A Brief Exploration of General Baptist Origins
by Jesse Owens Where did Baptists come from? Some have speculated they have always existed in some place or another since the time of John the Baptist. Others have contended that Baptists’ origins lay in the European Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth century. Still others have maintained that the Baptists sprung from the English Puritan and Separatist movements in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Baptists have at...
Carl F. H. Henry on the Christian Stake in Legislation
How should the Church address social issues today? Writing in the 1960’s, Carl F. H. Henry provides us with a framework to think through this essential question. His words on why the Church should address rulers and the public on the theme of proper social principles remain applicable to this day: Even though the Church is not arbitrarily to impose a theology of society, forcing its ideals upon the world, it needs to do more than...
The Vine Project: A Review
Does church make you tired? By this I don’t mean do the sermons make you sleepy. But are the programs, events, and demands too many, and the laborers too few? From my experience, many pastors, deacons, and laymen feel this way. They’re overworked, underequipped, and a bit distressed by the seeming lack of success that their church is experiencing. The problem may be that twenty percent of the members are doing eighty percent of the...
Defending Substitution: A Review Essay
J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) argued nearly 100 years ago that if Christianity is anything it is a way of getting rid of sin. Machen lived at a time in which Protestant circles increasingly minimized sin, particularly individual sin against God, in favor of societal sin or evil. This was largely due to the rise of Protestant liberalism in America. One of the seemingly direct effects of Protestant liberalism’s rise was the demise in...
Shaping Culture One Classroom at a Time
Over 60 years ago, Carl F. H. Henry questioned whether evangelicals could justify having so much money invested in church buildings that were only used a couple of days per week. He wrote, “The day has now come for evangelicalism to rethink its whole building program. By tremendous outlay of funds, most church communities provide a worship structure which usually stands idle except for two Sundays services and a midweek prayer...
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