Forget the Channel

Category: Church History

  • Review: The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman

    Review: The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman

    I need to understand the people around me, so I can live for the gospel among them and speak the gospel to them. To do that, I need to understand the people around me. That’s where Carl Trueman’s book is so incredibly valuable.

  • How did the Reformers respond to plagues? Learning from history with Mark Earngey @ Moore College

    How did the Reformers respond to plagues? Learning from history with Mark Earngey @ Moore College

    I have a chat to Mark Earngey, Head of the Church History Department at Moore College, about his upcoming public online lecture “Protestants and Plagues”

  • Donald Robinson on the Origins of the Anglican Church League

    Donald Robinson on the Origins of the Anglican Church League

    History matters. It makes us question things we take for granted, it helps us to understand who we are, and it gives us a broader perspective on the issues we face today. One example – relevant for evangelical Anglicans, especially in Sydney – is an essay in Donald Robinson Selected Works, volume 4 (recently published by the Australian Church Record and Moore College). The essay is called “The Origins of the Anglican Church League” (pp. 125–52). It’s a republication of a paper given in 1976 by Donald Robinson (1922–2018), former Moore College Vice-Principal and later Archbishop of Sydney. In the paper, Robinson traces some of the currents and issues that led to the formation of the Anglican Church League in the early twentieth century. The essay is classic Donald Robinson: full of surprises, yet definitely still worth reading today to help us gain perspective on issues for evangelical Anglicans past and present.

  • Reformation sights in Oxford UK

    Reformation sights in Oxford UK

    Some sights in Oxford UK, that are especially significant for Reformation history and the deaths of the Oxford Martyrs Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer.

  • Justification and Union with Christ in Paul – PowerPoint for paper

    Justification and Union with Christ in Paul – PowerPoint for paper

    A link to the PowerPoint for the paper I am giving today at the Moore College Justification Summit

  • Katoomba Christian Convention – a short history

    Katoomba Christian Convention – a short history

    A short history of the Katoomba Christian Convention, by Paul Innes. The Youngs’ 1903 vision to share the Scriptures continues today.

  • Justification by Faith Only: the doctrine on which the church falls or stands?

    Justification by Faith Only: the doctrine on which the church falls or stands?

    Without the doctrine of justification by faith only we neither know the fullness of who Jesus is or who we are. How can the church stand without either?

  • Preachers and Leaders 3: Preaching as congregational leadership: a venerable history

    Preachers and Leaders 3: Preaching as congregational leadership: a venerable history

    The regular sermon, according to key figures from church history including Chrysostom, Augustine, Calvin, Cranmer and Perkins, is the key means by which shepherd-leaders fulfil their responsibility to ensure that the truth of God’s word is guarded, learned and obeyed among their congregations.

  • The “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” quite likely a modern forgery

    Admittedly, “Jesus had a wife” is a more sensational headline than “Media outlets fooled by modern forgery.” But it seems the latter headline is more likely to be correct. My PhD supervisor, Professor Francis Watson, an expert in early Christian texts, makes a compelling case that the fragment which has come to be assumed to […]

  • Spectacular find: original Greek sermons by Origen of Alexandria discovered

    [My translation of the original article from the Bavarian State Library, H/T Ben Blackwell]: A spectacular discovery was recently made in the Bavarian State Library, in the process of cataloguing the Greek manuscripts from the collection of Johann Jakob Fuggers. While cataloguing a manuscript, Philologist Marina Molin Pradel identified numerous texts of sermons on the […]

  • More on Moore College’s theological legacy: Graeme Goldsworthy

    To follow up on my previous post about Donald Robinson and Broughton Knox: “The evangelical Christian world owes a great debt to Graeme Goldsworthy”. These words were spoken by Peter Jensen at the book launch of Christ-centred biblical theology: What Goldsworthy shows is that although there were in the earlier years few books which emanated […]

  • With gratitude for a rich (and ongoing) biblical and theological legacy – Moore College

    A short quiz: Which seminary lecturer described his course this way (and when)? the course quickly developed into an introduction to the theology of the Bible as a whole … ‘the church’ as such was subsumed under the wider theme of God’s creative purpose for Adam, his promise to Abraham and his seed, the elect […]

  • Anglicanism for dummies (and for everyone else)

    Don’t let the dusty-sounding title of Ashley Null’s paper, 16th Century Anglican Ecclesiology, put you off. It’s a devotional, deep, rich, concise yet scholarly account of the roots of the Church of England by one of the most well-respected experts in the field. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand this very […]

  • Evangelicals and the slave trade

    A while back I was looking through my father-in-law’s collection of old newspapers and found this little piece in the London Gazette (Monday August 26, 1768, Number 118; Twopence-Farthing). It’s either a letter to the editor or an editorial comment; I’m not sure which! It comes just after the announcement of a soiree to be […]

  • Luther On Law

    This is an astonishingly profound and helpful summary of Luther’s understanding of the significance of God’s “Law”. I commend it especially to preachers. A warning though: Don’t try to read it on the run. You need some time and space to digest it properly. Luther On Law – Jono Linebaugh. PS Jono is a former […]

  • Doctrines Under Threat 2: Union with Christ

    Outline (Reading from Romans 6) Intro: Faith and Works Union with Christ in Philippians 3 Righteousness by law is rubbish (2-7) Knowing Christ (8a) Gaining Christ (8b) Being in Christ (9a) Righteousness through faith in Christ (9b) Living in Christ (10-11) What is Union with Christ? Fundamental To be loved by God as Sons For […]

  • Happy 400th Birthday, King James Bible

    Last year I lamented the fact that some educated Brits have squandered their heritage and effectively transferred the emotional and spiritual ownership of the King James Bible to the Americans. Thus I’m very pleased to hear that BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting extensive readings from the King James Bible to mark its 400th anniversary. Well […]

  • A prayer request from an Aussie living in the Mother Country

    From the Sola Panel I was listening the other day to a satirical comedy show on British Radio. The presenter was making a point about human relationships. The bulk of his satirical piece consisted of a reading from Genesis 2:18-25, in full, from the King James Version of the Bible (“And the Lord God said, […]

  • The language of Chalcedon

    A few years back, I put together this visual summary of the terminology the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) used to express the biblical doctrines of the Trinity and the two natures of Christ. This is one of the most important councils of Christian history, because it clearly confirmed the reality of God revealed in […]

  • Thomas Cranmer the Protestant reformer during the reign of King Henry VIII

    Lionel Windsor (2004) Introduction: A Protestant Reformer? For a comfortable theoretician to assess the actions of a man caught up in the cut and thrust of national and international politics is a precarious business, as Martin Bucer warned when, in 1537, the humanist Grynaeus lamented Thomas Cranmer’s slowness to bring about reform in England.1 To […]