Brad Isbell and D.G. Hart have raised criticisms of the Presbyterian council members of The Gospel Coalition for tolerating, or at the very least refusing to acknowledge the confessional incongruences that come from tolerating, the use and praise of images of Christ at TGC website. I have deep reservations about parachurch groups and the “networks are the future of Christianity” ethos of TGC. I also affirm the Westminster Standards’ understanding of the law and the regulative principle. The Reformed tradition’s history of exegesis on the second commandment notwithstanding, I do believe Isbell and Hart have misunderstood our confessional documents on this issue. It is the Standards, after all, which we have vowed to uphold, not the exegetical tradition…
I had intended to keep up my comments on the Joint Declaration on Justification (JDDJ) that I began this summer, but time got away from me.
The JDDJ sets out to demonstrate that there is a common consensus between the Lutheran and Catholic signatories on the fundamental aspects of the doctrine of justification. The JDDJ is a reminder that Protestants need to engage with Roman Catholics as they actually are, not with caricatures of them…
There is much to commend with the report, as I previously mentioned. However, the JDDJ falls short of addressing the primary concerns that confessional Protestants and Trentine Catholics had with the doctrine of justification….
The U.S. Congress’ Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) held a hearing this morning on American-Turkish relations (the hearing starts around the 14:00 minute mark), with a focus on the imprisonment of American and EPC pastor Andrew Brunson, who has been held on fabricated charges since last year’s failed coup. Brunson’s daughter Jacqueline Furnari was one of the testifying witnesses…
The debate over religious liberty and abortion, as it relates to Satanism, is an indication of the weakness of a cultural attempting to legislate and rule on the basis of secular, that is, neutral, principles. Sociologist James Davison Hunter, who coined the term ‘culture wars’, has this to say in a lengthy, but valuable, article…
