In this excerpt from The Gates of Hell, Matthew Heise traces the world shaking events surrounding the end of World War I and their effect on the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia. JUNE 1918—An idyllic summer day in the Crimea, with trees blossoming and groaning from the fruit peculiar to that bountiful region near the
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Recovering Sacrament in the Baptist Tradition
In this excerpt from Amidst Us Our Belovèd Stands, Michael A. G. Haykin presents six theses on the historical and modern practice of baptism and the Lord’s Supper in the Baptist Tradition. In 1866, C. H. Spurgeon (1834–1892), well on his way to becoming something of a Dissenting icon, published a hymnal for his growing
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What Is Patristic Biblical Interpretation?
In this excerpt from How the Church Fathers Read the Bible, Gerald Bray introduces the origins of biblical interpretation and why studying what the church fathers wrote is important for us today. Patristic biblical interpretation is the study of how the Bible was understood by those ancient Christian writers who are collectively known as the
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Augustine and the Christological Nature of Wisdom
In this excerpt from Christ, the Way: Augustine’s Theology of Wisdom, Benjamin Quinn describes the Christological foundations of Augustine’s theology of wisdom. What is wisdom, and what is its role in Augustine’s thought? These are the fundamental questions that drive this study. From Augustine’s own words in Confessions (Conf.) book 3, we learn that his
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The Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology Is Now Complete
In 2015, Lexham Press announced the publication of a major series of new translations of Abraham Kuyper’s writings in public theology, created in partnership with the Acton Institute and the Kuyper Translation Society. Never before available in English, the Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology has introduced a new audience to the thinking of
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Sixteenth-Century Mission: An Interview with Ed Smither
The sixteenth-century was significant for many reasons, not least the events of the Reformation. However, this period is not usually considered important for Christian mission. The essays in Sixteenth-Century Mission seek to reveal this as a misunderstanding. In this interview, we speak with one of the editors, Ed Smither. Lexham Press: Who is the ideal
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What Can Biblical Studies Learn from Martin Luther?
In this excerpt from the introduction to Always Reforming, Channing L. Crisler outlines Martin Luther’s approach to reading and interpreting scripture, and how his hermeneutic can inform scholarship today. “Comfort yourself with the Word of God, the pre-eminent consolation.” In this way, Martin Luther consoled a father and husband suffering the loss of both his
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How Studying Sixteenth-Century Mission Is Relevant for Mission Practice Today
In this excerpt from the introduction to Sixteenth-Century Mission, Edward L. Smither lays out three broad themes that emerge from this survey of cross-cultural outreach during this critical century in the church’s history. How did the sixteenth-century global church understand and practice Christian mission? This question proves more fruitful than the usual questions missiologists and
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Praise Upon Praise for Abraham Kuyper’s on Business and Economics
In his volume introduction to On Business and Economics, Peter S. Heslam notes that there is a distinct lack of engagement by theologians with enterprise. This disconnect between these two spheres makes this anthology of Abraham Kuyper’s writings on these subjects all the more important. This timeliness has certainly been recognized by prominent contemporary economists,
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What Is Anglicanism? A Brief History of the Anglican Church
Anglicanism as we think of it today is essentially a nineteenth-century invention. The elements that make it up are much older than that, of course, but it was only from the 1830s or so that the particular configuration that Christianity assumed in the post-Reformation Church of England and its sister churches came to be regarded
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