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In a July 13 interview with the Dubai-based Saudi TV network Al-Arabiya TV, Saudi author Turki Al-Hamad said that "most of our sheikhs and preachers" are incapable of producing a moderate discourse because they draw upon the same ideological sources as ISIS. He further stated that Islam needs its own Luther and Calvin to reform it. .....

Today is the birthday of John Calvin, Pastor, theologian and scholar .... One may disagree with his theology .. but his contribution to the church and the world can not be denied.. "In 1559, as part of his social reforms, Calvin founded a school for training children as well as a hospital for the indigent. His Geneva Academy attracted students from all over Europe and in 1564, when he died, had 1,200 on the roll. Education could inculcate values and morality. His pedagogy was quite progressive; teachers should not be authoritarian but “should join [and] walk with [students] as companions”...

The Church Prior to the Reformation: The Mass Medieval conception of Purgatory As Protestants, we all seem to know that the Roman Church was very bad during the middle ages, but in what ways? What, precisely, was being protested? In his work “The Reformation: A History”, Diarmiad MacCulloch gives a brief overview of the Roman Church prior to the Reformation. He introduces that overview with this passage: Nicholas Ridley, one of the talented scholarly clergy who rebelled in England against the old [Roman] Church, wrote about this to one of his fellow rebels John Bradford in 1554, while they both...

The idea that Islam needs to reform is again in the spotlight following the recent publication of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s new book, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now.

I'm going to transcribe an article that Jerry Walls wrote when he was a grad student at Notre Dame: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am nearing the end of three very happy (with a brief interlude) years as a graduate student in the philosophy department at Notre Dame. The philosophy department is quite lively and stimulating and I have learned a great deal about my discipline. Along the way, I have also acquired an education of another sort–namely in the ways of the Roman Catholic Church. My education in this regard has been informal and piecemeal, to be sure. My insights have been...

The last time I posted here I examined Bryan Cross’s claim for unity in the Roman Catholic Church.  It was my intention to apply Bryan’s guidelines to a specific case that he mentioned – i.e. abortion – to show that his claim, in at least that instance, did not meet the “visibility” standard he required for unity to exist.  I hope to have been fair in my examination and believe that said examination disproved Bryan’s thesis on his own grounds.But that exercise caused me to reflect more broadly on the Roman claim to unity as it might apply to other...

Today, I’m excited to announce the launch of a new eBook that I’ve been designing and editing in order to share for free with the world – Galatians: Selections from Martin Luther. Martin Luther is a theologian whose writing has changed my life. Luther, in a day when the Church hijacked the message of the Gospel, stood boldly for the proclamation of Christ alone. In a world that literally sold people forgiveness for a few bucks, Martin Luther came onto the scene recovering the message of the scriptures that said, “The price has already been paid.” But here’s the thing...

By Faith Alone: The Conversion of Martin Luther by Susan Verstraete     It was the moment he had been waiting for. His father was in the audience watching, as were his fellow monks. It was time for Martin to offer his first mass, and he was overwhelmed with the solemnity of the event. He led the congregation, saying, “We offer unto Thee, the living, the true, the eternal God.” Suddenly Martin froze. He couldn’t go on. He later wrote:“At these words I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken. I thought to myself, ‘With what tongue shall I address such...

I intend to offer, over the next several weeks, a four part series on Calvin's response to Rome's doctrine of Scripture as discovered in the fourth session of the Council of Trent. It's my impression that very few Protestants today -- even the confessing kind -- have informed views on what Rome actually says about the most important theological issues of every age (namely, how we know anything about God and his ways, and how we sinners can be reconciled to the God whom we have offended by our sins). The first and foremost purpose of this brief series, then,...

On October 31st 1517 Anno Domini a comically tonsured German monk, with an attitude and a mallet posted the Medieval equivalent of a snarky  blog post on the castle door at Wittenberg. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses voiced irrefragable concerns about doctrine, ecclesiastical abuses, and unbiblical doctrines. The paper was merely intended to spark debate and reform within the Roman Catholic Church.However, the spark blew a little further than the intramural playground of the Vatican. The white squall of God’s Spirit (with a little help from Guttenberg’s press and a Latin-German dictionary) ignited the hearts of the masses, as the...

The Protestant Reformation threw the Christian world into chaos. At the beginning of the 1400’s the Pope’s authority was absolute and the only means of salvation were the sacraments given under his auspices. There was a secular/sacred distinction that was ironclad, meaning that the priests and laity lived in practically two separate worlds. There was no concept of church membership, corporate worship, preaching, or Bible reading in the churches. And as far as doctrine was concerned, there was no debate—the creeds and declarations from Rome (and soon to be Avignon) were the law.Things had been this way for six hundred...

