The doctrine of election leading up to and following the Synod of Dordtrecht, the Netherlands (1618-1619)

This useful (and witty) historical survey seems to have been generated by the current debate within Southern Baptist Convention churches and seminaries regarding "the new Calvinism" that has won many adherents among this people of this huge denomination.  — Albert Gedraitis

Christian Post (Nov9,2k12)

11/8/12 at 12:41 PM 1 Comments

Election, a Theological Battleground State

by Timothy Paul Jones

  

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By the opening years of the seventeenth century, the Reformation had turned European Christianity into a conglomeration of conflicting sects. The Roman Catholic Council of Trent drew a firm line between Catholics and Protestants by declaring that Roman Catholic tradition represents the final authority when it comes to interpreting the Bible.

In 1618, a war between Protestants and Catholics broke out when some Protestants tossed two Catholic ambassadors out a second-story window. Fortunately, the ambassadors survived. Unfortunately, they survived because they landed in a heap of horse manure. Historians have named this foul-smelling event the “Defenestration of Prague,” which proves once and for all that historians have no sense of humor when it comes to naming events.

The Defenestration of Prague—or, as I prefer to call it, “The Great Stinky Second-Story Window Tossing”—was how the Thirty Years’ War began, though they didn’t call it the Thirty Years’ War then because they didn’t know how long it was going to last. In Central Europe alone, at least ten million people died during this conflict. Not a joyous occurrence, no matter how humorously the war began.

The year 1618 also marked a moment of theological conflict among Protestants in Holland. This conflict involved no windows and no excrement. In fact, by the early twentieth century, this conflict would be summarized by a flower—a tulip, to be exact. The conflict had to do with election. No, not a first-Tuesday-in-November democratic election. This conflict concerned divine election.

::Dutch Difficulties from Dirck to Dort::

According to Scripture, every Christian is “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Peter 1:2). This election isn’t based on any human choice but solely on God’s gracious predetermination (Romans 9:11)—or at least that’s what a long line of Christians throughout history have believed when it comes to divine election. Not everyone has accepted this viewpoint, of course—but a clear series of Christian thinkers stretching from the ancient church through the Middle Ages and particularly among the Reformers embraced this perspective.

In the late 1500s, a Dutch thinker named Dirck Cornhert—yes, seriously, that was his name!—came up with a radical suggestion for dealing with doctrinal differences: Until God sends a new apostle to tell Christians exactly what to believe, Protestants and Catholics should lay aside their distinctive doctrines and join together into one theology-free church.

One summary of faith that Cornhert specifically rejected was the Heidelberg Catechism, a statement that happened to be quite important to the Dutch Reformed churches. Not surprisingly, this recommendation didn’t go over well in Holland.

A young professor named Jakob Hermanszoon was enlisted to defend the teachings found in the Heidelberg Catechism, particularly the parts that had to do with election. But Hermanszoon lost the debate before it even began! As he studied for the debate, he became convinced that the Reformers had been wrong about the whole issue of election.

According to Hermanszoon, God has placed in every person just enough goodness and grace—he called it “prevenient grace”—to choose whether or not to trust Jesus. As a result, God’s election wasn’t really God’s choice at all; God simply noticed ahead of time who would choose him and then chose them back.

Hermanszoon died in 1609, but his followers continued to develop his ideas. His followers became known as “Arminians” because, whenever they called themselves “Hermanszoonians,” everyone around them politely replied, “Gesundheit.” (Okay, so I made that part up. Actually, the Latin form of the Dutch “Hermanszoon” is “Arminius” which is a lot easier to say than “Hermanszoon”—and that’s why, if you’ve heard of Hermanszoon before, it was probably under his Latinized name “Jacob Arminius.”)

Soon after Hermanszoon’s death, his followers published a document known as the “Remonstrance.”The Remonstrance spelled out five particular points where the Arminians disagreed with the theologians of the Reformation.

These five points resulted in a conflict that threatened to tear apart the Reformed churches of Holland. A Dutch prince tried to end the conflict by inviting Reformed pastors throughout Europe to gather in the city of Dort to draft a declaration of their beliefs. In 1618 and 1619, the Synod of Dort responded to the five points of the Arminian Remonstrance with five points of their own. Their five responses became known as “the Canons of Dort.”

