Spring 2026
Volume 32, Number 2 · The current issue
Four articles, free to read here and mailed free in print.
View this edition Download the PDF of Spring 2026 Read the articles
In this issue
The Courage to Stand, Part 1: Bonhoeffer’s Journey and Ours
Bonhoeffer was not always bold. In autumn 1933 he fled to London, weary and anxious, and Karl Barth answered with a sharp letter. Richard Burnett asks what that exchange teaches about finding courage to stand.
Evangelism
Why does the word evangelism make so many mainline Christians anxious? Raymond Hylton turns to the Great Commission in Galilee, arguing that witness rests on Christ’s authority, not on our management of outcomes.
The Good Deposit of the Gospel
Reflecting on Paul’s final letter, Douglas Pratt traces the word “entrust” in 2 Timothy and asks whether the church is investing in the next generation of pastors and leaders to whom the gospel will be handed on.
Why Study Theology?
What is doctrine for? Seminarian Jonathan Sundermeier turns to Calvin’s Institutes to argue that theology’s highest end is piety: reverent love of God that is formed by knowing him and issues in joyful obedience.
Free to read since 1995 · 458 essays · 148 issues · Mailed free to anyone who asks
Recent Dispatches
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St. Christina the Astonishing tried to flee the stench of sinners; Isaiah collapsed in terror before the Holy One. Sara Jane Nixon argues that the content of God’s holiness is love, a holiness that draws near to sinners rather than away from them.
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Right belief or right worship? Doctrine or doxology? Drawing on Chesterton, Athanasius, and Calvin, Richard Burnett presents orthodoxy as a costly, moving equilibrium, never stuffy and never still, that has carried the church through every storm.
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PerseveranceDouglas F. Fletcher
Spiritual autobiographies remind us how the Spirit sustains faith through the long road. Drawing on Schweitzer, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Douglas F. Fletcher names ten weapons against evil and reflects on perseverance as a gift God himself secures.
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The Nicene Creed in Historical ContextJerry Andrews
Why did Constantine summon the bishops to Nicaea, and how did the church remember the moment afterward? Andrews traces the council through the eyes of Eusebius and Theodoret, the historians who first preserved its witness for the centuries that followed.
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The Nicene Creed Today, Yesterday, and TomorrowJoseph D. Small
The Council of Nicaea was 1,700 years ago, but Small argues its disputes still live in pews and pulpits unrecognized. He examines what the Creed affirms and what it refuses to believe, drawing on Barth and Christopher Morse to recover the necessity of confessing both.
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A Devotional Reflection on George Herbert’s Poem, Love IIISuzanne McDonald
Herbert's most famous poem stages a soul drawing back from divine love and the patient persistence with which Love draws it forward anyway. McDonald reads the poem alongside Herbert's pastoral writings, finding the same Reformed conviction running through both: only refusal can shut us out.
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The Greatest Love Story Ever LivedSue Cyre
Cyre traces the wedding scene that runs from Eden through the prophets to Revelation: the Father giving his Bride to the Son, Christ vowing eternal faithfulness to his Church. Every human marriage is an echo of that union, and our identity flows from being part of it.
Search the archive
458 articles from 147 issues, 1995 to 2026
From the archive
“Knowing God, knowing Jesus, knowing Scripture, means conforming ourselves to the truth of God’s Word.”
This season, years ago
What the journal was printing at this time of year, ten, twenty and thirty years back.
Ten years ago Spring 2016
John Calvin on the Unity and Truthfulness of the ChurchJames C. Goodloe
Twenty years ago Issue 2, 2006
“The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing” A CritiqueViola Larson
Thirty years ago Issue 3, 1996
Bible Study of the Gospel of Mark: Chapter 8Sue Cyre
From the Archive
148 issues, 1995 to 2026All editions
- Evangelism
- The Good Deposit of the Gospel
- Why Study Theology?
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