Historical Cycles: The Post-Napoleonic Context of Adolphe Monod, Reveil, and Some Contemporary Analogies (IV)

The story of Monod is in some ways inspiring – in other respects he is something of a disappointment. The men of Reveil are closer to our times and thus they lack the mystique that some further back in history are able to generate. That said, Monod's story is worth considering and reflecting on. But his context has to be understood and it always strikes me how there are both parallels and huge differences with the American and British context. Indeed in many ways it's a key moment where the three cultural and ecclesiastical sections sharply diverge – America and the Continent being the most extreme in terms of difference with Britain moving along its own track that today has brought it to the same place as the Continent. For Americans this should serve as a stark warning – perhaps a harbinger of what is to come.

Historical Cycles: The Post-Napoleonic Context of Adolphe Monod, Reveil, and Some Contemporary Analogies (I)

I recently finished Constance Walker's small biography on Adolphe Monod (1802-1856) which I would recommend to anyone interested in nineteenth century conservative Protestantism on the European continent – of which there is not a great deal. This is why figures like Monod stand out.

Inbox: Questions Concerning the Apocrypha (IV)

One could say (given all that has been argued here) that I might be a prime candidate for swimming the Tiber (or Crossing the Bosphorus) and I have been forced to acknowledge the weight of such arguments and to a degree I can understand why many have abandoned the Reformation (and especially Evangelicalism) for Rome or Constantinople. But this is folly of an even greater magnitude as Rome and Constantinople are false systems – false and counterfeit manifestations of Christianity. This doesn't mean that every last thing Rome holds to or proclaims is wrong – as even the heirs of the sixteenth century Reformation will acknowledge, though there is little agreement as to what that all means. Those who defect to Rome have already embraced erroneous assumptions and then when the weight of everything is else is factored in – they make the perilous move and thinking they do Christ service, they join with His enemies. Unlike most contemporary Evangelicals, I still argue that Roman Catholicism is antichrist and at least a manifestation or a component of the Whore-Beast imagery of New Testament prophecy.

An Appeal to the Watchtower Society and Former Members of the Jehovah's Witnesses (II)

It's one thing to break free of philosophy or tradition, or the extant influences of the Magisterial Protestant Reformation, but for Americans in particular there's often a barrier or problem the hinders a return to the New Testament and it's one that Restorationist groups like the Witnesses, Churches of Christ, and others need to understand.

An Appeal to the Watchtower Society and Former Members of the Jehovah's Witnesses (I)

I feel something of a burden for the members of this group. They are to be commended, for on many points they put the larger Evangelical and Protestant world to shame. In terms of ethics and a sense of pilgrim identity, the Witnesses are in many ways much closer to the New Testament than those who consider them a cult.