PCA
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A Very Few Thoughts On The Current Situation Facing The PCA
This brief piece pertains to events surrounding the Stated Clerk of the PCA, Bryan Chapell. My single hope is to bring some clarity in the spirit of peacemaking but not provide a solution that’s beyond my pay grade. Bryan Chapell’s primary wrong doing was not that he exposed people he thought ill of but rather Continue reading
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Confessional Defection With Good Intention Is Still Confessional Defection (Ongoing Challenges In The PCA)
I’m afraid for a particular presbytery of the PCA. In the relatively recent past the Philadelphia presbytery of the PCA admitted a Teaching Elder who held to the continuation and practice of the charismatic gifts of prophecy* and tongues, which is strange doctrine that is either hostile to the Westminster standards or strikes at the Continue reading
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Kevin DeYoung On Free Will And Divine Foreknowledge
I’ve decided to interact with this article by Kevin DeYoung on free will and divine foreknowledge. Although the piece is over fifteen years old and the author may have possibly refined his views since then, I nonetheless believe the article typifies the uncritical handling of this Reformed distinctive among contemporary leaders in the tradition. Why Continue reading
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Evangelicalism and RINOs (Reformed In Name Only), A Different Religion?
Reformed theology and practice entails many different attitudes, beliefs and practices relative to Evangelicalism. In that respect the two faith communities can seem like different religions with respect to feel, creed and application. Highlighted below are some basic principles that distinguish Evangelicalism from the Reformed faith. Those differences are rooted primarily in how the two Continue reading
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Abusing The Abused Within The Church (Soul-Murdering In The Name Of Refuge)
There is danger in not defining sin in biblical terms. This secular practice has unfortunately infiltrated the church and led to much confusion. A related problem is reasoning by false disjunction. For instance, if one is a superior, which is to say of riper age, of greater grace, or more eminent in stature, his greater Continue reading
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Post in thread ‘Evaluating the Thought of Cornelius Van Til with Keith Mathison and James Anderson
On the Puritan Board, Keith Mathison had this to say. 1. Van Til claimed that’s those among the Reformed who used traditional methods were compromising Reformed theology. 2. And since the traditional method was used by all of the Reformed theologians (with the possible exception of Calvin) for the 400 years prior to Van Til, Continue reading
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No, The American Revision Of The Westminster Standards Does Not Undermine Westminster’s Civil Ethics
Kevin DeYoung recently wrote that in 1788, American Presbyterians revised chapter 23 of the original Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) because many “grew wary of granting coercive powers to the civil magistrate and were drawn to more robust notions of religious liberty”. DeYoung reasons that by virtue of the revision, “Presbyterians in America rejected an older, Continue reading
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A Response To A Popular, (Yet Inadequate), “Reformed” Antidote to Federal Vision’s Use Of The Warning Passages
Like a robust Christian worldview, a Reformed system of doctrine should be consistent, coherent and explanatory. What this means is: (a) the components of a sound theology may have mystery but not contradiction; (b) although theological constituent parts should be assessed discretely, they must be evaluated in light of the whole so that each ingredient Continue reading
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GRACE Report And Tenth Presbyterian Church
I found the GRACE report to be an abomination. It dredged up many past hurts and sins that were in the end dealt with biblically and in accordance with the gospel, even with censures issued by session and presbytery when appropriate. Perhaps the most egregious part of the GRACE report is how GRACE suggests that Continue reading
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The PCA’s Principle On Non-Communing Members – A Halfway Covenant?
The PCA Book of Church Order (BCO) teaches that children of professing believers are members of the visible church and, therefore, are entitled to baptism. Indeed, per BCO 56-1 baptism should not be unnecessarily delayed! However, what the BCO does not teach is that a refusal to baptize one’s covenant child is great sin that Continue reading
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An Essential Tenet Of Reformed Theology *Is* Determinism. The Reformed Need To Embrace It.
When it comes to the question of whether Reformed theology entails a principle of determinism, either disagreement abounds among Reformed theologians or else many within the tradition are talking by each other. Perhaps some are in theological agreement over this essential aspect of Reformed theology while expressing themselves in conflicting ways. Perhaps. Regardless, there is Continue reading
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False Teaching Among The Prominent Non-Confessional Reformed: From Lordship Salvation to Today’s Christianity and Culture In The PCA
A pastor can be more or less Reformed, but a doctrine either is or is not Reformed. A debtor to mercy The church will always have to war against false gospels. From the time of the Judaizers to this very day, the church has been bewitched by sacerdotalism, syncretism, decisional regeneration, social gospels, prosperity gospels, Continue reading
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What About Those Who’ve Never Heard of Jesus? Would a chance even after death change anything?
When it comes to the question of the eternal state of those who’ve never heard of Jesus, at least three views have gained attention over the years, all of which entail Christ’s redemptive work. 1. Good works release Christ’s benefits. 2. The Holy Spirit baptizes people into Christ. 3. People will get a chance to Continue reading
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Don’t Look Now But Your “Reformed” Theology Might Not Be Confessional
In recent years the debates of the Reformation period have taken priority over the theology of the debates. Somehow possessing vast acquaintance with multiple sides of doctrinal disputes has in some circles become more academically impressive and pastorally relevant than possessing an intimate working-understanding of which doctrines are theologically Reformed and defensible. Consequently, there has Continue reading
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RC. Sproul, Impeccability of Christ & Broadly Logical Modality
The Sproulian view of the peccability of Christ ends in either in an abstraction of the human nature from the second Person or else it attributes human personhood to the Son. Either way the denial of the impeccability of Christ implicitly, yet unwittingly, denies Chalcedon. (At the 21 minute mark I interact with Sproul, though Continue reading
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Moving beyond Sproulian Compatibilism
Below are excerpts from R.C. Sproul’s, What Is Free Will? We have seen Edwards’ [1700s] view and Calvin’s view [1500s], so now we’ll go into the Sproulian view of free will by appealing to irony, or to a form of paradox… I would like to make this statement: in my opinion, every choice that we Continue reading
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R.C. Sproul vs The Westminster Divines on the Christian Sabbath
R.C. Sproul cites three so-called “controversies” in church history surrounding the Christian Sabbath. Is the Sabbath obligatory for the New Testament Church? If it is, should the Sabbath continue to be the seventh day of the week, the first day of the week, or is the day of the week up for grabs. Thirdly, Sproul Continue reading
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A Robust Depravity – A Return To Calvinism
Total Depravity, as often depicted: In the Reformed tradition, total depravity does not mean utter depravity. We often use the term total as a synonym for utter or for completely, so the notion of total depravity conjures up the idea that every human being is as bad as that person could possibly be… As wicked Continue reading
Philosophical Theology 