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.

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.

Saving Christendom by Repackaging the Roman Beast

https://americanreformer.org/2023/10/providence-and-empire/

This unfortunate article was reposted at The Aquila Report and there seems to be more and more of this sort of thing as of late. The whole of theology (and even thought) is increasingly subordinated to the concerns and interests of Dominionist ideology and hence the growing concern with political and cultural thinking. Ironically, the more these 'civilisation' paths are pursued, the more readers are likely to turn to Rome as in many respects the narratives of the Magisterial Reformation and its legacy begin to collapse. And so in that regard one might say that such articles are doubly pernicious.

Anabaptist Storm Clouds on the Horizon (Part 2)

In some post-war Mennonite circles apolitical nonresistance was transformed into tacit uncritical endorsement of the world system. The war was a crisis for these movements which fragmented them and sent the various factions in different directions and yet both liberal and conservative groups (perhaps for different reasons) embraced secular education.

Temporal Conditionality and Typology vis-à-vis Eternal Reality

We read in 1 Kings 2.4

'If your sons take heed to their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul,' He said, 'you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.'

The Davidic promise is two-fold. It contains both a temporal/provisional aspect which is typological and an eternal/unconditional aspect which is the reality.

The Two Age Structure and Chiliasm

For those who like to listen to podcasts....

Below you will find a link to a recent and worthwhile episode over at Christ the Center. The topic is Amillennialism and the guest is Kim Riddlebarger. He's pretty well known as one of the most vocal proponents of that system in Reformed circles. He's also a co-host on the radio programme known as The Whitehorse Inn. Michael Horton is the other well-known figure often linked with Riddlebarger.

Five Point Reductionism- Part 2, Method and the danger of Meta-system

In the end, the Five Points express truth but are a wholly insufficient and lopsided expression of it. I've always marveled at Calvinism's insistence in employing these points as an expression of their system, or even worse as a starting point. The Five Points resulted from the work of the Synod of Dordt in the early 17th century. The Arminian party put forward the Five Points of Arminianism, I summarize:



Partial Depravity

Conditional Election

Universal Atonement

Resistable Grace

Conditional Salvation



And the Calvinists responded with their Five Points...



Total Depravity

Unconditional Election

Limited Atonement

Irresistable Grace

Perseverance of the Saints.



So the Calvinistic points are just responses to another faction's argument. Calvinists then take the Five Points and teach them as a bedrock to their system. Again, while true, how can we think we can reduce the faith to five doctrines? Why would we want to? On one level we could say the bedrock or foundation is one point....Christ Jesus. On another level we would need to insist on a hundred points.

Five Point Reductionism- Part 1

Recently I was on another website and responded to an article concerning Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace. Some of you will recognize these two doctrines as the 'U' and 'I' in the famous Calvinist acrostic TULIP. If you're unfamiliar with it, read on.

While TULIP is certainly true, the problem is the Bible also teaches reciprocal truths on each of these points. The so-called Five Points are dealing with eternal truths, focusing on the decretal activity of God as it pertains to individual salvation. It deals with fallen man's state and need, God's purpose and how salvation is applied. But the categories all deal with what I would call the eternal or invisible. This would include God's workings beyond the realm of space and time (meta-creational/eternal) and with man's internal or spiritual state.

How am I using the term Hyper-Calvinism?

What does it mean and why the Reformed World today cannot understand Augustine, Calvin, Amyraut, or often each other?

#11 Dialectical Hermeneutics continued….

Augustine understood this to some extent. Maybe he wasn't conscious of a specific principle at work. Maybe he didn't map it out, but he obviously saw these things. He also expressed it in the City of God…two kingdoms, another dialectic. Sadly in practice, he like Luther, another professing Two-kingdom adherent was not always consistent. They lapsed into the Monism that has proved the legacy of Constantinian Sacralism. The Reformation vigorously embraced this. It was amended by many in post-Revolution America, but it never quite went away and in the last thirty years thanks to a Abraham Kuyper's influence on Rushdoony and Francis Schaeffer, it's back with a vengeance.

#8 A Hermeneutical Key from Augustine

Augustine of Hippo completely baffled Louis Berkhof. If you read his 'The History of Christian Doctrines' you can sense his frustration with the 5th century African theologian. Augustine has been called the father of both Medieval Catholicism and the Protestant Reformation. There is a sense of course in which this is true. For with him you have both the seeds of sacerdotalism and of a Grace based system of Justification by Faith grounded in Divine Election. How can they be reconciled? Berkhof, a creature of post-Enlightenment rationalism could not, but for Augustine there was no conflict.

#3 Early Dissenters

Schaff's colleague John Nevin wrote a fascinating essay entitled "Early Christianity." It is available in his book "Catholic and Reformed, Selected Theological Writings of John Williamson Nevin," published by The Pickwick Press.
In this work Nevin argues the old Puritan argument of a rapid decline in the church's obedience to the Apostolic Doctrine is ridiculous. He argues that such corruptions and deviations could not have taken place during a period so short as from the death of John around the year 100AD until the time of Constantine. For the whole character of Christianty to have changed, as per the old Protestant argument, there would have been massive protest of which we have very little documentation. It's as if he's saying, "C'mon, where's the proof?"
We've always argued the proof comes from the New Testament being set next to the post-persecution church of the 4th century. Something obviously happened. Nevin would say the argument of Apostolic Tradition must have some validity. If he's right, my flesh wishes he was…then we all need to go to Rome or Constantinople. We are all outside the church. But I can say with confidence from a simple reading of the Bible that Nevin is dead wrong.