Trinity Foundation Newsletters

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The fundamental crisis of the twentieth century is neither political, nor social, nor economic. It is intellectual, and the primary intellectual problem is neither metaphysical nor ethical: It is epistemological.

Not only do denominations differ over their interpretations of various Biblical doctrines, but also within each denomination individual members have their personal peculiarities.

"In Adam’s fall we sinned all" was the first line of the first textbook printed in North America, the Puritans’ New England Primer.

"For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to them selves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables" (2 Timothy 4:3, 4).

American Christians of the twentieth century are, for the most part, a pusillanimous (Cowardly) bunch. About the only time they shed their timidity is in order to attack a fellow Christian who is valiant in defense of the truth.

Over the past decade the Christian community has found itself engaged in a continuous battle, legal and otherwise, with the government. The issues involved in this struggle are varied. This paper will focus on the current key areas of Christian concern.


In the midst of this rampant apostasy in the United States and rabid anti-Christianity worldwide, I want to discuss briefly what has brought us to the present situation, and where we may expect the future to take us.

As we will see, however, the problem of evil is not the compelling argument it is made out to be. In fact, as Gordon Clark has said, ‚whereas various other views disintegrate at this point, the system known as Calvinism and expressed in the Westminster Confession of Faith offers a satisfactory and completely logical answer.



 

In A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith,1 Reymond has given the church a comprehensive and contemporary statement of Christian theology.



 

We Have Seen the Future On the evening of October 31, 1998—Reformation Day, All Saints Day, or Halloween (depending upon your religious outlook)—Chuck Colson presented his lecture ‚Building Common Ground in the Christian Church for the Culture of Life.‛



 

Archaeology and the Bible The December 18, 1995, issue of Time magazine had as its cover story, “IS THE BIBLE FACT OR FICTION?



 

Antichrist 1999  Antichrist therefore refers to some figure who puts himself in the place of Jesus Christ. He is a substitute Christ.



 

Beware of Men The general position of the ecumenical movement with reference to the Scriptures is Antichristian. The Bible is subordinated to experience.



 

Protestant Pastors Road to Rome  In the past ten years at least fifty Protestant pastors, mostly evangelicals, have resigned their posts and found their ways to Rome. Every one has endured conflict of mind and heart; every one has sacrificed comfort and security.


 

The Reformation Day Statement  There have risen within the ranks of those professing the Christian Faith some divisive persons who do not cherish or do not understand the distinctive doctrines of the Bible, but rather have trampled the Gospel and the unity of the Christian church underfoot.



 

Why Does Rome Teach What It Does Because Pelagianism, including all the modified forms it takes today (Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Arminianism), is always an attack on the sola gratia, solus Christus, sola fide soteric principle,



 

Ronald Sider Contra Deum Many professing Christians have the erroneous idea that it is unspiritual to discuss economics. No man say they, can discuss two matters. One must discuss either God or money. But the Bible knows nothing of this attitude;



 

The Failure of Secular Economics Economics as a discipline, as a body of propositions, is supposed to explain—correctly—something about the world. It has failed to do so, not from want of trying, but from want of the correct assumptions and the correct methods.



 

Intellectual Dishonesty and Roman Catholic Apologetics One can sympathize with a Roman Catholic who is embarrassed by the fact that his allegedly infallible Church has preached collectivism and condemned capitalism on moral grounds for more than a century.



 

Against Christianity “Christianity is the heresy of heresies, the underlying cause of the weakness, lethargy, sickness, and failure of the modern church.” – Peter Leithart, Presbyterian Church in America Minister



 

The Coming Caesars One dangerous aspect of the modern secular state has been its tendency to define what is and is not permitted in terms of religion.



 

Are You Catholic Does God justify a person by putting Christ’s righteousness into his heart?


 

Civilization and the Protestant Reformation Civilization as we know it began a few minutes before noon, October 31, 1517.  In the small east German town of Wittenberg, a 34-year-old Augustinian priest walked to Castle Church and nailed 95 theological propositions for debate on the door.



 

Counterfeit Gospels Counterfeit money looks like genuine money; it has to, if it is going to fool anyone. Counterfeit gospels look like the real thing, and they fool many people.



 

Four Great Certainties Here are four things that we should never doubt—four great certainties. In a world filled with uncertainty, there are some things that we can know for sure.



 

God's Plan To Save His People “All the inhabitants of the Earth are reputed as nothing; he does according to his will in the army of Heaven and among the inhabitants of the Earth. No one can restrain his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” Daniel 4



 

What Is Christian Philosophy Christianity holds that knowledge is revealed by God. Christianity is propositional truth revealed by God, propositions that have been written in the 66 books of the Bible.

As a result, any attack on the Bible’s credibility strikes us very close to home. If we cannot trust the book, are we allowed to trust its author?



 

Federal Vision The movement that calls itself the “federal vision” teaches
justification by the obedience of the sinner.



 

Pernicious Hypocrisy   That some serious slippage has occurred away from the
classical Protestant doctrine of justification sola fide has
been well documented in many religious publications.


