Reformed and Presbyterian voices on theology, discipleship, and the church in our time.
A sermon on Matthew 16, where Peter recognizes Jesus as the Christ. Small preaches against the language of dying churches, hearing in Christ's promise to Peter the foundation that no rate of decline can shake: the gates of hell will not prevail against the church Christ is building.
At the close of his seventh decade, Burgess takes stock alongside the Bonhoeffer of the prison letters, asking the same question Bonhoeffer asked: who am I? The address is a meditation on identity, ministry, and what we hope to leave the generation that follows.
Burnett opens Ephesians 1 and finds Paul piling blessing on blessing: chosen before the foundation of the world, predestined in love, sealed for an inheritance. The piece sits with the dizzying generosity of Paul's grammar and asks what it means that our calling is grounded that deep.
Two PCUSA amendments are heading to presbyteries for ratification, and Andrews lays out exactly what they say, what they don't say, and what's at stake. Drawing on his father's prayer that he be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove, he urges presbyters to be both.
Church and CultureThe Westminster Confession is unambiguous: God alone is Lord of the conscience. Goodloe shows how the Olympia Presbytery's overture to the 2024 General Assembly threatens that bedrock principle, and why every Presbyterian, whatever their view on the underlying issues, has reason to defend it.
Nixon walks through what actually happened with POL-01 (the Olympia Overture) at the 2024 General Assembly, why the split-vote outcome is more ambiguous than either side claims, and what congregations and sessions need to think about as the amendments now move to the presbyteries.
What makes a Reformed church Reformed? Small begins with Peter DeVries's wry novelistic portrait of a Calvinist boyhood and works toward a serious answer: shared Protestant emphases, yes, but with distinctive accents on Scripture, election, the priesthood of all believers, and worship as covenant response.
Why come to Jesus rather than to the certified teachers of the law? Bartow preaches Matthew 11's invitation to take Christ's yoke as the answer to a question Israel had been asking for generations: where, exactly, do we go to find rest for our souls?
Confessing the FaithNinety years ago a small group of pastors and elders in Barmen refused the Nazis' attempt to colonize the gospel. Working revisits Karl Barth's text and finds a confession that still names the temptation: any blood-and-soil ideology that asks the church to add another word to the one Word of God.
Theology Matters joins a public pledge for Presbyterian officers facing an overture that would compel them to affirm what they do not believe. Reading like an open letter, the piece calls clergy and elders alike to stand on the historic doctrines of creation and redemption rather than yield.
A century ago Harry Emerson Fosdick stood in a New York Presbyterian pulpit and preached against ordination standards he considered illiberal. Burnett returns to that famous sermon for its centennial, asking what it set in motion, what it cost, and what it still tells us about American Christianity.
Augustine is loved for the introspective Confessions, but Andrews argues he was never alone. This chapter follows Augustine's circle in Hippo, his theology of friendship, and the sometimes-uncomfortable question it puts to pastors today: who walks with you, and what are you actually accountable to one another for?
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