Like everything else it seems, American history is being weaponized in our political and cultural wars, with both sides often playing fast and loose with the facts and adopting interpretations intended to score political points rather than to come to a deeper...
Does Christmas Have Pagan Roots?
Every year at Christmas time we hear arguments that our Christmas celebrations are little more than warmed over paganism. We hear that the date was selected to compete with pagan holidays, or worse, to absorb pagan holidays into the church, and that our Christmas...
Church as Institution
This video discusses the dual nature of the church as both the Body of Christ and an institution and incubator of institutions in society.
Late Middle Ages & Reformation | The Church Militant – Session 3
Misappropriating the Reformation (2): Sola Gratia
In the first article of this series, I argued that modern American Evangelicalism has misunderstood the teaching of the Reformers that we are saved by faith, not works, and with it the Biblical text that we are not under law but grace. While it is certainly true that...
Misappropriating the Reformation (1): Sola Fide
Although there were many streams of Protestant thought during the sixteenth century, nearly all of them agreed on three key ideas summarized by three Latin phrases: sola fide, we are saved by faith alone; sola gratia, we are saved by grace alone; and sola scriptura,...
Misappropriating the Reformation (3): Sola Scriptura
The Protestant Reformation was triggered by a conflict over the issue of justification, that is, how our sins are forgiven and how we obtain salvation. To resolve this issue, it was necessary first to address the question of theological methodology: what is your final...
A Tale of Two Revolutions, Part 1
“History is a vast early warning system.” —Norman Cousins A Bit of History Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century was a mess. On the continent, a system known as the Ancien Régime (roughly, the Old Order) governed political and social life. Particularly...
A Tale of Two Revolutions, Part 2
The Situation in Britain English society may have moved beyond the medievalism of the Ancien Régime in France, but in many ways the situation in Britain was just as dire for the lower classes. England was in the middle of the Enclosure Movement, a major disruption of...
Does the Bible Contradict Itself Regarding the Day of the Crucifixion?
Dr. Glenn Sunshine addresses the question, Did Jesus die on Passover? If the first three synoptic Gospels are correct, then Jesus inaugurated the Lord’s Supper “on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the...