The Question of Sacramental Efficacy and why Baptist Children are Unregenerate and Cannot Worship God

In a recent post that landed in my inbox, Scott Brown asks how many children are parents willing to lose? He's speaking in terms of them walking away from the faith of their parents - kind of a strange notion for a Baptist to express I think.

Sola Fide - By Faith Alone

Continuing with the Solas of the Reformation, we come to Sola Fide or Justification by Faith Alone. Martin Luther argued this was the article upon which the Church stands or falls. The New Testament speaks of salvation in multiple ways. For example we encounter terms like adoption, justification, sanctification, election, and union and they all touch on the question of salvation and our relationship with God. Luther and the other Reformers tended to put justification at the front of the line, making its 'legal declaration of righteousness' the central and most critical aspect of our standing with God. The righteousness in question is that of Christ - His righteousness is applied to us. We are justified. How is this accomplished? Through various works? No, by faith alone.

Calvinism's Inability to Reckon With Apostasy

https://philosophical-theology.com/2025/10/17/abandoning-the-faith-in-college-really/

DiGiacomo finds parental discourse surrounding the issue of apostasy to be confused but we could say the same adjective describes his discourse as well. The bottom line is this - what does the New Testament say? And this is the rub, Calvinism all too often commits itself to rationalist systemic frameworks that logically prioritize certain truths and as a consequence, verses (even if there are literally dozens of them) that suggest something to the contrary must be explained away and/or subordinated.

Piety and an Oversimplified Dichotomy

https://christoverall.com/article/concise/which-way-christian-a-contrast-of-david-platts-radical-and-michael-hortons-ordinary/

Chad Lawrence is keen to warn his audience against forms of Pietism and thinks he's found it hiding in the works of New Calvinist author David Platt.

Platt's 'Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream' was released in 2010 and made a splash in Evangelical circles. Platt's work has some problems to be sure - he rightly wants to counter American consumerist norms but equates the rejection with a model of piety which is expressed by means of the highly flawed and corrupt 'missions'-ministry approach common in modern Evangelicalism and a kind of missional approach which tends toward an agenda of social transformation. And for the record, a mega-church is hardly the venue for Pietism to sink roots.

Soteriology and Sacraments: The Early Church and the Contemporary Ecclesiastical Spectrum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jTld1nmkq4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpVz4okhdRU

Several weeks ago I caught Jordan Cooper's videos dealing with the Ethiopian Orthodox man and the Knechtle's over questions regarding the Early Church. The videos of the exchange went viral and have been the source of considerable discussion. It's been something of a boon to Orthodox and Catholic apologists at the Knechtle's were demonstrably incapable of defending their position.

The Rich Young Ruler, Law, and New Covenant Supremacy (I)

Not long ago I listened to a sermon on the Rich Young Ruler in Matthew 19 and I was struck by the difficulty the preacher seemed to have in dealing with the passage. I agree, there are some interpretive challenges but I think that often these difficulties are the result of theological baggage that's brought to the text.

Attending Church in America - the Day after Trump Bombed Iran

Attending church this Sunday, I was struck once again by the different approaches and understandings as to what we're doing there, who are we, and why do we gather?

A PCA Take on Paedocommunion

https://gospelreformation.net/dear-pastor-may-my-child-take-the-lords-supper/

Spinnenweber is to be commended as he covers all the bases and his treatment of the subject is fair. Unfortunately his conclusions are completely wrong.

Fundamentalism's Baconian Epistemology

I encountered this on a website - an argument against transubstantiation by means of empirical deduction. It reminded me of what some have called the Baconian epistemology of Fundamentalism which is closely related to the Common Sense Realism so dominant in the early days of America. The pastor in question appeals to a perceived problem with the bread....

Spiritual Symbolism is Still Symbolism

https://www.crossway.org/articles/is-the-lords-supper-jesuss-actual-body-and-blood-1-corinthians/

On one level this article had moments in which it was a blessing to read. And yet another part of me wanted to crumple up the paper and throw it across the room.