::The First Point: Election::

What the Arminians said in the Remonstrance: “God, by an eternal, unchangeable purpose in Jesus Christ … before the foundation of the world, … determined … to save … those who … shall believe on this his Son Jesus, and shall persevere in this faith and obedience of faith, through this grace, even to the end.” God’s election was conditional, based on foreseen human faith and perseverance.

How the Reformed responded in the Canons: “Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, … God chose in Christ to salvation a definite number of particular people. … This election took place, not on the basis of foreseen faith … but rather for the purpose of faith.” God’s election was unconditional; God chose not because he foresaw faith but because he planned to give faith as a gift.

Key Scripture texts: John 6:44; 15:16; Romans 9:10-16

::The Second Point: Atonement::

What the Arminians said in the Remonstrance: “Jesus Christ …died for all men and for every man, so that he has obtained for them all … redemption, and the forgiveness of sins; yet that no one actually enjoys this forgiveness of sins, except the believer.” Jesus purchased redemption for every person. If anyone refuses to believe in Jesus, their refusal thwarts God’s work of redemption their life.

How the Reformed responded in the Canons: “This death of God’s Son is … more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world. … It was God’s will that Christ through the blood of the cross … should effectively redeem from every people, tribe, nation, and language all those and only those who were chosen from eternity to salvation and given to him by the Father.” The death of Jesus secured the salvation of all whom God in his grace chose before time.

Key Scripture texts: Job 42:1-2; John 10:14-15, 28; 1 John 2:2

::The Third Point: HumanNature::

What the Arminians said in the Remonstrance: “Man … of and by himself can neither think, will, nor do anything that is truly good; … it is needful that he be born again of God in Christ, through his Holy Spirit.” Although fallen human beings cannot in themselves do good, God has placed “prevenient grace” in all people, so they can believe and be born again.

How the Reformed responded in the Canons: “All people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath, … neither willing nor able to return to God.” Humans are, by nature, spiritually dead; humanity’s fallenness is so great that no sinner desires to trust in Jesus until he or she is made alive through the work of God’s Spirit.

Key Scripture texts: Psalm 14:2-3; 53:2-3; Romans 3:10-12; Ephesians 2:1-3

::The Fourth Point: Operation of Grace::

What the Arminians said in the Remonstrance: “As respects the mode of the operation of this grace, it is not irresistible.” Regeneration is God’s immediate response when a sinner chooses Jesus; sinners can resist, reject, and thwart God’s attempts to save them.

How the Reformed responded in the Canons: “Regeneration … is an entirely supernatural work. … All those in whose hearts God works in this marvelous way are certainly, unfailingly, and effectively reborn and do actually believe.” Though people do resist the Holy Spirit up to the time when God brings about new life in them, God transforms the person at the time of the new birth—or regeneration—in such a way that the sinner desires to trust Jesus and, as a result, freely chooses faith.

Key Scripture texts: John 6:37, 44; Ephesians 2:4-6

::The Fifth Point: Perseverance::

What the Arminians said in the Remonstrance: “Those who are incorporated into Christ, … Jesus Christ assists them … and, if only they are ready for the conflict, and desire his help, and are not inactive, keeps them from falling. … Whether they are capable … of forsaking again the first beginnings of their life in Christ, … that must be more particularly determined out of the Holy Scriptures.” Perseverance depends on the will and work of the believer; it is uncertain whether a believer can forfeit his or her salvation.

How the Reformed responded in the Canons: “God … does not take the Holy Spirit from his own completely, even when they fall grievously. Neither does God let them fall down so far that they forfeit the grace of adoption and the state of justification. … God preserves, continues, and completes this work by the hearing and reading of the gospel, by meditation on it, by its exhortations, threats, and promises.” Perseverance depends on God’s will and work; God works in the lives of Christians so that they persevere in faith to the end.

Key Scripture texts: John 10:27-28; Romans 8:29-39

Of course, the Synod of Dort didn’t settle this issue once and for all. To this day, Christians discuss and sometimes divide over the issues that the Arminians raised in the Remonstrance. Over time, the Canons of Dort became known as “the five points of Calvinism”—even though they didn’t emerge until decades after John Calvin was dead. Despite such difficulties, the five points do provide a helpful summary of the Reformed perspective on how and why sinners trust Jesus.

