Welp—more shenanigans from the Administrative Commission (AC) of the Presbytery of the Alleghenies (PoA) of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (
@EPChurch
).
On an almost monthly basis, the AC of the PoA sends an “update” to our congregation about what’s going on in our very own
Some of you are asking why I’m posting about the
@epchurch
and the
#epc2024ga
.
I’ll be brief . . .ish.
In April 2023, I went before Session at my church to seek to become a candidate for ordination. I was unanimously approved.
On May 1, 2023, my application to become a
Our church was told by our Presbytery that we had to cease communication with
@PLeithart
and disinvite him as a symposium speaker until they could conduct a theological investigation into his teaching. We also could not associate with
@_Theopolis
.
Here is their report.
And
“Follow your heart.”
~ Most (Christian) Therapists
“Let no one follow his heart. Be guided by the fear of God and observe the Rule in all your actions.”
~ Saint Benedict
I'm not that great at math, buuuuuut:
The Bible
+ Abraham Kuyper
+ Westminster Larger Catechism
+ a phenomenology of dinner discussions
+ a theology of homemaking
+ a philosophy of "the public"
+ family worship practices
+ the virtue and vice tradition
+
@MichaelRWear
's
I’ve been reading through Abraham Kuyper’s Pro Rege trilogy while having
@aaron_renn
's triad of positive, neutral, and negative worlds in the back of my mind.
I've read a bit of Kuyper, but Pro Rege is new to me.
I think a case could be made that Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on
@lwahlgrensmith
@DrSampler
I’m quite familiar with Dionysus—thanks for checking, though.
But you don’t have to obfuscate the obvious. Not even Dionysus would do that. Wine and all.
Last year I attended a
@_Theopolis
seminar & had the opportunity to meet
@PLeithart
&
@brianpmoats
. Such kind, inspiring, & admirable guys.
They introduced me to the hymn “Behold, A Host, Arrayed in White.” I haven’t … can’t … stop singing it. Every morning & evening.
@FeserEdward
Fake-Christians in a nutshell:
1. I like the NT better than the OT (Marcionism).
2. The Ten Commandments are old (Antinomianism).
3. They’re all the same, aren’t they? (Modalism).
etc.
11 years ago today,
@matthewkaemingk
and I walked across a stage at
@fullerseminary
and were called “doctors of the church.”
(My hair game is still erratic, for the curious.)
@TheAlanNoble
I go off Twitter for a decade and you still haven’t written a book on it. C’mon, Alan.
It’s simple:
“Your Hair Is Not Your Own”
“The Burden and Gift of Dome Coverage”
“Disruptive Shedding”
etc.
@colinsmo
To tie up loose ends, somebody should probably send him a copy of the Bible, Anthony Steinbock’s Moral Emotions, and anything by
@ShannonVallor
.
The minuscule or minute movements of the Pharisee, according to Abraham Kuyper:
He tells others he thinks about God a lot and hardly anything else.
He tries to appear pious as soon as a certain person comes around.
He says a prayer but his concentration is on his appearance.
The Kuyperian Catechism [**non-existent**]:
What is sanctification?
Sanctification is when Christ prepares His Church for Himself, until He presents us--clothing us in the ornamental robes of our holiness--to Himself in all glory as a bride without a spot or blemish, and
Family life is not like the life of the barracks, the monastery, or the boarding school. Here we do not find an adding together of component parts, but we find a unity that both arises from the duality of man & woman and sanctifies that union.
When people simply live together
“He did not redeem us from Satan‘s power in order that we each might go free to be our own master, but so that we might pass from the service of Satan into the service of Christ. The service to Christ is not a burden to us, but our joy and privilege, and we truly experience it as
“In no part of our body are we so weak as in the tongue.” ~ Thomas Aquinas 🗣️
"In no part of our body are we so weak as in the thumbs." ~ Kyle David Bennett 🤳
“Whoever finds what they are looking for here below lowers them self [sic] beneath their true calling as a human being. They have no fellowship with God’s holy angels, but merely with the foxes, birds, and animals of the forest.”
@PLeithart
One of my favorite Iines from one of Kierkegaard's pseudonyms:
Is that not what philosophers are for--to make supernatural things ordinary and banal?
In a few weeks, I’ll be chatting with
@PhilReinders
and the Habitus Community () about my
@brazospress
book, Practices of Love ().