 

Inquisitions, Confessionals, or Courts? The Roman Catholic Inquisition is the most infamous example of the use of threats of force and force by church officers.



 

The Religious Wars of the 21st Century The phrase “collapse of a civilization” is a common figure of
speech that misleads many into thinking that civilizations
collapse in much the same way that buildings collapse
during controlled demolitions, or like the twin towers of the
World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001.



 

The Orthodox Presbyterian Cover-up Part of the Committee’s mandate was to address
“other related doctrines” beyond the Federal Vision and New
Perspective on Paul, but the Committee has failed to do this. It
does not address the false teachings and false teachers that
have most seriously undermined the OPC itself.



 

Sacramental Sorcery TThe Charismatic movement, beginning in the 1960s, cemented at the popular level the fundamental theological unity
between Romanism and Pentecostalism.



 

Providence and Thanksgiving A proper understanding of the limitations of medical science tends to make doctors humble. Some doctors, like some men in every profession, are know-it-alls, but they are likely to be the least competent and the worst educated.



 

Not Yours To Give The Christian’s duty to help the widow and orphan is clearly stated in the Bible. The Bible also clearly states that the Christian is to use his own property in charity, and it clearly forbids stealing to help the poor.



 

Linguistics and the Bible The Bible begins with the account of creation. Information about language starts as soon as the words do, and the first information we get about language is about discourse
structure, which, in linguistic jargon, means language about events.



 

In Christ The Biblical doctrine of intellectual and legal union with Christ is rejected by the mystics. They prefer an unintelligible experiential and existential incorporation into the resurrected Christ. They hope their students mistake unintelligibility for spirituality. Thus they attack the Gospel and Christ.



 

Forgotten Principles of the Reformation Every October, while the world is imitating and celebrating
witches and ghouls and ghosts and magic in good pagan and medieval fashion, Christians remember the Christian Reformation of the sixteenth century when the Gospel of Jesus Christ swept across Europe, shattering a thoroughly corrupt Christendom and granting everlasting life to millions of lost souls.



 

The New Perspective on Paul Let us first recall what we are being asked to discard, the
“old perspective on Paul.” The old perspective declared
that Paul was concerned about God’s law, sin, and
individual salvation, and taught the Reformation doctrine of
justification by faith alone.



 

Saving the Bible Presbyterian Church This issue contains a plea concerning the Bible Presbyterian
Church (BPC), a denomination born out of controversy in the late
1930s. Men of God banded together to preserve an American
Presbyterian testimony, true to the Scriptures and the Westminster Standards.

 

 

RC Sproul on Faith R. C. Sproul has had enormous influence in Reformed circles, and unfortunately he is an example of the serious confusion about saving faith found in conservative churches.

 



 

Hebrews 11 We must distinguish between the subjective faith of the believer (that is, his mental act of believing) and the objective truth of God’s Word (“the faith”).



 

God is a God of order, and serious Christians have always been concerned with various aspects of God’s orderliness.



 

Biblical View of Truth The view of truth that I wish to restate is this: Truth is propositional, and only propositional. To put it even more plainly,
truth is a property, characteristic, or attribute only of propositions.



 

What Should True Presbyterians Do at the 1936 General Assembly? The whole program of the General Assembly is carefully planned
in such a way as to conceal the real issues and give a false
impression of faithfulness to the Word of God.



 

Counterfeit Miracles  Despite the growing interest in religion, most churchgoers
in America – perhaps most churchgoers worldwide – seem
never to have read the Bible.



 

A Guide for the Perplexed If you are a member or regular attendee of a Reformed
church in the United States, and if you have not been
snoring in the pews for the past five years, you have
probably heard someone mention Norman Shepherd.



 

Words Paul has much more to say to Timothy and to us: “If you
instruct the brethren in these things....” A good servant of Jesus
Christ must be an instructor, but not simply an instructor: He
must be an instructor in a certain subject, namely, “these things.”


 

Why Heretics Win Battles The 20th century Presbyterian J. Gresham Machen lost
some of his battles. In 1923 he wrote a book demonstrating
that the Presbyterian Church in the United States was preaching two different messages, Christianity and Liberalism.


 

The Evisceration of the Christian Faith Yet, today, among those calling themselves Reformed, there has been an even more deadly and pervasive attack on the truth of Scripture that has left men impotent to defend the Gospel. This movement has attempted to divorce the statements of Scripture
from their logical and necessary implications.


 

The Law of a Sound Mind A fundamental law of the Christian faith, that our rational minds must always be in control of our thoughts and actions, and that our minds must be wholly subservient to the Word of God as
the exclusive source of authoritative teaching from God.



 

The Marks of Neo-Liberalism In this paradigm, liberalism by definition exists only outside the denom ination – among “them,” but certainly not among “us.”


 

Roman Catholicism’s Recent Claim
That It Is the True Church
On June 29, 2007, the Vatican’s Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith issued a brief document containing its
“responses” to five questions..



