Carl Trueman's Posts

Carl Trueman's Posts

From Triumph to Trivia

Carl Trueman
Nov 24, 2015
On the back of Todd's post yesterday , about Steven Furtick and the Southern Baptist Convention, there comes this from his friend, Perry Noble . In his essay on the Brumaire coup, Karl Marx quotes Hegel as saying that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce...

I confess

Carl Trueman
Nov 24, 2015
As Aimee pointed out yesterday , the LORD does act on occasion to teach us a lesson and my confidence that having only biological sons would protect me from having to be in touch with my more tender emotions has proved ill-founded. Of course, the great thing about being in the OPC is that the only...

More than a feeling? Machen, Rieff, and Christian Liberalism

Carl Trueman
Nov 23, 2015
To begin with a question: What would Gresham Machen think of the current state of the union with regard to sexual ethics and the connection between these and the increasing pressure on religious freedom? I suspect he would be shocked by the particularities of the case, that the most private of...

The Ref Pack Take Atlanta

Carl Trueman
Nov 20, 2015
This week, Team Spin gatecrashed the ETS annual conference at Atlanta where we did some interviews and I sat on two panels, one for the Colson Center, on Christianity and culture, and one for President Al Mohler, on Christianity after the sexual revolution. Odd places for someone whose only...

Oh no, not another one....

Carl Trueman
Nov 10, 2015
One of the strangest aspects of American Christian culture to a foreigner like myself is the popularity of dispensationalism. There are probably many reasons for the large numbers of supporters this system commands in the New World but high among them is surely the role of the Scofield Reference...

When gene pools are somewhat skinny

Carl Trueman
Nov 2, 2015
Todd’s post of last week points towards an important aspect of the YRR movement which explains the ubiquitous multitasking of key figures: the highly limited gene pool of its self-perpetuating leadership. For a movement beset by scandals among some of its key players over the last few years,...

A Brief but Brilliant Book on Ministry

Carl Trueman
Oct 14, 2015
This autumn is proving a vintage season for books on ministry. Jason Helopoulos’ book arrived a few weeks ago, and Kent Hughes’ massive tome is about to be published. Plus the redoubtable Jim Garretson has another gem on a Princetonian due for publication in October. If it is anything...

Not an Overbold Beginning

Carl Trueman
Oct 13, 2015
“It is, perhaps, an overbold beginning, but I will venture to say that with its preaching Christianity stands or falls.” Thus did the Scottish theologian, Peter Taylor Forysth, begin his Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale in 1907. The book that emerged from those lectures,...

Love and Fidelity

Carl Trueman
Oct 5, 2015
Anyone who has a child at a college or university will know the huge pressure that is put on students these days to conform to the sexual mores of the age. The Love and Fidelity Network is an organization desgined to promote sane views of sex on campuses, with an appropriately thoughtful philosophy...

The Wave of the Future

Carl Trueman
Oct 5, 2015
Yesterday I was given a copy of Jason Helopoulos's new book, The New Pastor's Handbook: Help and Encouragement for the First Years of Ministry . It looks excellent, with short chapters on a whole collection of important themes, from the nature of a call to the difference between lectures...