We can agree that the Lord's Supper is not a repeated sacrifice as understood in the Roman Catholic Mass and while some of the Lutheran hair-splitting and insistence on ubiquity is not always helpful, Naselli's rendering of the Supper as merely symbolic does not account for the Scriptural data.

How Should Christians View Their Children?

https://jacobrcrouch.wordpress.com/2024/11/01/train-your-kids-to-be-christians/

There is much that is positive in this article and I do not doubt Crouch's sincerity nor do I wish to simply cast his comments in a negative light. Rather I wish to utilize them and discuss some of the tensions and inconsistencies that exist within the Reformed and Evangelical communities.

New Calvinism, Reformed Sacramentology, and the New Testament

https://www.str.org/w/will-god-be-in-pain-for-eternity-as-he-watches-people-suffer-in-hell-

I will desist from an extended critique of Greg Koukl and the advice he dispenses on his programme. There are quite a few things that could be said about the other segments of this episode that I found problematic. In fact, I rarely find myself ever agreeing with him about much of anything. But one particular aspect of this show struck me.

Postscript: Last Days Dualities and The Cult of Monism

Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XX)

The dominant monism of today is a result of the Constantinian synthesis that birthed Christendom and the Scholastic impulse. Though a minority movement within the larger fold of Evangelicalism, Calvinism has also exercised considerable influence in terms of monistic thought and tendency.

The First Reformation and the Present Ecclesiastical Crisis

Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XV)

The time is now. Dominionism and the reactionary re-casting of Sacralism in the wake of 19^th and 20^th century secularism is on the verge of swallowing up the remaining (if paltry) testimony of the First Reformation, its lifeline to the Early Church and New Testament Christianity.

First Reformation Primitivism and the Second Constantinian Shift

Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XII)

The First Reformation it would seem embraced theological primitivism – unelaborated and limited doctrinal concepts. Like the Early Church they weren't terribly worried about seeming contradictions or doctrines that seemed to defy sense-experience or logical categories tied to it.

The Membership-Marriage Fallacy and Other Ecclesiastical Sophisms

https://www.reformation21.org/blog/join-or-die

The introduction to this article is not unsound. We must be part of a congregation but the question of 'joining' begs the question with regard to a denominational polity.

Membership Chaos within the Confessional Presbyterian Context (Part 2)

As you pursue communicant membership, rest assured that he who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6). “May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thess. 5:23–24). Amen. 

Apart from the terminology and conceptualisation of 'communicant membership', the statement is not unsound. And yet it is lacking. To be fair it was not the author's intent to provide an exhaustive statement and yet I think this is important. He rightly emphasizes the need for good works and the Philippian exhortation is tied to the concept of perseverance – an idea that permeates the New Testament and yet must be distinguished from the deduced and popular but erroneous concept of eternal security.

Membership Chaos within the Confessional Presbyterian Context (Part 1)

This brief statement on membership caught my eye while perusing New Horizons, the OPC monthly that I continue to follow even though I departed the OPC about twenty years ago. My early Christian days were in connection with that denomination and while I would never even consider regularly attending another one – I still follow its trajectory and movements and though the numbers grow fewer, there are still people I know (or knew) within its fold.

Evangelicals and Their Children: The Crisis of Kids at Home

I have heard through family and friends that many are lamenting the fact that their kids are now at home due to school closures. There is apparently some stress or crisis resulting from the family being brought together and forced to spend long hours in each other's company. It's a sad commentary on the degenerate state of the family in this society and apparently within the Church that echoes it.

Facebook Church

On the one hand it could be argued that the presently available technology is a blessing as due to the medical emergency it would seem (for a time) that churches are unable to congregate. If viewed strictly as a temporary measure, I could see some benefit from it as a 'better than nothing' but less than ideal (or adequate) alternative.