 

The Clark-Van Til Controversy Dr. Clark was immediately opposed by the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary, led by Professor Cornelius Van Til. Despite their zealous opposition, Dr. Clark was ordained by the OPC.



 

Little Boys Our salvation from beginning to end is all of God to
undeserving sinners. It is He who works in us both to will
and to do of His good pleasure.



 

Antichrist Is Coming, April 15, 2008 Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to come to the United States on April 15, 2008. The following is a compilation of quotes from various theologians and historians throughout history on the papacy.



 

Christians and the Civil War Living in the South for the past ten years has made it clear to me that many citizens of the South, even in the 21st century, are still fighting a guerrilla war with disinformation, wishful thinking, and propaganda..



 

Ayn Rand 1905-1982  Her metaphysics, as I have carefully documented, consists of a belief in the primacy of indestructible matter. Her epistemology, sensation plus abstraction, leads only to skepticism, not to knowledge.



 

Protestant Hostility Toward Capitalism Much of their antipathy is based on supposed ethical grounds that capitalism promotes greed, selfishness, monopoly, and oppression of the poor.


 

Paradox in Christian Theology: An Analysis of Its Presence, Character, and Epistemic Status As we study the issue of “paradox in Christian theology” in this
review it is important for us to understand, as Kenneth Kantzer
correctly stated, that there are two kinds of paradoxes: rhetorical
and logical.



 

The Roman Catholic Agenda Embedded in the Manhattan Declaration On November 20th, 2009, more than 150 people portraying themselves as Christian leaders of Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical backgrounds declared their unity because of moral issues.



 

The White Horse Inn: Nonsense on Tap I doubt you listen to the White Horse Inn, but I felt the need to pass this on to you. On July 8, 2007, they had an interview with Anne Rice, a Roman Catholic author that returned to the "Christian faith" of her childhood.



 

Many Infallible Proofs Scripture consistently supports the ideas of presuppositional apologetics. The Bible nowhere proves and everywhere presupposes the existence of God.



 

Apparitions and Roman Catholic Doctrine Apparitions typically arrive with extensive messages for popes and pilgrims alike. The Marian Apparition at Paris in 1830 gave Roman Catholics the devotion and design of the popular “Miraculous Medal.”



 

Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended Dr. Bahnsen championed the use of logic. He correctly adhered to the need for a rational Christianity. He believed that a rational defense of the faith was essential to defending the faith. His mentor, Cornelius Van Til, on the other hand, did not.



 

Scripturalism: A Christian Worldview Scripturalism, then, teaches that all of our know-ledge is to be derived from the Bible, which has a systematic monopoly on truth.



 

Bible and Women Teachers The very essence of heresy is that the modes of thought and tenets originating elsewhere than in the Scriptures of God are given decisive weight when they clash with the teachings of
God



 

Imperious Presbyterianism   Specifically, in this critique, we will examine some specific errors regarding the nature of the church, the ministry, ecclesiastical authority, and church membership.



 

John Paul II: Blessed in the Sight of God? The Lord underscored Scriptural truth as the foundation of sanctity. He declared, “If a man love me, he will keep my words” (John 14:23). Consequently, it is the responsibility of the one who claims to be Christ‟s disciple to keep His Word..



 

Janus Alive and Well: Dr. R. Scott Clark and the Well-Meant Offer of the Gospel While at times “well-meant offer” defenders appear to be Calvinistic in their belief in God‟s sovereign election and particular atonement, they also maintain a belief in the universal desire of God for the salvation of those God predestined to perdition; the reprobate.



 

Church Membership in an Age of Idolatry and Confusion We live in an age of idolatry and confusion. In America today, a man living in a large city may find a multitude of churches near his home. Yet, if a man becomes serious about the Biblical Gospel and the right worship of God, he may quickly discover that he has no real choices among the multitude of religious assemblies that surround him.



 

The purpose of this article is to sketch (very briefly) the status of differing beliefs about the foundations of mathematics, discuss the content of a number of articles and books dealing with Christian views of mathematics.



 

Rebuilding American Freedom in the Twenty-First Century What has happened to America over the last 50 years? To paraphrase an old campaign question, Are we freer today than we were 50 years ago? Are we more civilized today than we were 50 years ago? I think nearly all of us would answer no to both
questions.



 

What about the Imprecatory Psalms? Imprecatory Psalms, to quote Gleason Archer, are those which “contain appeals to God to pour out His wrath upon the Psalmist’s enemies.”2 Or in the words of J. A. Motyer, they are “Psalms containing passages seeking the hurt of someone else.”



 

Peter Leithart and the PCA’s Failure to Deal with the Federal Vision The life span of denominations that stay true to Biblical Christianity is growing shorter and shorter in this present day.



 

The Roman Catholic Socialist Agenda At the present time it is becoming more apparent that the Roman Catholic Church-State is first and foremost a socialist system.



 

The Ethics Economics Health care Many Americans don’t realize that any national health plan is based on planned scarcity.