Looking forward to doing this again—last time was a lot of fun!
Practices of Love was too ethereal and ephemeral for my taste, despite the personal anecdotes.
This one is too near to my heart. I'm not going to die without things changing on this front.
“There is nothing in the home life regarding which there is no will of God. God created nothing and called nothing into being, and gave an ordinance concerning it. An ordinance for the use of every power, for the spending of each day, for maintaining the purity of every relation.
"I believe that politics is causing spiritual harm in the lives of Americans largely because Americans are going to politics to get their spiritual and emotional needs met."
Get this: it advises parents to teach children to not only pray for their magistrates and rulers, but for the children (!) of magistrates and rulers.
Just think about the longterm public and political implications of that: children praying for children, and. children learning
Young adults today are struggling to find purpose—and this,
@christineemba
writes, is evident in the fertility crisis:
“Absent a clear sense of meaning, the perceived challenges of having children outweigh any subsidy the government might offer.”
It’s the first day of Easter break and I have breakfast, lunch, happy hour, dinner, dessert, and nightcap appointments with
@MichaelRWear
.
It’s going to be a wonderful day!
“Jesus’ kingship has been suppressed in the life of the nations.
Even within the church’s walls, the songs of praise have diminished in tenor and tone.
The stream of godly life has undeniably receded in its banks everywhere.
And lest believers exalt themselves in pride
A week or two ago, I read John Wilson's "Things I Hate." I've been chewing on that with respect to research, knowledge, and thinking, and I've come up with my own list.
Here are the ten mind movements I hate in research, knowledge, and thinking.
Reductionism in any body of
It’s the first day of Easter break and I have breakfast, lunch, happy hour, dinner, dessert, and nightcap appointments with
@MichaelRWear
.
It’s going to be a wonderful day!
I have been asked by the Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care (
@biolau
) to contribute a piece for a symposium on
@MichaelRWear
's recently released book, The Spirit of our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life (
@Zondervan
). Congrats, Michael!
Witsius on the importance of knowing the doctrine of the Trinity:
“We cannot venture to assure any adult of salvation without the knowledge of the Trinity.
When the Trinity is not known the necessary consequence is that the principal foundations of our faith and comfort are
Our church was told by our Presbytery that we had to cease communication with
@PLeithart
and disinvite him as a symposium speaker until they could conduct a theological investigation into his teaching. We also could not associate with
@_Theopolis
.
Here is their report.
And
Every evening when you go to sleep, you let yourself go, and there is some One else who takes you up in the arms of His compassion. It is He alone, Who at the entrance of night takes you from yourself, during the long hours of night to protect and to refresh you, and in the
@LMSacasas
I haven’t finished it yet, but Heidegger’s What Is Called Thinking?—particularly his etymological linkage of thinking and thanking—has been haunting me lately.
Table - thanking - thinking—there’s something there.
After Calvin, the Reformed tradition traded the telos (uni mystica) for the modus (ordo salutis).
I say it’s high time we get back to Reformation and evaluate the purpose of salvation.
"Political parties ought to serve as vehicles for mediating differences, first, within a party, and then between the parties themselves. Instead, we have an allowed parties to become brands and sources of identity."
@jamesrwoodtheo1
Craig Boyd at St. Louis.
Good dude. Fine-combed Thomist (ethics, primarily). Great translator. Absolutely fun and funny to engage. Provocative, ecumenically. Happy to make an introduction.
3. From the start, the Christian faith is a sacrifice: a sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of the spirit; at the same time, enslavement and self-mastery, self-mutilation.
The family is the most precious jewel, the noblest work of art, the pinnacle of creation in paradise. There is nothing in creation that surpasses the family in terms of its value and significance.
~ Abraham Kuyper (1880)
His virgin birth, prolific miracle-making, and starry advent means He controls nature and life.
His teachings, sermons, and reinterpretation of Scripture means He controls history and truth.
His suffering on the cross, atonement, and resurrection means He controls the devil
A pointed question:
Does your nation rest on metaphysical presuppositions or fundamental beliefs?
Does it deny God as Almighty or reject His honor in His glory and majesty?
I often think of the “touch points” public theologians and cultural theologians aspire to have with “the world” and the hopes that they have to reach what Karl Rahner called “anonymous Christians”—or what an evangelical might call, “an anticipated convert.”
That “touch point” is