Evangelicalism Stands or Falls with Calvinism

'The world should realize with increased clearness that Evangelicalism stands or falls with Calvinism.' ((B. B. Warfield, quoted in Arthur C. Custance, The Sovereignty of Grace (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979), 83-84.)) The great princeton theologian Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield wrote those words a century ago. At the time, Calvinism still had a major influence on evangelicalism, helping to define its theology, shape its spirituality, and clarify its mission. That is no longer as true as ...

We Have Banished the Holy God of Scripture

If there is any doctrine that rivals God's sovereignty in importance it is the holiness of God. But do we have any sense or appreciation of the holiness of God in our churches today? David Wells writes that God's holiness weighs "lightly upon us." Why? Holiness involves God's transcendence. It involves majesty, the authority of sovereign power, stateliness or grandeur. It embraces the idea of God's sovereign majestic will, a will that is set upon proclaiming himself to ...

Human Beings Becoming Sovereign…

If we want to recover the doctrine of God we have to recover the attributes of God, and one attribute that is sorely missing in our time is the attribute of God's sovereignty. What happens in the Christian world if you don't give attention to the sovereign God? Human sovereignty comes in to take the true God's place. Idols always replace the true if the true is not kept there. So you have human beings becoming sovereign in ...

Whom Did You Think You Were Worshipping?

In any discussion of reformation in doctrine one must come to the realization that the real problem of our time is that there is hardly any doctrine at all to reform. So when we talk about reformation we must focus on a recovery of theology, period. Certainly in the liberal churches there is a lack of exposition of Scripture and sound doctrine, and unfortunately, this is rapidly becoming the case in evangelical circles as well. Now ...

Church Entertainment? For Emotional Involvement?

Perhaps you are saying to yourself, "What difference does it make? If entertainment is the way television operates, why not have religious entertainment? Wouldn't it be better to have that than what the networks offer?" And I am inclined to agree with you here, except for two points. First, if what people expect from religion is what they see on television, then there is going to be (and as a pastor I assure you there ...

Wanted: Thinking Christians

You see, if we do not have a perspective on life that is higher than what we can touch, taste, and see, we cannot appreciate that life is not an accident of evolution, but a gift of God and so ought to be preserved. Instead, when the only direction we can look is down, we conclude that we have evolved a bit up from the animals. And because we define ourselves by the creation, we ...