Who Is An Evangelical? A Review
Who is an evangelical? That is a complex question. We often hear the term evangelical used today in reference to American politics, but that is a very narrow (one might say misguided) understanding of historical evangelicals and evangelicalism. In Who Is an Evangelical?, Thomas Kidd attempts to answer the question historically by tracing the roots of American evangelicalism from the eighteenth century through the election of Donald...
Who Is Jesus? William Whiston and Athanasius Convicted of Forgery
Introduction Who is Jesus Christ? It’s hard to imagine a more foundational question for the Christian faith. In fact, after Jesus’ own disciples rattled off other peoples’ opinion of Him, He directly asked them: “But who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29, ESV) In some ways, the answer may be simple, but, in other ways, it is more complex than we might expect. Some have argued that Jesus is a created being, even the greatest of all...
The Fourth Strand of the Reformation: A Review
Evangelicals exist along a spectrum concerning their interest in ecclesiology. Some are largely disinterested in what the Bible says about how to structure the local church. Yet others express a revived interest in ecclesiology, which ministries such as 9Marks have deeply influenced in the Baptist world. Where we fall on this spectrum isn’t driven entirely by our soteriology either. We might be tempted to think that the interest in...
When “No Show Jones” Showed Up at Church
I still remember the first time I heard “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” It was one of the saddest songs I’d ever heard. It’s the story of a heartbroken lover who can’t get over the woman he loves and is estranged from. He reads over letters from a bygone era of their relationship and notes all of the times she wrote “I love you.” The punchline of the song is powerful: It isn’t until he dies that he’s finally able to stop loving her....
Thomas Helwys, Roger Williams, and Pre-Enlightenment Arguments for Religious Liberty
In a fascinating chapter entitled “The Evangelical Encounter with the Enlightenment,” Catherine A. Brekus details early evangelicals’ relationship with Enlightenment principles. To be sure, evangelicals did not imbibe Enlightenment ideas and ideals wholesale. As Brekus explains: On the surface, the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, and evangelicalism, with its heart-centered piety, seem to have stood in stark opposition to...
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