What It Means to Be Protestant: A Review
Gavin Ortlund in his outstanding new book What It Means to be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church points to three aspects of renewal. These three aspects comprise what he calls “mere Protestantism”: A renewal of the gospel, A renewal of Scripture as our final authority, and A renewal of the teachings of Scripture […]
Church History Debates: Should We Venerate Icons?
A hallmark of Old Testament Judaism was its strict opposition to idolatry, and hence to religious images that could lead to image worship. The earliest Christians seemed to follow their Jewish predecessors with an uneasiness to such things. Their rejection of image-worship contributed to their caricature in the broader society as “atheists.” At some point […]
Church History Debates: What Is Monophysitism?
It seems clear from Scripture that Jesus was both human and divine. Could it be that both natures combined to form a single, hybrid nature? That’s the logic behind a view called “monophysitism.” Background and Summary To understand monophysitism, it’s helpful to go back and look at the debate over whether Jesus was one or […]
Church History Debates: Is Jesus Fully God?
After the Roman emperor Constantine used Christianity to unify his empire, his son Constantius went one step further: He attempted to unify the Roman empire under an even more unifying version of Christianity: Arianism. Arianism, with its less-than-fully divine Jesus, made for an easier version of Christianity for pagans to assimilate into. But was it […]
The Earliest Creeds in Christianity & What Conclusion They Point To
What are the earliest creeds in Christianity? There are church creeds such as the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325) and the Chalcedonian Creed (A.D. 451), but the earliest creeds go back much farther—to even before the writing of the New Testament. Within the New Testament writings (all written within the first century A.D.), we find creedal […]
New Testament Creeds: A Strong Case for the Gospels
The New Testament does not quote only from the Old Testament. It also quotes pre-New Testament creeds which describe early Christian doctrine. Scholars recognize several of these creedal passages.[1] All creedal material embedded in the New Testament predates the texts within which it finds itself. The author uses these creeds for a couple reasons: first, […]