In Part 5 of this series, we considered the testimony of thirteen early Christian leaders—from Clement of Rome to Augustine of Hippo—each of whom affirmed the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This installment will pick up where we left off, surveying another dozen historical church leaders on this important topic.We will begin with Jerome, the foremost scholar of the late-fourth, early-fifth century. As a noted linguist and Bible translator (whose work on the Latin Vulgate is still highly regarded today), Jerome’s testimony represents the height of Christian scholarship before the medieval period. 14.  Jerome (347–420): We are saved by...

What caused the Reformation?Many people might answer that question by pointing to Martin Luther and his 95 Theses.But if you were to ask Luther himself, he would not point to himself or his own writings. Instead, he would give all the credit to God and His Word.Near the end of his life, Luther declared: “All I have done is put forth, preach and write the Word of God, and apart from this I have done nothing. . . . It is the Word that has done great things. . . . I have done nothing; the Word has done and...

September 26, 2013The Gospel in Church History (Part 3) by Nathan Busenitz Click here to read Part 1 or Part 2.When we talk about “the gospel in church history,” it is necessary to start at the beginning of church history—in those initial decades recorded for us in the book of Acts. Significantly, the essence of the gospel was the central issue at the first major council in church history.The Jerusalem Council met around AD 49 or 50, nearly twenty years after the church was established on the Day of Pentecost, and 275 years before the next major church council—the Council of Nicaea...

My new book, The Protestant's Dilemma, shows in a myriad of ways why Protestantism is implausible. We sifted through many arguments to boil the book down to the most essential. A few chapters didn't make the cut but are still good enough to share. Here's one of them. If Protestantism is true, There's no way to know whether you're assenting to divine revelation or to mere human opinion about divine revelation. Protestants and Catholics both believe that God has revealed himself to man over the course of human history, culminating in his ultimate self-revelation in Jesus Christ. But whereas Catholics...

A shift has taken place in the Evangelical church with regard to the way we think about the gospel and it’s far from simply an ivory tower conversation. This shift effects us on the ground of everyday life.In his book Paul: An Outline of His Theology, famed Dutch Theologian Herman Ridderbos (1909 – 2007) summarizes this shift which took place following Calvin and Luther. It was a sizable but subtle shift which turned the focus of “the gospel” from Christ’s external accomplishment to our internal appropriation: While in Calvin and Luther all the emphasis fell on the redemptive event that...

As a church history professor, I am sometimes asked how certain practices developed in church history. For example: When did the Roman Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) emphasis on praying to saints and venerating relics and icons begin? A somewhat obscure, but extremely helpful, book by John Calvin answers that question directly.In his work, A Treatise on Relics, Calvin utilizes his extensive knowledge of church history to demonstrate that prayers to the saints, prayers for the dead, the veneration of relics, the lighting of candles (in homage to the saints), and the veneration of icons are all rooted in Roman paganism. Such practices infiltrated...

After last week's Paris shootings that targeted an irreverent political magazine and Jews in a kosher grocery store, there's been a flood of stories about the dangers of Muslim radicalization and how it happens. What about people who go the other way, from extremist to moderate? These people exist; the U-turn happens. When I meet Mansour al-Nogaidan at the Al Mesbar Research and Studies Center in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, he starts off by telling a story about his young son. Nogaidan says his kid is obsessed with an animated video, "Joseph: King of Dreams," a musical based...

With Reformation Day coming up, this is a good time to recall why the Reformers departed from Roman Catholicism. In our day especially, it seems that many Christians have history-amnesia when it comes to the importance of what God did through the Reformers. During the Reformation, great confusion existed regarding what was, and was not, the true church of Christ. Rome had asserted itself as the true church for centuries, and continues to do so today. However, as the Reformers recognized then, Christians must follow in step today by recalling that joining hands with Rome is a departure from Christ....

We know the Pilgrims became some of America's first English settlers. And because of Thanksgiving Day, we certainly know they were thankful. But what else was it about these devout Christians that helped them shape what became the most free, most powerful nation on Earth? It had much to do with the religious beliefs that were so precious to them; they were willing to face death and uncertainty in a strange New World to live those beliefs out. World-Changing Reformation The Pilgrims' Protestant faith was forged in the Europe of 500 years ago, ripe for a revolution—or what would become...