law…

The goal of “wokeness” (which is really Postmodern relativism) is to destroy the idea that there are any stable realities or truth; or Truth, as the case may be. It functions like an acid, that once released, eats away at everything it comes into contact with. It has telos, or purpose, ironically. Rene Descartes, at least in an early modern sense, kicked off this type of corrosive chemical, through his methodological skepticism, most commonly understood in the anecdote cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). This turns the subject into the self as the ground from whence all of…

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1:1-2   What does it mean to be genuinely human? This is a question philosophers, world religions, little kids, and others have been pondering for the millennia. Rather than speculate though, as Christians we have the more accurate way, the more concrete way; God’s way for answering said question. As is the case with everything in the Christian kingdom, our…

I thought I would share a little theological exegetical reasoning I engaged in, almost 28 years ago now. This was before I had ever received any formal theological training; read any deep theology books; learned the original biblical languages, so on and so forth. But I had been a Christian since a young child; I had grown up in the home of a spiritually sensitive pastor’s home (my dad); and was around ‘biblicist’ churchy thought my whole life. So, it wasn’t like I had no theological resource, indeed, we operated with what today might be called Free Grace theology. I…

When God is understood as the unmoved mover, the Great Law-giver in the sky; when God is known to work through decrees, in a God-world relation; when God is understood as a pure being (or pure act actus purus); when God is known to have ad hoc favorites among the massa of humanity; there is no place for disobedience. The above is to say the following: if God is first understood as the Judge rather than the Father, if He isn’t known as the Judge judged, as the Father of the Son by the Holy Spirit, then all that is…

Performance based theories of salvation continue to plague the evangelical Protestant landscapes. Whether that be funded by a Reformed background (inclusive of Reformed proper, and Arminianism et al.), or Lutheran (either orthodox, and/or mainstream). When people are offered a notion of God wherein He is understood as a juridical God, one who relates to the world through a covenant of works/grace, or other like frameworks, at which point law-keeping sublimates grace into its image, those under this specter live a life of deep angst, always wondering if they are going to finally measure up (or persevere) unto the final reward:…

A genuine Christianity is not pluriform, it does not have multitudinous realities at its core. It is not a cluster of beliefs that likeminded people rally around. A genuine Christianity—its inner reality—is in fact a person; it is God for us in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ. When people exit or walk away from this or that perceived form or expression of the “Christian existence,” they aren’t walking away from Christianity’s inner reality, per se, if in fact they believe that to be exhaustively represented in the form of that, as they have come to experience that, in this…

The Eastern Liturgy: Christmas Joy Christ is born! Tell forth His fame! Christ from heaven! His love proclaim! Christ on earth! Exalt His name! Sing to the Lord, O world, with exultation! Break forth with glad thanksgiving, every nation! For He has triumphed gloriously! Man in God’s own likeness made, Man by Satan’s lies betrayed, Man by sting of death dismayed, Banished from hope of life and of salvation, By Christ today is made a new creation: For He has triumphed gloriously! God the Maker, when His foe Dragged us down to death and woe, Bowed the heavens and came…

What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be free? These are the types of questions that have often plagued the Christian theological dialogue for centuries. Indeed, these theoanthropological loci have been the source of much consternation and division; that is, depending on how disparate Christian thinkers conclude on an answer to these questions. Often, whether in the theological or philosophical realms, answering these questions are reduced to, generally, two disparate tribes: 1) Arminian/Libertarian Free Agency, and 2) Calvinism/Compatibilist Determinism. There are of course other iterations of expression along the continuum that these seemingly two polar…

If you’re on X, the site formerly known as Twitter—Christian theological X, in particular—you will more than likely be exposed to a certain mode of so-called Christian Nationalism. This mode is of a modern postmillennial variety of the theonomic type. Without getting into the nuts-and-bolds of said framework, it essentially believes that the Great Commission entails the Christianizing of the entire world; in other words, the establishment of a Christendom. Some might look at a post-Constantinian world as what a Christendom involves. So, that is one take on a theological Christian Nationalism, which is seeing some legs under it these…