Postcards from Palookaville

Todd’s Eva Fever pinpoints a significant problem within the evangelical culture today. And there is more. First, parachurch organizations themselves – including the Alliance – also need to act responsibly. Those which exist to replicate or supplement that which the church offers...

Rusty Reno at First Things has now published the reflections on Evangelicals and Catholics Together. You can find Mark McDowell’s introduction and rationale here , Timothy George’s piece here , Thomas Guarino’s here , and mine here . My approach is slightly different to what might...

As the church in the West faces social marginalization unknown for over 1500 years, the question of the marks of the church, those identifying features which she possesses, is likely to become more pressing. Standard Reformed approaches tend to offer three marks: Word truly preached, sacraments...

Over at Jesus Creed , Dave Moore has some interesting observations on the current state of reformed evangelicalism, on my own happy exile from the Beautiful People (not enough hair, Dave, nothing to do with my writing), and on the need for the occasional whistleblower to indicate that in the Land...

Yes, indeed, rumors of my celebrity have been greatly exaggerated . True, I have met many MoS listeners at the Shepherds Conference but nearly all of them have commented on how great it is to have Aimee on the show as this means it is something their wives will listen to as well. And then there was...

David Mills has picked up on the in-house Protestant exchange at Ref21 on Lent. He offers some Roman Catholic thoughts here . We disagree on a lot of very important theology but on this issue, we are in agreement: Be one thing or the other; Don't try to have your catholic cake and eat it too...

Mark McDowell persuaded me to return briefly to Ref21 on the promise of pre-empting the annual TGC/YRR Ashandlentfest and, as a side attraction, the possibility of arousing the Anglicans from their dogmatic slumbers. It plays out here: The trap baited . The bait taken . The trap sprung .

In responding to Todd, I am tempted to make a comment about the church dying from the death of a thousand cliches. 'The story is not the clothes people wear. It's the lives they lead' is almost as good as 'We have a stance on love, and we have a conversation on everything else...

Bruce Gordon, the Titus Street Professor of Church History at Yale University Divinity School, has made some wonderful contributions to the scholarly world of church history. Bruce and I first met at a monastery, of all places, in January 1989, when we were both postgraduates in Church History in...

One of the problems with the stadium events of Big Eva to which I have occasionally pointed is that they showcase pastors who by definition do not have pastorates that are in any sense normal. There is thus a danger that they foster unrealistic expectations among potential pastors and even...