Tag: Against

Things remain politically charged in the world, clearly; especially during this season of time as we lead up to the American presidential election in November. Ever since Trump, in 2016, it seems the balance of powers in the world have been disrupted, to a point that they are no longer willing to conceal their movements. These are indeed, trying and confusing times for Christians. Many simply want nothing to do with the politick, which is very understandable. Personally, I have grown weary of such things as well. And yet as Christians we are to be salt and light in the…

I am currently reading Megan Basham’s recently released book Shepherds For Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. She goes after folks who I have identified as mainstream evangelical leaders (to one degree or another), such as: Russell Moore, Ed Stetzer, JD Greear, Gavin Ortlund, and many others. I have only made it through chapter 1, on climate change. But I know the basic thesis of the book, and that there is leftist money intentionally being funneled into the evangelical environs in order to soften evangelicals to progressive themes; such as: climate change, the LGBTQI+ agenda,…

I’m starting to believe as I continue my trek through the 6M words of Barth’s CD that many young (and some old) so-called Barth scholars have never read through Barth’s CD. There are things in there about history, the resurrection, so on and so forth that completely emaciate any claim that Barth did not believe in a bodily, historical resurrection of Jesus Christ. How Barth thought of history, through Christ, ends up being different than the historicist vision. Even so, for Barth it is bodily, historical, history delimiting and primordial event. The way Barth takes Bultmann to task directly, in…

“Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. 19 He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. 20 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he has brought justice through to victory. 21     In his name the nations will put their hope.” –Mathew 12.18-21 If, ten years ago, you had told me that I would live to see literate evangelicals, some with…

Is God really knowable, secularly, in the vestiges of the created order? In other words, does God repose in the fallen order to the point that vain and profane people can come to have some type of vestigial knowledge of the living God? According to Thomas Aquinas, and other scholastics of similar ilk, the answer is a resounding: yes. Here is Thomas himself: as we have shown [q. 32, a. 1], the Trinity of persons cannot be demonstratively proven. But it is still congruous to place it in the light of some things which are more manifest to us. And…

Here is a quote from TF Torrance on how he believed John Calvin contributed to the theological world, and thus how he would think on how “Calvinists” have used Calvin in the wrong ways, and for wrong ends; essentially muting the seismic Calvin into the tremor Calvin that is only allowed to shake to rhythms presented by classic Calvinism of today and even yesterday. True, Richard Muller and other post-Reformed orthodox Calvinists like David Steinmetz have placed Calvin in Context, but whose context? You should read the whole essay that I pilfer this quote from, from Heron; he might provide you with a rounder understanding of Calvin, and…

Legalism continues to be rife on the theological interwebs. An OnlyFans porn star (at the top of the “game”) just gave her life to Christ (she grew up as a Baptist pastor’s kid, like me). I watched her whole interview, where she shared her life story and testimony, on the Michael Knowles show (2:20 minutes). She has gotten lots of pushback and skepticism, particularly on the website formerly known as Twitter. There is a high profile (on said website) Jewess who has been saying vile things about this former star. But she’s a Jewess and not a Christian; so, definitionally…

Matthew Barrett, Craig Carter, and many others are attempting to renew the church through retrieving their reading of the Protestant Reformation. All they are really doing is retrieving Roman Catholic neo-Thomism, and the attending medieval categories therein, as the balm of Gilead they believe such retrieval will accomplish for the failing evangelical church. And yet this is the irony: they are simply promoting a substance metaphysics, and the decretal God therefrom, which the OG reformers were intent on dismantling in the name of Christ and revelation. TF Torrance underscores these matters for us: That is what happened at the Reformation….

Definitions are important; if for no other reason but to understand what something means. Context provides meaning, and thus definition, for words; whether that is in sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books, so on and so forth. When attempting to understand where a particular theologian lies, as far as classification, within the alternative types of being a theologian, it is important that we get a handle on the definitions used to ascertain that. In the medieval period, generally, a theologian could be classified as a scholastic theologian, or a Christian humanist; or potentially, both, depending on the way someone enters into the…

When the work of Christ is separated from the person of Christ, all you can be left with are either pure Pelagian or semi-Pelagian doctrines of salvation; as that becomes funded by some functional type of an adoptionistic christology (e.g., Ebionism etc.) This is why TFT refers to the Latin Heresy: he is referring to theologies, Western-Augustinian ones, that ultimately don’t think salvation, as both objectified and subjectivized in the Monarxia of God in the person of Jesus Christ. When this or that individual person is understood as being “elect” of God, based on an arbitrary and hidden decree of…