Anglicanism: It’s not what you think it is

The Gospel Coalition has a very good overview article. Here are some things you may not know about Anglicanism: 1. Since the arrival of Christianity in Britain in the 3rd century, British Christianity has had a distinct flavor and independence of spirit, and was frequently in tension with Roman Catholicism. 2. The break with Rome …

A Reformed Perspective on Natural Beauty

The universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God. ~ Belgic Confession of Faith Swiss Alps The Protestant Reformers spoke often of the beauty of creation. Indeed, natural beauty[1] plays an important role in some …

Natural Rights and the Calvinist Political Tradition (1)

In the last couple decades, many scholars have recognized the contribution of Calvinist theologians and political theorists to the formulation of natural rights. Prior to this, largely due to Leo Strauss, Calvinists were lumped in with the pre-modern notions of objective natural rights. These, according to Strauss, …are doctrines [that] taught the duties of man; …

The Breadth Of The Reformed Orthodox Phenomenon

The Calvinist philosopher Paul Helm has recently published a brief review or commentary on Oliver Crisp’s “Deviant Calvinism” on the discussion between “freedom of the will” and “state of grace”. He states the issue: “An attempt will be made to show not that there are two rival metaphysical views of human freedom side by side …

Debate and Polemic, Within and Without the “High Orthodox”

I didn’t grow up Reformed, and so some of the distinctions that are made in and among Reformed churches are difficult for me to contextualize. This section is somewhat long, but it moves quickly, and I found it very helpful in sorting out “what all the discussions were about” during the Reformed “High Orthodox” period …

How Reformed Scholasticism differed from Medieval Scholasticism

For the Orthodox Reformed writers working in the generations after the Reformation, “scholasticism” was a method of doing things, not an appropriation of earlier doctrines. These writers and theologians worked with the “broad brush” provided by the Reformers, as they sought to “establish … systematically the normative, catholic character of institutionalized Protestantism.” The term scholasticism …

Tradition in the church at the time of the Reformation

This is from a blog post I did a while ago that described the major differences among the earliest churches of the Reformation as if “church tradition” were a “junk drawer”. It went like this: We all have a “top dresser drawer” into which we throw everything that there’s no other place for. Over time, …

Called Out of Confusion

I received this unsolicited email yesterday: Hi John, You don’t know me, but I wanted to thank you for the work you are doing on Triablogue and in comment boxes on various reformed blogs across the internet. If you don’t mind, I’d like to try to encourage you and share what a positive impact your …