A Review of Harrison Perkins’ “Reformed Covenant Theology” (Part 1)
A Review of Harrison Perkins, Reformed Covenant Theology: A Systematic Introduction, Bellingham, WA., Lexham, 2024, 520 pages, hardback.
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Navigating Reenchantment: Review of Rod Dreher’s Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age
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“Many of his readers will feel stretched by the high strangeness of the stories he tells as well as the spiritual medicine he prescribes. But in my view, time has largely vindicated the central theses of his last two books, and this ought to earn him a more generous—which is not to say uncritical—reading.” - Mere Orthodoxy
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What Is Liberalism? A Review of 'The Roots of Liberalism: What Faithful Knights and the Little Match Girl Taught Us about Civic Virtue'
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“In contrast to the progressivism in ascendency for more than a decade, Buckley celebrates a liberalism of empathy, benevolence, and kindness. ‘Today we wouldn’t say we need kindness….Justice has taken its place. But if kindness made us more liberal its abandonment has made us illiberal.” - Acton
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Augustine’s “Confessions” Unpacked – Book Review
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“Interlacing representative, essential, mostly brief passages from Confessions with a breezy but incisive ongoing commentary… Dr. Kreeft navigates us through the mind of a man who, in changing his own world, helped lay the foundations for our own.” - Imaginative Conservative
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Review of Mark Vroegop's Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament
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“Before you start complaining, be sure you’ve checked arrogance at the door. Come with your pain, not your pride.” - Ref21
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A Brief Review of “Doxology: How Worship Works”
There are many books on Christian worship: some helpful and some not-so-helpful. Nicolas Alford’s Doxology: How Worship Works clearly belongs in the former category. Though affirming the broader sense of worship (as a way of life), the book intentionally focuses on congregational worship. Alford is preeminently concerned that God’s people worship by the Book. Drawing from the Reformed tradition, he concisely expounds and carefully applies the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW), which, in essence, is the doctrine of sola Scriptura applied to church life and ministry.
But Alford does more—which is what makes this book superior to many others. First, he prefaces the the major principles that should govern our worship with a chapter that distinguishes between authority and influences. The Bible is the ultimate authority for worship. Nevertheless, there are other considerations that may and, in some cases, should affect the way we understand and apply the Bible. Alford defines and explains these influences in the following order of priority: Confessional/Convictional, Traditional/Cultural, and Preference/Deference.
Second, Alford identifies seven prefatory principles that we must employ as we seek to order our worship aright: the Biblical, Trinitarian, Covenantal, Ecclesiastical, Sabbatic, Governing, and Commissioned principles. These are Scriptural vantage points or perspectives from which we can ascertain the biblical contours of worship more clearly.
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Anticipate the Return of the King: How Biblical Theology Fuels Worship (Book Review)
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“In The Return of the Kingdom: A Biblical Theology of God’s Reign, Stephen G. Dempster… invites us to explore the grand narrative of God’s sovereign rule over a kingdom that has been unfolding since the beginning of time and that will continue long after the political landscapes of our age have faded.” - TGC
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An Almost Christian Nation: A Review of Miles Smith’s ‘Religion and Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War’
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“Beyond its exploration of the past, Religion & Republic offers Protestants—and indeed any religious citizens—an option for civic engagement that avoids the extremes of apolitical submission and full-spectrum aggression.” - Acton
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Book Review: Biblical Separation: The Struggle for a Pure Church, by Ernest Pickering
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“…the principle of separation is a core biblical truth. We must grapple with the biblical data and its implications for ministry—and we must do it honestly and faithfully in every generation. I still believe that Pickering’s book is the most reasonable place to start that conversation.” - P&D
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