 

The Church Irrational Many observers have lamented the lack of discernment among professing Christians, the disappearance of “antithesis” in the thinking of contemporary Christians, and the worldliness of the churches.



 

Getting Sanctification Done With that in mind, it is easy to see why he cited Matthew 21:31 to his readers saying, “It was the Bible-believing religious establishment who put Jesus to death.”.



 

The Gospel Coalition: The “New Calvinism’s” Attack on the Bible and Its Epistemology Every generation of American Evangelical Protestantism since 1800 has attempted to unite Evangelicals in common cause against the perceived theological attacks and spiritual crises of their day.



 

Sine Qua Non Enduring Freedom There are four principal methods of defending a free society: economics, Natural Law, Utilitarianism, and Biblical revelation.



 

Papacy to Recapture England This fifth column, whose first identity is Catholic, is required by the Papacy to “evangelize” by promoting Roman Catholic social policy. Thus the Papacy wields immense power both politically and spiritually within the European Union.



 

Richard Gaffin’s New Perspective on Paul Dr. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. has been a thought leader of the postmodern Biblical Theology movement, also known as Redemptive-Historical Theology.



 

Statements about the head and the heart and trusting a person, not believing a creed, are not only false, they have created the conditions for the emergence of all sorts of religious subjectivism, from modernism to the charismatic movement and beyond. No one will miss Heaven by twelve inches, for there is no distance between the head and the heart: "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he."



 

Workers of the Church, Unite!: The Radical Marxist Foundation of Tim Keller’s Social Gospel Part 1  There is one high-profile Marxist who is particularly effective at repackaging Marxism for a Christian audience, but due to his ability to disguise his economic philos-ophy, he is largely flying “under the radar.” That Marxist is Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumelious to God, a thing most contrary to his revealed will and approved ordinance, and finally it is the subversion of good order, and of all equity and justice....

For years homileticians have been exhorting preachers to "preach to the heart." But what are they talking about? Do you know? Do they? Is the concept Biblical, and if so, how does one do it?

Approximately 1.6 million American babies will be murdered by their mothers and doctors this year. Four times as many Americans will be killed by abortion as by cancer in 1984; ten times as many will be killed by abortion as by strokes; and fourteen times as many will be killed by abortion as by pneumonia and pulmonary diseases.

There are certain things happening at the present time that make it imperative that every intelligent Christian should know something about Roman Catholicism.

Logic concerns all thought; it is fundamental to all disciplines, from agriculture to astronautics. There are not several kinds of logic, one for philosophy and one for religion; but the same rules of thought that apply in politics, for example, apply also in chemistry.

That the prohibition of speaking in the church to women is precise, absolute, and all-inclusive. They are to keep silent in the churches—and that means in all the public meetings for worship; they are not even to ask questions.

Carl Sagan has been a very effective evangelist for his own anti-Christian philosophy of science. But Christians have not given the subject the attention it deserves.



 

Books and Letters Things keep piling up on my desk—things that ought to be published but are not long enough to fill an entire issue of The Review.



 

Professor Van Til is the object of fierce loyalty and reverence by many of his students. This attitude has both causes and consequences. One of its consequences is an almost total lack of critical discussion of Van Til’s distinctive ideas.

The Chinese deformed the bodies of children; the world does something much worse: It deforms their minds.The world creates monsters of the mind. It twists, it malforms, it exerts great and unrelenting pressure on us all, but especially on the young, to conform to its shape.

Venerable fathers and brethren—It is not without trembling, yet with a conscience free and tranquil before God who lives and sees me, that I open my mouth in the midst of you in this august assembly.

There is a tendency in sinful human nature to gravitate from the objective Gospel to religious subjectivism, to shift the central focus from Christ to Christian experience.

Four hundred years ago the religious world was involved in one of the greatest religious conflicts that this world has ever witnessed. A tremendous number of books have recorded a blow-by-blow account of the epic Romanist-Protestant struggle.

Intellectual Christianity, already abandoned in most denominations, is being rapidly replaced by activist, aesthetic, and experiential religion in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church as well.

All moderate men have a kind of fellow-feeling with heresy, and as soon as they hear of any one suspected, or in danger of being prosecuted for it, zealously and unanimously rise up in his defense.

The scientific creationists have furnished us with their own statements distinguishing their views from those of the Bible.

 

 

 

 

Raymond Dillard’s View of Scripture On April 15, 1987, Raymond Dillard, professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, sent an essay entitled Harmonization—A Help and a Hindrance to the Trustees of the Seminary.



 

There are more than two thousand organizations in the United States alone in 1988 that profess to be Christian. Yet these organizations, let alone the particular individuals who compose them, differ dramatically.

Once in a while we run across a passage in our reading that merits ridicule. Most of these ridiculous passages occur in religious books, for they tend to be the most irrational of all books published.

Before the conversion of Constantine, the church was of course so far independent of the state that she determined her own faith, regulated her worship, chose her officers, and exercised her discipline without any interference of the civil authorities.
 