::Troubled by TULIP? A Proposal for PROOF::

What has been far less helpful for healthy discussions of Calvinism is a five-point acrostic that emerged in the early 1900s. This acrostic rearranges and renames the Canons of Dort to spell the word “TULIP.” In this reformulation, the five points become:

* Total depravity
* Unconditional election or universal sovereignty
* Limited atonement
* Irresistible grace
* Perseverance of the saints

TULIP has only been around for a century or so, and I certainly understand the appeal of the acrostic. It’s a Dutch flower, after all, and it makes the five points quite easy to recall. And yet, this memory device has grown to dominate discussions of Reformed theology in ways that have rarely been fruitful.

“Total depravity,” for example, gives the impression that unsaved people are as bad as they can be, which isn’t at all what any Reformed theologian has claimed; plus, “total depravity” sounds like some sort of cable television show that no Christian should be watching in the first place. The “L” in the TULIP doesn’t catch the qualification in the Canons of Dort that the death of Jesus was “more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.”

So here’s a proposal for a different memory device—one that’s truer to Reformed theology and far more helpful for discussions of Calvinism.

Daniel Montgomery and I are currently working on a book that unpacks this vision for theology.

In the meantime, here are some devotional guides on the five points as well as a children’s book that works through these doctrines of divine grace.

See original post.

For more information on theological study, click here.

Neal Punt reviews another soteriological Absolute Universalist book by Gulley and Mulholland (2004) — I will enteract with Neal's thawt later on

Dr Neal Punt allows his readers to reproduce his email essays and reviews with full notice of his authorship and accessibility on the Internet.  www.evangelicalinclusivism.com

Neal's book referenced A Theology of Inclusivism.  My comments regarding this review will be coming later.  But I ask that Dr Punt distinguish my view (1.) My soteriological near-universalism is not at all that of Philip Gulley and James Mulholland (as Neal represents them — I haven't read the title that Dr Punt explores for us); and (2.) any view of the soteriological universalist problematic shoud keep in mind the Interim State where all who die are kept in existence "asleep in Christ" until the Great Judgment.  If you believe, as does Dr Diogenes Allen of Princeton Theological Seminary, speaking of Simone Weil's outlook, "much happens after death," then you have an open doctrinal locus that is kept open despite the effort of funamentalizing efforts to foreclose it.  Some speculation and reference to science (information theory, Dr Andrew Basden) and literature (William Shakespeare, Hamlet).

Hamlet:
"To sleep, perchance to dream-
ay, there's the rub."

Hamlet (III, i, 65-68)This is part of Hamlet's famous soliloquy which begins "To be or not to be", and it reveals his thoughts of suicide. He has learned that his uncle killed his father, the late King, and married the king's wife, his mother. This foul deed has driven Hamlet nearly mad, and he seeks both revenge and the escape of death. He has been disconsolate since learning of the murder, from the ghost of his dead father. In this scene, he ponders suicide, "To die, to sleep-/No more." But he is tortured with the fear that there might not be peace even in death. "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, /When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, /Must give us pause." Hamlet's moral and mental anguish is at its height in this soliloquy, which is the emotional centerpiece of the play.

Shakespeare, having read well the Geneva Bible and well acquainted with Calvin's understanding of 'soul sleep," had his character Hamlet cawt on the horns of the Scholastic dilemma of going immediately to Hell due to his contemplated suicide, and at the same time wishing to die.  In that context, Shakespeare explores an analogue between dreaming in this life and dreaming in the Interim State.  Dreaming in the Interim State is only possible if you concieve the Creator our Lord Jesus Christ ascended and all powerful constituting us in our forensic dispersement as wavicles of information (a subphysical reduction of our human being and meaning in death) that the Lord reconstitutes in order to present us with dreams into which He comes to evangelizing us, rebuke us, confess us (uiltimately before the Father before the Great Throne of Final Judgment), we perhaps repenting, teaching us (Xristos paidogwgos, St Irenaeus [1st Century AD - circa 202]), achieving the conversion of the many one-by-won and the purging of the Christians dead in the Lord, sleeping in Christ all of them.

