Author Archives: admin

Who were the Puritans?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Lord Macauley once described the Puritans as ‘perhaps the most remarkable body of men which the world has ever produced.’   This lofty evaluation sits ill with the common notion (prevalent even amongst Christians)  of the Puritans as ‘comic and pathetic in equal degree, being naive and superstitious, primitive and gullible, superserious, overscrupulous, majoring in minors, and unable or unwilling to relax’.  This latter quote is from J.I. Packer, who has done much to rehabilitate the Puritans and to commend their godliness as a model for believers today.…

Atonement: theories or images?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

One of the less helpful aspects of much theological discussion about atonement is the tendency to talk in terms of competing theories of Christ’s cross-work.  John Stott has a helpful comment about this in The Cross of Christ (p168):-

‘”Images” of salvation (or of the atonement) is a better term than “theories.” For theories are usually abstract and speculative concepts, whereas the biblical images of the atoning achievement of Christ are concrete pictures and belong to the data of revelation.

…

The trouble with Dawkins

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Professor Richard Dawkins is a clever chap, and a scintillating writer.  Some who read The God Delusion will be bowled over by his rhetoric.  But, as various replies have been showing, there are significant gaps in his knowledge and serious flaws in his argument.  For example, in attempting to demonstrate the extent to which people do Bad Things in the name of religion, he asserts that, conversely, ‘individual atheists may do evil things but they don’t do evil things in the name of atheism’ (p278).…

Adiaphora: agreeing to disagree

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In my short piece on Faultlines in Evangelicalism, I mentioned post-modernism’s distrust of ‘certaintist’ positions.  This contrasts with evangelicals’ perceived desire to be certain about everything.  I was interested to see John Stott in his book Evangelical Truth make a plea for evangelicals to distinguish carefully between essentials of the faith which cannot be compromised and those matters of secondary importance – adiaphora – in which there is a sincere disagreement amongst evangelicals as to what Scriptures teaches.  …

Carson on MacLaren

Walking With Giants Posted on by

I’ve been reading (well, listening to, actually, on my MP3 player) Brian McLaren’s book, A Generous Orthodoxy. McLaren is a leader in the Emerging Church movement and is an engaging writer and speaker. I found D.A. Carson’s review of McLaren’s writings in Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, 158-182, to be fair and perceptive. Carson evidently thinks that McLaren, in his generosity, is giving too much away. I’m inclined to agree with him. Anyway, here’s a summary of Carson’s comments.…

Fault-lines in Evangelicalism

Walking With Giants Posted on by

We have been witnessing a number of important trends within evangelicalism. I’ve been trying to sort out in what I fondly call my mind what some of these trends might be, and how they might be connected to each other. The following basic analysis emerged.

1. New ways of doing church. This trend reacts against traditional passive/conformist approaches, and prefers authenticity to slick professionalism. Interested in developing ‘fresh expressions’ of church. It emphasises development of communities of faith, not just individual salvation.…