The Shroud of Turin Many Christian leaders, in fact, teach philosophies according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. Examples abound. Let me suggest just one: the belief that the shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Christ.

Dear Paul: We recently received a copy of your letter to the Galatians. The committee has directed me to inform you of a number of things, which deeply concern us.

Had Dr. Carl Sagan been born in any other century, he would have been known as a teller of stories, a spinner of yarns, a maker of myths.

In these words our Lord established at the very beginning the distinctness and separateness of the Church. If the sharp distinction is ever broken down between the Church and the world, then the power of the Church is gone.

Contemporary popular theology and practice, including the doctrine and practice of the church, is a confused and unbiblical mess.

"My story is laid in Spain, in Seville, in the most terrible time of the Inquisition, when fires were lighted every day to the glory of God, and in the splendid act of faith the wicked heretics were burnt.

It seems odd to twentieth century secular men to suggest that the Bible has anything important to say about money and freedom; it seems even more odd to suggest that we ought to believe what it says.

In fact, this counterfeit Christianity has been a major factor in guiding American foreign policy since the end of the 19th century.

Further, says Van Til, "All the truths of the Christian religion have of necessity the appearance of being contradictory" (Common Grace and the Gospel, 165).

Whenever people discuss any subject – even if the discussion is only gossip over the back fence or on the telephone – the question, "How do you know?" usually arises.

If one were to ask the question, "Ought the church to pray for revival?" the answer almost surely would be a resounding, "Yes.".

The great revival, which about a hundred years ago visited so extensively the American churches, is so much implicated with the ecclesiastical history of our own denomination, that the latter cannot be understood without some knowledge of the former.

What then, do we mean by Calvinism? I will let one answer who has gained the right to answer, and than whom no one is better qualified to answer – the Rev. Dr. Archibald Alexander Hodge.
 

 

Josephs Apes When I first read these paragraphs, I was astounded at both the fallaciousness of the argument and the audacity of the conclusion: A ruler who enslaves his people is an "acceptable model for a civil magistrate."

However, the Trinity is often viewed as a difficult if not self-contradictory concept. Is the Trinity really incoherent? The present article seeks to respond to this question with an emphatic "No."

Having set the scholarly and serious tone for the book. Dr. North turns it over to Dr. Bahnsen, who, if he were half the rigorous thinker North thinks he is, ought to be blushing crimson by now.



 

Jordan continues to prepare us from what is to come later in his book: "[W]e must be open to the values in other Christian traditions – even Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions" (11, Jordan’s emphasis).



 

Acton on the Papacy Many have heard the aphorism, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely," though it is usually misquoted as "Power corrupts."



 

Will the Real Greg Bahnsen Please Stand Up As examples of his contradictory statements in this book, let me offer these: Espousing the Theonomic view, Bahnsen declares, "Jesus bound us...to every jot and tittle of the Old Testament legislation of God’s will, not allowing us to subtract even the least commandment"

Dr. North dedicates this book to television preacher James Robison "who has already begun an important program for victory." What that program is and what victory Robison is seeking, North does not say..

"[T]he acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture."

This is Christmas Day, the anniversary of the world’s greatest event. To one day all the early world looked forward; to the same day the later world looks back. That day holds time together.

Their misology is a departure from the philosophical assumptions upon which the theological method in the Calvinistic tradition is based. Consequently, their attack on reason is no minor inconsistency, but an error that places the very foundations of Calvinism in peril.

Further, as one Reformed scholar assured me: "To be Reformed is to be Van Tilian, and to be Van Tilian is to be Reformed." Yet, as impolitic as it was to challenge the teachings of Dr. Van Til, his system left me without answers to far too many questions; it produced a strange melange of logical antinomies.

Calvinist John Harvard (1607-1638), whose generosity is reflected in the University which bears his name, was an elder of the church at Charlestown, Massachusetts, near Boston.

Is there more than one road to Heaven? Is there more than one way in which the soul of man can be saved? This is the question which I propose to consider in this paper, and I shall begin the consideration by quoting a text of Scripture: "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

The letter, which is reprinted below, asked some questions that apparently Colson did not care to answer.

"Christ for us," the obedient in the place of the disobedient, is the first part of our message. His assumption of the legal claims, which otherwise would have been made good against us, is the security for our deliverance.

No one, to my knowledge, has written or is writing such a book, but David Chilton, a popular Reconstructionist author who was a member of the Tyler church for years, has given us a brief description of life in the most famous Reconstructionist church, the one in Tyler, Texas.

The Psalmist posed the question nearly three millennia ago: "What is man that You [God] are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?" (Psalm 8:4). There have been numerous attempts to answer to this question.

But when Peter came to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before certain Jews came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.

The early church scanned the future in anticipation of the coming Antichrist who was depicted so strikingly by Daniel, Paul, and John. Many thought that he would appear on the scene after the fall of the Roman Empire.

In the churches, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and independent, I never heard a sermon on the Trinity." If this is any indication of the theological laxity of our age, it is a serious matter. Why?

