43 articles from 31 issues, 1995 to 2024
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.
A hundred years on, Machen's Christianity and Liberalism still outsells most seminary faculties combined. Burnett examines what Machen actually meant by 'liberalism,' how that target has shifted since 1923, and why the book still feels uncomfortably current to readers on both sides of the line he drew.
Crocco listens to a psychiatrist friend who can't say what she actually thinks about gender dysphoria treatment without losing her license. The conversation pulls Solzhenitsyn's plea to 'live not by lies' from the Soviet bloc into our own moment, and asks what costs Christians should expect.
The PCUSA's own panel survey on theological reflection turns up some good news and considerable confusion. Bush walks through the data carefully, including how the survey's own categories made a coherent answer harder than it had to be, and what the responses tell us about where Presbyterians actually stand.
After two decades of asserting that theology matters, Burnett asks the harder question: has it actually mattered? He surveys the major debates in the PCUSA over sexuality, the sanctity of life, and Book of Order revisions, and asks how often theology has actually shaped the outcomes.
In 1943 Princeton Theological Seminary required apologetics. The next year, it dropped from the curriculum entirely. Dembski traces how rational defense of the Christian faith, once taken for granted as a Christian duty, became theologically suspect, and what the seminary's loss has cost the church.
Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Soli Deo Gloria: the five Solas were the Reformers' refusal to compromise. Poteet examines what's been lost when contemporary liberalism quietly trims them, and how the church might restore the lines the Reformers thought load-bearing.
John Spong rejects monotheism, the incarnation, the Trinity, and the atonement, then claims to be a Christian. Cyre asks what content actually distinguishes Christian faith from anything else, and walks through Paul, Athanasius, and the Reformers for the kind of answer Spong's question demands.
Why read J. Gresham Machen today, long after the fundamentalist controversy? Darryl G. Hart traces his life and argues that Machen’s view of the church as a doctrinal, voluntary and otherworldly body speaks to Presbyterians living in a post-Christian culture.
Why does the Bible, and not Christian experience, stand at the center of the faith? In a chapter from Christianity and Liberalism, J. Gresham Machen argues that the gospel rests on an event, that Scripture records it truly, and that liberalism puts human experience in its place.
How has the church kept its distinctness from the world? J. Gresham Machen walks from Christ and the apostles through Athanasius, Luther and Calvin to show that the precious salt was preserved by those who would contend for the faith, then asks which side his hearers will take.
What should faithful Presbyterians do after the PC(USA) dropped its “fidelity and chastity” standard in 2011? The Board traces the counterfeit gospel back to the Re-Imagining Conference, restates what Theology Matters believes, and pledges to keep contending for the truth.
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