But I have a more detailed critical appreciation of Neal's review, yet to come

— Owlb

Review of Gulley and Mulholland

by Dr Neal Punt

Comments about the book:

If Grace Is True, Why God Will Save Every Person by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland (Harper Collins, 2004)

This book serves a good purpose in that it challenges Christians to reconsider the so-called “universal” claims of salvation and the concept of hell as used in the Scriptures. According to the note on the cover of the book Christianity Today makes this same observation about this book.

Other than this useful purpose I find little to commend this book. Dr. Lewis Smedes said of my work: “You are…saving us from presumptuous universalism. Your mission is needed and can only do us much good.” Few books make as many presumptuous claims as a basis for their message as this book (If Grace is True) does. I call your attention to some of the critical assumptions found throughout this book.

Together with all other Universalist treatises this book assumes that all persons are created as children of God. It records emotionally charged accounts of how we love our children and what we will do for them. From these accounts it draws the conclusion that God will also do whatever is necessary to save all his children.

We do not need an entire book to tell us that if every person is “a child of God” every person will be saved. That Bible assures us that if this premise is valid the conclusion is irrefutable.

Parents never abandon their children except for the fact that those parents are either sinful or weak. God, the Holy Father, with his unlimited resources will never forsake any of his children. Even though a mother may "have no compassion on the child she has borne," God will not forget any of his children (Isa. 49:15). It necessarily follows: "If we are children, then we are heirs… co-heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:17). On this basis this book repeatedly draws the conclusion that: “God Will Save Every Person.”

There are only two ways to be part of God's family: through natural generation ▬"Christ alone is the eternal, natural Son of God" and; by adoption ▬"we are adopted children of God.” Even sinless human beings require adoption into God's family.

Biological ancestry does not make someone a member of God's family! "Do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham" (Matt. 3:9). The stuff we are made of, whether Abraham’s (or Adam’s) physical descendants or stones, does not make us or prevent us from becoming children of Abraham with God as our Father. "If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed" (Gal. 3:29).

Nearly everything presented in this book is based on the assumption that all persons are children of God because they are God’s natural children (share the same nature) or they have been adopted into God’s family. Evidence for this proposition is totally lacking in this book.

Although the Scriptures do not tell us that all persons are children of God they do give us the right to assume that all persons are children of God¹ unless we have specific and irrefutable knowledge to the contrary². Readers not aware of these possible exceptions may be wrongly impressed by the generosity of God as presented in this book.

A second presumption found throughout this book is that we are compelled to accept the traditional view of hell or to recognize hell as the purging process by which God causes even the most obstinate sinners to experience God’s forgiving love and so be transformed by “true grace.” Hell is either everlasting (unending) conscious torture of body and soul or the means God uses to assure that every person will become a purged recipient of salvation.

Given the false dichotomy described in the preceding paragraph rational human beings will necessarily conclude that hell must be the means that God uses to make certain that every person will come to know and be transformed by “true grace.” The presumed need to make this Hobson’s choice is presented as an argument for accepting the contention of this book that “God Will Save Every Person.”

The word “annihilation” is used on page 164. However, it is not presented as the biblical connotation of the word “hell” as portrayed in the Scriptures and held by an ever growing number of Bible believing Christians³. There is no discussion of hell as unending death (extinction) of body and soul. As such hell is the exact opposite of heaven. Heaven is the unending joyous conscious life in the presence of God.

A third assumption found throughout this book is that we have the right and the ability to “weigh” the claims the Bible makes about who God is and what he doesⁱ. We must evaluate God by how we “experience” him in our life. In the person and life of Jesus Christ Christians have come to know God to be a God of infinite, unconditional, love and grace. Whether we are aware of it or not this is how we “experience” God in all of life’s situations. Non-Christians have their own experience of the God of infinite love and grace by which they must weigh whether the claims they hear about God are true or false.

Any portrayal of God that questions or contradicts the view of an infinitely loving, forgiving and gracious God must be discarded as untruth. According to this book, Christians and non-Christians have never experienced a God of wrath or a God who threatens judgment. Therefore any record of a God who displays wrath or threatens a penalty for deliberate willful transgression of God’s will, must be dismissed as unworthy of the God who has revealed himself as a forgiving God of love and infinite grace. To quote the title of the book If Grace Is True, Why God Will Save Every Person.

