Society

Today, the title First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women evokes images of an approaching army of terrifying woman-like creatures. Its author, John Knox, meant something quite different. It was the title of a short treatise on government (regiment = rule) held by women, a...

Calvin’s and Beza’s thought was so fertile as to spawn many followers. Summaries of Ponet, Daneau, Hotman, and many others are worth consulting at any Inauguration. Another disciple who particularly refined this theory was the Marian exile, Christopher Goodman, whose ideas will be explored briefly...

The popular Federalist Papers in many ways reflect the continuation of Calvin’s view of man and the state. [1] Alexander Hamilton began The Federalist Papers by asserting that the people of this country have reserved to themselves the important question of whether “societies of men are really...

Rather than commending either a democracy or a monarchy, Jethro advised Moses and the people to select a plurality of prudent representative leaders (Exodus 18:21). [1] Moses instituted a graduated series of administrations with greater and lesser magistrates, and Calvin asserted that the earliest...

Exuberant over an experience, an oh-so-sweet manifestation of divine providence, you delightedly seek to give God praise in telling your story. “It was such a ‘God thing’,” you proclaim. As you see it, God wove together an otherwise inexplicable combination of events to deliver a wonderful—even...

A survey of congressional proclamations for days of fasting or Thanksgiving is instructive, especially to those who have been catechized in the dogma of strict separationism. [1] Indeed, the religious worldview of the 1770s betrays the following key theological assumptions, which were apparently...

The idea of the United Kingdom’s pre-Summer vote to leave the European Union, the upcoming vote in the United States to elect the next President and the English Reformation being lumped together in the same sentence may seem ludicrous in the extreme, but it is not without reason. Those who have...

Despite having been born near John Calvin’s Geneva (Nyon) and having attended the University of Geneva, John Fletcher (1729–1785) later relocated to England and threw all in with the Wesley brothers. He was ordained to the Anglican priesthood in 1757 but his sympathies were all with the upstart...

I mean it when I say that I would love my church to be filled Sunday after Sunday with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (or questioning) individuals. And I mean it when I say that I would love to have those very same individuals over for lunch after church, and then invite them back...

Just this week, an article appeared in Bloomberg News with a provocative title: “It’s Official: This Election is Driving Americans Nuts.” [1] The article goes on to describe a recent study undertaken by the American Psychological Society about the major causes of fear in American citizens. Normally...