All acquainted with the sixteenth century Reformation know that the watchword was Sola Scriptura—"Scripture alone." This assertion was made against the pope, the church "fathers," and church councils. Luther and Calvin’s "Scripture alone" meant at least four things:

The Reformation was revolutionary. "Faith alone" was not the slogan of a delicate, cloistered piety. It was the battle-cry of a movement that turned the world upside down.

If anything can be said about Arminian theologians, it is that they, like Roman Catholic theologians, can be subtle. By comparison, the Pelagians seem positively virtuous in their candor about free will and the ability of man.

Demonstrating a new openness toward all branches of the church, the charismatic movement broke down all denominational barriers. The Pentecostal experience is available to people of different religious traditions, liberal and conservative.

What is it that caused some to walk away from Christ’s words while others confessed them as true? Jesus gives us the answer: "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me... [but] No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him."

Once it was generally accepted that right and wrong must be judged by some objective, absolute standard. More than one hundred years ago society began to believe in evolution instead of divine creation. The next step was perfectly logical and inevitable. If God is not our creator, perhaps he is not our judge.

Is the Bible clear and easy to understand? Has the proliferation of divisions within the Protestant movement proved that the Reformers were too optimistic in affirming the clarity of the Bible? If it is clear, why are so many professed Christians so incredibly ignorant of the Bible?



 

Luther on Free Will The Bondage of the Will was the shot heard around the world during the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, almost 500 years after the Reformation, most of the beneficiaries of the Reformation have never heard of or read this crucial book. What is worse, many have exchanged the Gospel for the free will heresy.

Idolatry and Empirical Apologetics. We in the United States, professing Christians most, have prided ourselves on being free of idolatry. But our religion has been far from pure; idolatry in many forms, both gross and subtle, has flourished in America.

On what basis does God accept a man? This is the most fundamental of all questions concerning salvation. Several answers have been given:

In recent centuries, practitioners of Christian apologetics have paid little attention to the apologetics of Jesus and Paul, preferring to learn their principles and methods from pagans such as Aristotle or from semi-pagans such as Thomas Aquinas.

Frame makes the claim, not uncommon among Van Tilians, that Gordon "Clark gave to Aristotle’s logic the same authority as Scripture." This is a caricature, at best. Rather, like Augustine before him, Clark taught that the laws of logic are the way God thinks, and that these laws are embedded in Scripture. 

"Calvinism IS the Gospel, and nothing else."  C. H. Spurgeon, Autobiography, Vol. I: The Early Years). "The longer I live, the clearer does it appear that John Calvin’s system is the nearest to perfection."



 

The Relationship between Justification
and Sanctification
Sanctification is what God does in the believer; it is not the good works of the believer. Important as they are, neither sanctification nor good works is the basis of salvation or the foundation of the Christian’s hope.



 

Our Comrades at Calvin College What a college says it stands for, especially while fundraising, and what its faculty actually teach in the classrooms are often two quite different things.



 

The Biblical View of Science Many non-Christians, and all too many Christians, are of the opinion that science, (i.e., the physical or natural sciences) is an ever-growing body of truth about the universe. The progress of science, its technological triumphs, so we are told, demonstrate its truth. Science is seemingly unassailable. After all, it works doesn’t it? And isn’t success the measure of truth?



 

The Days of Creation In the beginning, God created the entire universe, out of no pre-existent material (ex nihilo), in a period of six days.



 

A History of Hypo Calvinism "Arminianism had exerted a very manifest influence, particularly within the last century, in modifying the views of professed Calvinists, or, if not their views, certainly their modes of presenting them, so that the doctrine of absolute decrees has lost prominence in their teaching, and many of the ablest divines among them have advocated the Arminian views of the atonement."



 

The Banner of Truth vs Calvinism Not only do those at The Banner of Truth Trust promote hypo-Calvinism, but they have also waged a calculated war against Biblical Calvinism with tactics one might not expect from those who profess the name of Christ.



 

What Is the Gospel of Jesus Christ But if a church is wrong about the Gospel, all of its teaching is affected and will tend to be perverted. If it does not have the Gospel, it is not a Christian church.



 

The Means of Sanctification The Holy Spirit is the divine agent of sanctification, yet he uses means to accomplish his great work. We may classify the means as primary and secondary.



 

The Threat of Promise Keepers Promise Keepers (PK) has been a spectacular financial success. Founded in 1990 by William Paul McCartney— former Roman Catholic (and now a Vineyard cult member),



 

The Babylonian Captivity of the Church Likewise, the heirs of the Reformation at the end of the twentieth century proved unable to escape the theology of Roman Catholicism.



 

The Educational Establishment versus Civilization Fourth: That the prevailing education is destined, if it continues, to destroy Western civilization and is in fact destroying it; . . .



 

Karl Barth Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) must be ranked as one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. That, of course, is a dubious distinction,



 

Healing the Mortal Wound YSeveral years ago, about the time Charles Colson, Chairman of Prison Fellowship, and Richard John Neuhaus, President of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, quietly began their movement to overthrow the Reformation,



 

Morton Smith's Systematic Theology YDr. Morton H. Smith is a systematic theologian teaching at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Greenville, South Carolina. Dr. Smith is no novice in the study of theology.



