22 articles from 16 issues, 1996 to 2020
Ephesians 2 says Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, in the present perfect tense: it was done, and it remains done. Goodloe asks why the church so often acts as if the work were still pending, and what it means to live as those for whom reconciliation is already accomplished.
Calvin once wrote that he would gladly cross ten seas if it would help mend the church's torn body. Burnett puts that ferocity in conversation with Karl Barth, and asks what the two together have to say to a denomination tempted to treat division as routine.
PCUSA, EPC, ECO, PCA, OPC: the Presbyterian family in America has become a set of clans that mistrust each other's seminaries, agencies, and theology. Stith calls the hardening 'ecclesial sclerosis' and asks whether anything like a shared Reformed identity survives the fragmentation.
Selderhuis traces Reformation commemorations all the way back to 1617, when Friedrich V of the Palatinate first proposed a centennial celebration. What the jubilees have meant has shifted with each generation; this one looks back from the vantage of a Europe that no longer assumes Christian assumptions.
Andrews preaches 2 Corinthians 5 to the 222nd General Assembly: from now on we regard no one from a human point of view. The vertical reconciliation God has accomplished in Christ creates and shapes every horizontal one. A sermon for a denomination tempted to invert the order.
Karl Barth once described Calvin as 'a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power.' Goodloe doesn't disagree but finds, like Barth, that one could profitably spend a lifetime there. The piece reads Calvin on church unity for what he still has to teach a fragmenting PCUSA.
Why do so many Christians treat the old creeds as out of date? Leanne Van Dyk sets out seven things the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds do for a church, from identifying believers at baptism and teaching the faith to uniting Christians and comforting the broken.
Is the Belhar Confession confined to the sin of racism, or does its language reach further? Susan Cyre argues that Belhar ranks unity above truth, cites how supporters already apply it to same-sex relationships, and urges presbyteries to vote no.
Should faithful Presbyterians stay and work for reform, or leave? Terry Schlossberg turns to Wilberforce, the prophets and the Reformers to argue that repentance, discipline and patient work from within are the way forward.
Is church reform a distraction from the church’s work, or part of it? Diane Knippers tells the story of a pastor who lost his post for standing for the truth, then names six marks of the renewal movement, from its maturity and ecumenism to a new generation of reformers.
Is the church’s long quarrel over ordination and doctrine a sign that division is the only way forward? Gary Neal Hansen looks at the Donatist and Arian controversies, which ran for generations, and finds reasons for patience and for staying together.
What did the Barmen Declaration reject, and why did it matter that the churches said so together? Ulrich Mauser retraces the German Christians’ program and Barmen’s first two theses, then asks what they mean for the Presbyterian vote on Amendment O.
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