Today, this question raises theological temperatures to a boil. Three hundred years ago, at the dawn of the evangelical movement, ministers banned this question from being asked from their pulpits. The early evangelicals took their questions, and more importantly, their answers, elsewhere. Trumpeting across the field, a voice could be heard from a person too
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The “Greatest Generation” and Its Theological Legacy
The essays in Basics of the Faith originally appeared as a series of articles published in Christianity Today from 1961–1962. As such, they constitute a veritable time capsule of the state of the art of mid-twentieth century evangelical theology in the English-speaking world. To be precise, the essays all date from the time between two
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Why Pray Like a Puritan?
That prayer is most likely to pierce heaven which first pierces one’s own heart. —Thomas Watson (1620–1686) What does it take to pray like a Puritan? And why would we want to? For more than two centuries, a bright, passionate faith spread throughout England and across the Atlantic to its colonies—a passion that spurred service
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Abraham Kuyper and the Fight for Educational Liberty
Abraham Kuyper accomplished much over the course of his lifetime, but perhaps his most lasting contribution to Dutch society was a radical restructuring of the Dutch school system according to the principle of religious liberty. Over a span of almost fifty years (1869–1917), he and his Antirevolutionary Party worked diligently to establish the right of
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The Timeless Legacy of Groen van Prinsterer
Why are the populism that hailed Napoleon, the nationalism that supported Bismarck, the naturalism of Darwin, and the nihilism of Nietzsche still with us in the twenty-first century? Of the making of many books there is no end—warns the Bible—but once in a while a book comes along that swallows up many others. Groen van
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Samuel Pearce and Holy Love
In the history of God’s people, there have been a number of individuals who seem to have packed decades of spiritual maturity into a few short years of life. There is a spiritual intensity about such men and women that make them utterly unforgettable to their contemporaries. Such, for example were: David Brainerd (1718–1747) Ann
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Living Out Abraham Kuyper’s Theology
When Christians imagine what it means to engage the world or bear witness to Christ, we often think first of personal piety and relational evangelism. These are good and necessary, but is there more? North American culture is increasingly secular, especially at the elite levels of society. As a result, Christian faith is becoming more
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God’s Sovereignty Over Art
God can either give or withhold talent, and so art is another field where God gives no account of himself. Especially in the sphere of art, each and every one of us lived in deep dependence on God’s government over all things. The Lord our God gives one person this talent, and the other that
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Unexpected Shifts in Global Missions
The nature of global missions has changed radically in the latter part of the twentieth century. As Edward L. Smither says in Christian Mission: A Concise Global History, ?though the United States continued to be the leading mission-sending nation at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Global South church now sends the majority of
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The Consequences of Unbelief
To renounce immutable truth does not convert falsehood into truth. To deny God is not to destroy Him. And to deny human depravity is not to achieve human perfection. Once faith in the living God has declined, it is natural that unbelief will soon prevail over the dead fragments of doctrine so carefully embalmed in
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