Scholasticism and Muller's Concession

https://derekzrishmawy.com/2015/06/30/dont-underestimate-the-scholastics-or-gleanings-from-richard-mullers-prrd/

Critics of the Calvin vs. the Calvinists thesis often seem to suggest that those who posit the notion have erected a straw man – the supposed epistemological and methodological divide between the first generation of Magisterial Reformers and their seventeenth century descendants just isn't there.

The Unity of the Brethren and the Magisterial Reformation (Part 2)

For the Bohemian Brethren, the contacts with the Magisterial Reformation produced mostly negative results. Swept up into the political struggle, the theology and ethics of the Reformation produced worldliness and compromise in their lives. The net sum was that their movement was forced to pay a vicious price in the aftermath of the Schmalkaldic War. Though attempting to keep their distance at times, they were now part of the larger Protestant movement and (willingly or not) they were caught up in the catastrophe and bloodletting known as The Thirty Years War.

Washer's Ten Indictments Against the Modern Church: Critiquing the Critics (Part 2)

Washer refers to infant baptism as the golden calf of the Reformation. To put it bluntly, he's wrong... but there's a sense in which he's right. He's wrong on the issue of paedobaptism there's a hint of truth to his statement.

Paedobaptism is Scriptural and despite Baptist assertions to the contrary it is even testified to in the book of Acts but the problem is when it's applied in a Sacralist milieu. Then it becomes distorted and destructive. Baptism, paedo- or otherwise should never be universally applied to a tribe, nation or culture. It is applied only to the separatist pilgrim Church that has come out of the world and continues in perseverance. Within that context paedobaptism has its import and can function correctly. Sacralism necessarily waters down discipline to the point of near irrelevance and it destroys the Church's distinct identity and (as a consequence) renders the Word and Sacrament almost meaningless.

Washer's Ten Indictments Against the Modern Church: Critiquing the Critics (Part 1)

Recently I decided to revisit Paul Washer's Ten Indictments Against the Modern Church. You can get it in pamphlet form but in this case I wanted to listen to it and so I went to SermonAudio. I'm not usually one for highly impassioned preaching with shouting and all the rest, but if I am going to listen to someone do it, it's going to be along the lines of Paul Washer.

It's been a good eight years since I listened to it last. I remember what I was doing at the time and can place the date in 2010. I remember being pleasantly surprised by his candor and largely accurate assessment of Evangelicalism in the 21^st century. Of course, I don't agree with him on every point but overall it's excellent.

Four types of Christian, Four Gospels and the Adulteration of the Visible Church (Part 2)

The Socio-Cultural or Pronoun Error and Christian Antithesis  

Despite the stumbles and setbacks, Protestants continued in their attempts to create a new version of Christendom. In the centuries following the Reformation and Age of Reason, the nation state came to the fore and reached full flower during the Enlightenment. The concepts and categories of the period became deeply ingrained and citizen-nationalities were ultimately wed to the older concept of Christendom.

Four types of Christian, Four Gospels and the Adulteration of the Visible Church (Part 1)

Nominal Christianity and the Lordship Controversy

What is a Christian? How is that term to be defined? It may seem like an easy and straightforward question but apparently it isn't because there seems to be a lot of confusion.

Pietism, Higher Criticism and the Prussian Union of 1817

Over the years I have encountered numerous Missouri Synod Lutherans who continually rail against Pietism. I mean they really have very strong feelings about it. I was reminded of this recently when I listened to podcast dealing with the Prussian Union of 1817.