Abraham Kuyper’s life and work remain relevant, perhaps due to the seemingly perpetual ferment regarding the proper role of Christians in public life. The child of a Dutch minister and himself a clergyman who rose to the office of prime minister 1901–5, Kuyper is an example of a “walking public theology.” “Public” theology can be
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Reading John Chrysostom Today
To understand where John Chrysostom was coming from in his preaching, we have to consider what his intellectual background was and what he was trying to communicate to his congregations in his sermons. All forms of literature are products of their time, and it is only if they can speak not only to the original
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Bringing Black Voices in the Church to Light
Evangelicalism needs the wisdom and experience of African American Christians. Seeking out theological dialogue partners of different races and ethnic backgrounds is a challenge, but it’s necessary work. Too often voices from these diverse contexts are suppressed or excluded in favor of voices from the dominant culture. With these voices speaking loudly, a full picture
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The Need for Black Voices in the Church
Understanding the different cultural, historical, and socio-economic contexts in which Christians live and God acts is critical to developing a full understanding of God and his Kingdom. Too often voices from these diverse contexts are suppressed or excluded in favor of voices from the dominant culture. But God is not limited by context. He is
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Why Study the History of Christian Mission?
Lexham Press is proud to announce that Christian Mission has been selected by Outreach Magazine as an Outreach Resource of the Year in the Cross-Cultural and Missional category. This book also received a Book Award of Merit for Missions from Christianity Today. Here’s an excerpt from this award-winning book: The word mission is used today in a
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When Does a Christian Become a Christian?
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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