 

The Ground of Justification It is not sufficient to speak of justification as God’s declaring the sinner just. In fact, to stop there would be to fall into very serious error. We need to ask: On what ground can a holy God make this declaration about a sinful man? What is the basis of God’s acquittal?



 

An Open Letter to the Patrons, Alumni
And Students of Reformed Theological
Seminary
But there is growing reason to fear that some Christian seminaries, like some Christian colleges, are not delivering to their students and patrons what they promise to deliver in their catalogues and fundraising letters.



 

The Sin of Signing Ecumenical Declarations Sharing in others’ sins is a sin of impurity that is always to be avoided. Declarations that are acceptable to and endorsed by unbelievers as well as believers are either so vague as to be virtually meaningless—the useless, idle words that Christ warned against—or so un-Christian that unbelievers can endorse them.



 

A Plea for the Future Four centuries ago, when this continent was still a wilderness, a small band of English men and women, blown off course by the winds of the Atlantic, landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts



 

Van Tils Apologetic Readings Analysis Greg Bahnsen was a distinguished scholar, author, and debater, who wrote and lectured extensively on the subjects of Biblical law and apologetics. He earnestly sought to defend Christianity against the worldly systems so prevalent in our day.



 

The Promise of Christian Economics  Before I discuss the promise of Christian Economics, it would be best to define the principal terms. Many people think they know what the words Christianity and economics mean.



 

Chuck Colson  Southern Baptist Charles Colson is the most effective propagandist for the Roman Catholic Church in America.



 

A Guide for Young Christians When God saves us sinners, he causes us to believe certain propositions about himself and about ourselves—ideas that we formerly thought were not true. In an instant, God resurrects us from the spiritual death of unbelief and makes us understand and believe the truth about both Jesus Christ and ourselves.



 

Evangelism Imagine! This scene on World-Wide Judgment Day (WWJD) will prove to be not at all imaginary but all too real for many religious teachers, evangelists, and missionaries. (See Matthew 7:21-23.)



 

The Changing of the Guard For the past several years, The Trinity Foundation has published several books and essays to explain and defend the Biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide).



 

John H Gerstner on Thomas Aquinas as a Protestant In his article, “Aquinas Was a Protestant,” which appeared in the May 1994 issue of Tabletalk, the popular monthly devotional publication of Ligonier Ministries, Inc., edited by R. C. Sproul, Jr., Dr. John H. Gerstner1 declared that Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) “was a medieval Protestant teaching the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone” (13)—indeed, that he “taught the biblical doctrine of justification” (14)2—and that he was “one of Protestantism’s greatest theologians” (14).



 

A Call for Christian Rationality We live in a day when the Apostle Paul’s sermon on Mar’s Hill to the first century philosophers concerning the worship of an unknown god (Acts 17) is all too relevant. Our age is awash in irrationalism; it may even be the “age of irrationalism.” And far too many in allegedly Christian circles are espousing an irrational theology in the name of Christ. Nonsense, as C. S. Lewis once predicted, has come.



 

Compassionate Fascism Karl Rove, the President’s long-time adviser, speaking to the National Catholic Leadership Forum in Washington on April 25, said that President Bush’s compassionate conservatism fits well with the Roman Church-State’s principles of subsidiarity and solidarity.



 

False Shepherd - The Neolegalism of Norman Shepherd Actually The Call of Grace is a very deceptive work, full of smooth words designed to lead people away from the Christian faith.



 

Justification and Judgment This passage of Scripture is widely misunderstood. The Baptist John MacArthur, the Christian Reformed Norman Shepherd, and Pope John Paul II all misunderstand the passage, and they misunderstand it in essentially the same way..



 

The Binding of God This is an unconvincing treatment of a worthwhile subject: the doctrine of the covenant in John Calvin. It is a disturbing book: Calvin is made to teach the doctrine of justification by faith and works.



 

Conservatism: An Autopsy The trouble with conservatism is the same as the trouble with liberalism: It is not Christian.



 

Christian Exclusivism Christian exclusivism, which has been the view of Reformed and Biblically orthodox churches through the centuries, is the teaching that (1) Jesus Christ is the only Savior, and (2) that it is essential for one to believe in Him in order to be saved.



 

Pied Piper Who would have thought, 20 years ago, that Biblical Christianity would have virtually disappeared from many so-called Presbyterian and Reformed churches in the United States by the end of the millennium, and that in The Year of Our Lord 2002 the major theological battlefront in those churches would be the Gospel—the doctrine of justification by faith alone? Yet that is exactly what has happened.



 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ versus Neolegalism One common misunderstanding of legalism is that one is a legalist only if one tries to obey, or insists that others obey, man-made laws. In this way of thinking, one cannot be a legalist if one is concerned exclusively about obeying God’s law. The primary example of legalism, one correspondent told me, is the Pharisees, who by their traditions had made void the laws of God.



