The Holy Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice for Reformation Christians. The Augsburg Confession is the doctrinal confession of faith adopted by the Lutheran Church. It is part of the Book of Concord, which includes the three ancient ecumenical creeds: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian […]
One of the original purposes of a blog was a web log, that is, a log of the interesting sites one has visited. This posting is a list of links to webpages that are notable in some way. * Voting and Elections * Approval voting – Voting each candidate yea-or-nea Demeny voting – This is
What follows are excerpts from Ramsay MacMullen’s book Christianizing the Roman Empire, A.D. 100-400 (Yale, 1984). He begins with historiography pointers relevant to religious history. My subject here is the growth of the church as seen from the outside, and the period is the one that saw the church become dominant, and Europe Christian. p.vii
It’s not uncommon for evangelical Christians to say that Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship. Or to contrast works-based religion with faith-based Christianity, making that the difference between religion and non-religion. But it’s a mistake to say that Christianity is not a religion. For one thing, that would mean religious freedom wouldn’t be
The previous post in this series is here. The key to this middle way, if it is truly a middle way between extremes, is divine self-limitation—the idea that the God of the Bible is vulnerable because he makes himself so out of love. p.139 … the personal God of the Bible is revealed there as
This post continues from part 2, which is here. The following are more excerpts from Roger E. Olson’s The Essentials of Christian Thought. For [Emil] Brunner, and for me, natural theology means only (1) that the biblical-Christian worldview better answers life’s ultimate questions than its competitors and alternatives, and (2) that eyes of faith for
Vic Scaravilli is a Catholic who put the following on his website here. I’m reposting it (with permission) and note that Evangelicals would agree that this is the gospel, with some nuances about baptism. The Basic Gospel Message By Vic Scaravilli God loves each one of us. He loves me and He loves you with
Christians accept the four gospels as four different perspectives on the gospel. In fact, each is properly titled, “The Gospel According to …” That is, there is one gospel but four perspectives on it. While it is an interesting exercise to compare the gospels with each other, they are best thought of as parallel accounts
Christendom was a Christian culture and civilization that, historically speaking, began with Constantine. It started to divide with the Great Schism between East and West in the 11th century. It divided again with the Protestant Reformation beginning in the 16th century. It further divided during the Enlightenment movement beginning in the 18th century. Christendom has so divided
In Mt 13:33 reports of Jesus: He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.” Christianity is the leaven of the world. Put it into the world and gradually the whole world is leavened. This is the