With such a standard we can dismiss what Jesus says for example in Luke 13:1-3. Even when we hear of such deaths as recorded in this passage resulting from a crime committed by despot, it would be well to remind ourselves that if we willfully defy God’s will and do not repent we may also perish. Although we may have heard about such a God no one has “experienced” such a God who threatens judgment for willful disobedience. Therefore we may know that such a portrayal of God is untruth.

By this standard we must not only reject what Jesus has said about a God who threatens willful disobedience but must dismiss as untruth what the Bible says about the very nature of Jesus. No need to accept the divinity of Jesus. The God of infinite grace can simply forgive sin without any payment for transgression having to be made. Because no one “experiences” a God who punishes sin we do not need a Savior who is both divine and human. So also doctrines of atonement and the Trinity can and must be dismissedⁱⁱ.

The author of this book does believe that Jesus had a unique role in God’s plan of salvation. It was not because by his life and sacrificial death that Jesus overcame the power of death and thereby gained the victory over death. Jesus was put to death by an angry multitude who would not accept the message of God’s forgiving grace that required no sacrifice for sin.

But, having been put to death because he proclaimed a God of infinite love and grace who, without any payment for sin, forgave the sin of all mankind. Jesus was put to death by a the rebellious multitude for proclaiming this message of true grace. To show that the message of infinite love and grace that Jesus proclaimed would finally be victorious God raised Jesus from the deadⁱⁱⁱ. Hell is the final cleaning process which some rebellious sinners will experience until they “repent.” This repentance is simply a turning from rebelling against to fully accepting the God of infinite grace that includes them.

Another assumption found in this book is that all persons, even though conceived and born in sin, stand in an identical relationship and respond to sin in the identical way that God does. As sinners we can forgive others without demanding a payment for every transgression committed against us. So also a thrice holy God before whom even the angels sing “holy, holy, holy” can overlook sin by simply dismissing its guilt and not require any payment as a result that sin. God, in relationship to sin, was made in the likeness of man.

With the concept of accepting God only in terms of the way we truly experience him as a God of infinite love and grace in our lives we are left with a God of our own making.

Cordially, Neal Punt

The footnotes below make reference to the book A Theology of Inclusivism and to the website www.evangelicalinclusivism.com. Free access to and permission to quote from this website is hereby granted if the source is acknowledged.

1 Book Ch. 1; Website Ch. 1

2 Book Ch. 3; Website Ch. 3

3 Book Ch. 19; Website Ch. 19

4 p. 30 also page 51 and on many of the following pages.

5 pp. 125-127

6 p. 130

7 p. 139

3

1

2

i

ii

iii  

Frank Viola has a point but it shoud be kept in its proper place

I've decided this article (pirated below) is just too good, too important to not-pirate it for the few readers of Christian and Other Heretics blog regarding religous contention, and other forms of misdemeanor.  I think the writer, Frank Viola, has done a very good thing here.  Yet, I am not devoted to the exaltation of 'civility' that he and others bandy about today.  The cult of civility will be the death of much humour (jokes bad and good) to say nothing of biting satire, wit with an edge, mockery for a purpose accompanied by a rhetorical strategy determined to win on this matter and on this occasion (that's not always bad).

In academic precincts, for sure, a different  morality of discourse shoud almost always prevail over what may be more appropriate in another sphere like a political debate.  That's why politics shoud not be conducted in churches.   I don't believe in over-pietizing speech in the various other societal spheres either.  The basic guidelines of moral discourse are different from sphere to sphere.

At the moment, there's a lot of pillorying of a missionary well-known to the ruff-and-tumble of our culture; how does Rev Mark Driscoll (he'd probably never call himself "Reverend") survive, the pastor who's being castigated for the sin of "potty-mouth" and talking too much about sex, and widening the parameters of permissible Christian behaviours in both sexual intercourse and verbal discourse.  He hasn't developed his own sex humour, as that does perhaps open doors for less-skilled wannabe imitators.  But the man and his wife are trying to get more honest so that the people group to whom he adddresses his mission can know he's honest about sexuality, his own, and theirs.  He hasn't thrown Christian morality to the wind, but the Wind makes his ministry compelling and refreshing for the tatooed class of folks he tries to convert and disciple in the Lord's way, people male and female who are flocking to the church he pastors, Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington.  Some of the untatooed class tried to get him barred from speaking at Liberty University becawz some read him as advocating anal sex in hetero marriage (the only kind he acknowledges, apparently).  I l+k what the old reformational scholar and immigrant pastor Remkes Kooistra tawt: nothing that a married couple does in bed consensually is morally defective.  Dr Kooistra was both a theologian and a sociologist.