 

Whats Wrong with Islam Because of the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, by militant Muslims acting in the name of Allah, Christians in the United States of America should learn all they can about Islam and its spread in this country.



 

Christ and Civilization This profound ignorance of Christ—an ignorance that does not even realize it is ignorance—is a tragedy of eternal proportions, for the life of Christ—his birth, life, death, and resurrection—is not only the most important event in the history of mankind, but far more important, the only way to Heaven.



 

Rethinking the Apostles Creed The central message of the Bible is that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Saviour from sin, and the only safety from God’s righteous punishment of sin.



 

The Very Pernicious and Detestable Doctrine of Inclusivism There was a time in the not too distant past when evangelical leaders were in agreement regarding the eternal destiny of the unevangelized masses of mankind. Their commonly-held view was that people, absent personal faith in Jesus Christ, are lost.



 

The Current Justification Controversy YoThe Gospel of justification through belief alone is the
central doctrine of Scripture, as Paul makes clear in his
letter to the Romans.



 

The Heresy Matrix The Current Justification Controversy. This excerpt is part of a discussion of the roots of the current controversy over the Gospel.



 

Did CS Lewis Go to Heaven So we ask again: Did C. S. Lewis go to Heaven? And our answer must be: Not if he believed what he wrote in his books and letters.



 

Biblical Principles of Giving Recent events have disclosed that many churches, seminaries, and organizations once thought to be doctrinally sound are riddled with theological termites.



 

The Biblical Covenant Grace The New Testament is a fuller, clearer, and more systematic
revelation of Jesus Christ than the Old. The New Covenant is
superior to the Old, as the author of the book of Hebrews argues
at length, and the revelation of the New Covenant is superior
to the Old.



 

Original Manuscripts If the Scripture is “God-breathed,” it naturally follows that
only the original is “God-breathed.” If holy men of God spoke from God as they were borne by the Holy Spirit, then only what they spoke under the Spirit’s bearing is inspired.



 

Sanctification, Half Full: The Myopic Hermeneutic of the “Grace” Movement  Wright avoids outright denials of Reformation theology, but introduces unanswered questions (particularly since he seems willing to define faith as faithfulness) that are inappropriate for one as theologically skilled and influential as he.



 

Are UFOs Biblical Is there such a thing as intellectual extraterrestrial life? That is, is there intelligent life (i.e., beings with physical makeup, as opposed to merely spiritual beings such as angels) in outer space? If so, are there such things as Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), which are guided by intelligent extrater-restrial beings (hereafter ETs)?



 

Pope Francis Shows His True Colors    In the sixteenth century, the Reformation, through its emphasis on the ultimate authority of the Bible and the Gospel of grace, began to dislodge the Papacy from its position as co-ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.



 

The Infiltration Which Corrupts the Truth of the Gospel by John Calvin Many times in our lives, we experience how much of an enemy the devil is to our souls. He is forever striving to prevent the Gospel from having free course, and he will use every possible means to do so.



 

Who Really Owns the “Holy Land”? A gigantic effort is underway today to convince the evangelical citizenry of the United States of America that the political state of Israel rightfully owns in perpetuity the so-called “Holy Land”1 at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea by virtue of God‟s bequeathing it to Abraham and his descendants in the Old Testament.



 

The Omnitemporality of God How old is God? One popular answer is to say that God is infinitely old. However that is incorrect. God does not have an age as such, not even an infinite age. What time is it for God? There are 24 time zones in the world. Which one does He dwell in? To specify an exact time is to mis-understand what God is like..



 

Bart D. Ehrman & Daniel B. Wallace in Dialogue: The Reliability of the New Testament  Is Bart D. Ehrman & Daniel B. Wallace in Dialogue: The Reliability of the New Testament a valuable book, one that may benefit the Christian church? In one sense the answer is yes, but in another sense no.



 

Rome’s Sham “Year of Faith” Is Unfaithful to Christ and His Gospel  Editor’s Note: With the resignation of Benedict XVI effective February 28, 2013, Rome will no doubt continue its program of bringing back “Separated Brethren” to the fold of the Roman Catholic Church-State, no matter who the next Pope is.



 

The Westminster Confession of Faith and Logic It must be observed…that the teachings and prescriptions of Scripture are not confined by the Confession to what is “expressly set down in Scripture.” Men are required to believe and obey not only what is “expressly set down in Scripture,” but also what “by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.”



 

The Emergent Church’s Retreat into
Pre-Reformation Darkness 
Emergent Church leaders and their supporters promote the movement as “the way forward” for the church. It is, they claim, a “new Reformation” with its own “95 theses” and its own new Luther pointing the way. But the Emergents’ “way forward” is in fact a headlong, headstrong retreat into pre-Reformation
spiritual and intellectual darkness.



 

Francis: Stalwart Reformer or Diehard Pontiff? Across the world, many people are perplexed regarding the character of Pope Francis. Many think that he is a stalwart reformer while others think that he is just clever diehard Pontiff.