Ooops!, I shoud have written "a - - - -  s - -" as one of Driscoll's critics wrote on the web.  It took me a long t+m to figure out how to complete the puzzle of omitted letters.

Mardon me, Padam, but your pip is slowing. Ah, the fr+tful spoonerism, where almost turette-l+k the fear of stumbling creates in some Christian souls who live and speak in constant fear of switching and mixing initial sounds of two words, afraid he or she will mistakenly come out with some verbal obscenity, thus embarrassing one's interlocutors and humiliating herself or himself.

So, there's that, and so many other places where civility codes displace a more commodious honesty in speech acts and writing. And spontaneity.  But aside from honesty and spontaneity, in a more deliberate  circumstance, I'd ask Where woud we be without Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621).  Wikipedize here.  Burton went down to the river Thames in London and in the early morning fog where from the shore he listened to the boatmen as they cursed their way in their barges on the waters, discoursing their cursing and perhaps competing with one another toward excellence, to burnish a language art that has enriched our English tongue and literature down thru the centuries via Burton's almost-unclassifiable masterpiece (see Northrop Frye's The Anatomy of Criticism).  The word "melancholy" is thawt today to make reference to what we now term "clinical depression." These days, such latterday melancholiacs are known to use the word "shit" a lot.  Oh shit!, I'm one of them.

What of H. L. Mencken, the salty denuder of clergy and teachers who were revered for never telling the truth so that people coud feel it directly, they always hiding themselves behind the Bible while entertaining illusions of moral grandeur.  What of the great comedians like Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Eddie Murphy? — to name but a few. Pietists like Viola shoud not impose their pomposity on our verbosity.

But, hey, I'm not advocating such language arts in the pulpit or the classroom.  Civility has its place too.
So I thank Frank for the pirated discourse copied below.  It's a gem of Christian thawt, desp+t shortcomings.

— Owlb


Beyond Evangelical, the blog of Frank Viola© (Ap418,2k12)

Why the Christian Right Won’t Adopt Me

[Here Mr Viola engages us with 10 reasons we don't expect.  But which merit respect.]

Why the Christian Left Won’t Adopt Me

[Here another 10, to the effect that both sets suggest a coherent Christian morality in faith matters, an ethos expressed in attitude and coherent thawt.]

 

The Family to Which I Belong

Note that I could easily lengthen the list and expand each point. But this is a blog post, not a book.

Of course, not everyone who aligns themselves with the Christian Right affirms each point I’ve listed above. Yet many do. The same is true for those who align themselves with the Christian Left. Yet many do.

And just for good measure, I don’t believe in making a fetish out of political or theological centrism.

That said, it’s okay if the Christian Left and the Christian Right movements won’t adopt me. You see, I belong to the Family of God, which is made up of all who have the Lord’s life within them. And that includes my sisters and brothers in Christ who are on the left and the right.

It may surprise some that I have close friends and family members who are on the far right on the political and theological spectrum, and they are intensely and passionately involved in the political process.

I also have close friends and family members who are on the far left on the political and theological spectrum, and they are intensely and passionately involved in the political process.

I’m glad that they are following their vision, conscience, and passion as I believe all believers should.

So even if the Right and Left movements won’t adopt me, I happily declare that I am kin to all genuine followers of Jesus, regardless of their political or theological bent. 

Rick Warren and N.T. Wright

[Check out Viola where he presents his take on these two guys, leading ecclesiastics of the evangelical world — Viola himself seems less organizationally tied.  He's a wr+ter by trade, not a cleric as such.]

Related:

 Christianity in Crisis: A Response to Andrew Sullivan’s Newsweek Article

Specific Ways to Engage the Culture and Express the Kingdom

Four Aspects of the Church’s Mission in the World

Rethinking Women in Ministry

Exclusive Interview with N.T. Wright & Other Such Thing